Category Archives: Watchtower

Watchtower

The Watchtower 12/31/18 for ProTraders – Plan Your Specs

By: Travis Allen
@wizardbumpin

Don’t miss this week’s installment of the MTG Fast Finance podcast, an on-topic, no-nonsense tour through the week’s most important changes in the Magic economy.

Don’t expect a lot of excitement over the next several days. Our western pagan holidays slow everything down considerably. While players are still enjoying Magic at home with friends, and are certainly capable of placing orders, the lack of tournaments and gaps in content creation tend to slow the market down. It’s only temporary though, as late winter tends to be a watermark for prices each year. Somewhere in February, the entire Magic index will likely hit its peak for the year. I wonder how much of this is due to people just being excited about being able to leave their homes comfortably, although I admit I may be projecting, give I’m in upstate NY.

Tempt with Discovery

Price Today: $5
Possible Price: $10

If you’re anything like me, your eyes sort of glaze over this card when you browse an EDH deck list. Tempt isn’t what I’d consider a particularly sexy or fun card. It’s heavily political in nature, and at its best, is just tutoring for a few lands. Now, don’t get me wrong. That’s a powerful effect at a great rate. I’m simply not one to care much for tutors that get non-typed lands, especially multiple at once. Anyways.

There’s no denying Tempt is popular in EDH. You’ll find it in well over 11k lists on EDHREC, so we know there’s plenty of fans. Some of the top commanders for the card are Omnath, Locus of Rage and Gitrog Monster, two fan favorites. And while it doesn’t show up on Lord Windgrace’s page, I find that suspect. This effect would be great in that deck. Basically I don’t believe it’s not finding its way into a pleothora of Windgrace lists as well.

You’ll find copies of Tempt with Discovery at $5 and $6 right now. It’s commonly found with two well-regarded commanders, and will almost certainly show up with Lord Windgrace in the near future. There’s some supply out there, but we’re not talking hundreds. At a glance, there’s maybe 70 copies below $8, with not too many more above that either. If you fade another reprint this year, I suspect we’ll see a $10 floor on these in the future.

Temporal Trespass (Foil)

Price Today: $7
Possible Price: $18

TCGPlayer gave Seth  Manfield a fascinating article a few days ago, in which he looked at the top ten best-selling cards on TCG in 2018. Most of them were Standard commons and uncommons, unsurprisingly. By volume, there’s no doubt that those sell exceptionally well. There’s also no doubt that you’ll go insane trying to grind a profit on $.08 Knight of Graces.

Without question, what stood out most to me was Temporal Trespass. Of all the casual and EDH-oriented cards, Trespass sold better than everything else? It’s not like it just came out this year and people are stocking up. It’s from Fate Reforged, which was a few years ago now. Why would this be so popular this year? This is also TCGPlayer we’re talking about. They’re no small organization. A few guys deciding to try to corner the market on Trespass wouldn’t be able to buy enough copies at once to put this into the top 10 sellers. Anything on that list needs to be a sustained effort.

Given this, I had to go check immediately. The non-foil stocks is still healthy, but foils are dwindling. At the time of publication, there’s 22 NM English foils. A couple at $7, a couple at $8, a couple at $9, a couple at $15, and they’re gone. Other vendors don’t look any better. If this sort of popularity persists, it’s only a matter of time before the foils go.


Sleight of Hand (Foil)

Price Today: $8.50
Possible Price: $16

While Sleight of Hand has been in Magic since 1998, there’s not that much of it out there. It started in Portal Second Age and Starter 1999. It made an actual return in 7th and 9th editions, the latter being how it ended up Modern legal. Those two sets were also previously the only foil copies. If you’re reading this article you’re probably aware of what 7th foils tend to look like, and 9th isn’t that much better. Fast forward to 2018, and Ultimate Masters brings us the first foil since YouTube was created.

I don’t feel like telling you about Sleight’s popularity is necessary. It’s been a staple of Modern for a long while, and I wouldn’t expect that to change anytime soon.

The cheapest non-UMA foil Sleight is about $60, so $8.50 certainly looks like a steal. I’d be happy to snag copies at $8 to $9 all day, especially in trade. They’re plentiful now, but I bet it’s going to be a very different story in six months.

Travis Allen has  been playing Magic: The Gathering since 1994, mostly in upstate New York. Ever since his first FNM he’s been trying to make playing Magic cheaper, and he first brought his perspective to MTGPrice in 2012. You can find his articles there weekly, as well as on the podcast MTG Fast Finance.


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Watchtower

The Watchtower 12/24/18 for ProTraders – Plan Your Specs

By: Travis Allen
@wizardbumpin

Don’t miss this week’s installment of the MTG Fast Finance podcast, an on-topic, no-nonsense tour through the week’s most important changes in the Magic economy.

Holiday tidings are upon us, and as the country spends the next 36 hours sharing their love with family and friends, we, the truly enlightened, are grinding Magic card value in front of our computers. Today we’ll hit a cross section, touching on Standard, Modern, and EDH. Buy some cards, then go eat a bunch of christmas cookies, drink egg nog, and fall asleep before the stomach ache sets in.

March of the Multitudes

Price Today: $5
Possible Price: $15

I’m poking my head into Standard again with the release of some Ravnica Allegiance spoilers. This time around the guilds are Orzhov, Gruul, Azorius, Rakdos, and Simic. Of the mechanics we’ve seen so far, Orzhov’s ‘afterlife’ is possibly the most competitive-aligned. Back in the second Ravnica era, there was a remarkably successful and popular deck by the name of Aristocrats. Lacking anything in common with the meta-joke told by comedians to each other, Aristocrats was a strategy that used Doomed Traveler, Falkenrath Aristocrat, and their ilk to value opponents out with plenty of 1/1s, small advantages, clever play, and fun interactions between creatures.

‘Afterlife’ is a codified version of this deck, essentially turning every single creature with the mechanic into a Doomed Traveller. Even if a true Aristocrats-style deck doesn’t materialize, the value generated by your creatures leaving behind a 1/1 is significant when utilized properly. March of the Multitudes favorably interacts with afterlife on two dimensions. On the one, afterlife ensures that you’re better able to keep bodies on the board to convoke into a large March. On the other, both March and afterlife create 1/1 tokens, meaning that both are going to be rewarded for the same payoffs, e.g. Divine Visitation.

March at $5 is just about as low as we’re going to see it in Standard. If an afterlife value engine emerges from Allegiance, and March is part of that, we could see prices double or even triple as the key mythic in the deck. Keep an eye out for forthcoming articles from pros, specifically Sam Black, to see if they combine the two.

Kitchen Finks (Foils)

Price Today: $4 ($35)
Possible Price: $8 ($80)

On the Modern side of things, Ultimate Masters brought quite a few reprints that will reward opportune investment. There’s price points all over the board here to capitalize on, and on the lower end of things, we have Kitchen Finks this week.

Now, if you know anything about Magic, I don’t need to explain Kitchen Finks to you. Other than perhaps Lightning Bolt and Birds of Paradise, I can’t think of a card that has been a more permanent staple of the format. Their usage waxes and wanes with the format, of course, but you’ll never lose money betting that you’ll find a few of them floating around the room of any Modern tournament.

With UMA come new pack foils, which are available for as low as $4 today. Looking in on other foil editions, we can see that’s quite low. MMA foils are fetching $8 to $9, and they rise from there, up to $30 or so for Shadowmoor foils. With Finks’ ubiquity, I see the UMA foils catching the MMA ones eventually. If you’ve ever wanted a foil set, grab your UMA ones now, because I suspect they’ll catch up to the MMA ones before long.

As an addendum, those box toppers are great looking, and liable to climb strongly from $35. If you can catch some of these on an eBay 15% off sale or something similar, I’m a fan. I suspect box toppers across the board are going to rise, and these are eminently playable, and cheap enough that one could chase the full set.

Bonus Round (Foil)

Price Today: $8
Possible Price: $20

Over in EDH, Niv Mizzet continues to be one of the most popular “not Atraxa or Muldrotha” commanders. As a general that encourages drawing cards and pinging people, there are some cool ways to build him, such as those that use Thousand-Year Storm. And while that’s a cool card, it’s not what we’re looking at today.

Rather, I’m checking in on Battlebond. Remember that set? All the way back from June of this year? Man it has been a long 2018. Yes, Battlebond was printed just six months ago, yet we’ve all collectively forgotten it exists. EDH hasn’t though, and they continue to make use of the cards found there. While scrolling through Niv Mizzet lists, I decided to check in on Bonus Round, and I see potential.

Bonus Round is, most importantly, a cool card. EDH has lots of cards. Many are cool, and many are utilitarian. The cool ones are more likely to find their way into decks, because when deciding if your deck should be efficient or it should be cool, you’re going to pick cool in EDH. Bonus Round sets up huge turns that do awesome things, and no self-respecting EDH player is going to forgo Bonus Round in any deck where it fits. Not when it provides so much potential.

You’ll find foils at $8 right now. There’s some on the market — some. It’s only been six months though. What’s this going to look like a year from now?

Travis Allen has  been playing Magic: The Gathering since 1994, mostly in upstate New York. Ever since his first FNM he’s been trying to make playing Magic cheaper, and he first brought his perspective to MTGPrice in 2012. You can find his articles there weekly, as well as on the podcast MTG Fast Finance.

 

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Watchtower

The Watchtower 12/17/18 for ProTraders – Plan Your Specs

By: Travis Allen
@wizardbumpin

Don’t miss this week’s installment of the MTG Fast Finance podcast, an on-topic, no-nonsense tour through the week’s most important changes in the Magic economy.

A week on and last week’s massive Pro Tour changes are still on the community’s collective lips. How will future qualifications work? What will the ability to get and stay on the train look like? At the same time, the Arena competitive queues have been announced to be best-of-1, which means no sideboarding. Many players, especially those familiar with high level play, are displeased. A great deal of skill comes from clever sideboarding.

On our side of things, it’s all about UMA right now. Supply is high, probably the highest it will ever be, so it’s time to start thinking about what we should be looking at.

Frantic Search (Foil)

Price Today: $1.50
Possible Price: $10

For the first time in a whopping 19 years, Frantic Search has been reprinted. Long a combo staple, and possibly the most busted of the “untap” cycle from Urza’s Legacy, it has many admirers. In 60-card formats it’s used to generate storm, churn through cards for a minimal price, and possibly even untap a land that produces more than one mana. In EDH (where you’ll find it in over 10,000 decks), it’s primarily used for the latter; untapping a Gaea’s Cradle and Cabal Coffers is just about the dumbest ritual you’ll find in Magic.

At this point in Magic’s timeline I’d wager that it’s the use in EDH that most demand comes from. Untapping lands is powerful, and digging for a specific type of card at any given time is always useful. That isn’t to say it doesn’t have purpose elsewhere though, of course. While it’s banned in Legacy and Pauper, it’s useful in Vintage, cube, and perhaps moreso than both, kitchen table. I certainly recall finding allure in the spell back when we only played in our college apartment, and I’m sure I wasn’t the only one. That type of demand doesn’t tend to push on foils much, but anything helps.

Perhaps most appealing here is that pack foils are $25 to $30, and the current UMA foils are a whole $1.50. I’m certainly not expecting a recently printed uncommon to hit the same price point as a 19-year-old original foil, there’s certainly room for growth. Supply is on the high side, but remember, we’re in the deepest it’s going to get.

Dark Depths (Box Topper)

Price Today: $125
Possible Price: $200

Now that we have the small ball out of the way, let’s talk about something with some heft.

Dark Depths is a cool card. We can all accept that. “Unfathomably large creature hidden in the mists” is just cool. It’s also popular. While not legal in Modern, it’s a core component of at least two Legacy strategies, shows up in Vintage, cube, and over 3,500 EDH decks. It’s also typically a four-of when played, since if you’re going through the effort of pulling it off, you need to make sure it’s happening.

There are several foil copies of Dark Depths with the release of UMA. We’ve got the pack foils, currently clocking in at around $260. We’ve got the FTV Lore copies, which cost a whopping $20, which everyone hates because the foiling on those sucks and they feel bad. Now we’ve got the two UMA copies too; the pack foil and the box topper. UMA packs will run you $55 or so. That’s not bad for a foil Dark Depths, but let’s be real, it’s just not as cool as the box topper. The box toppers have the same great new art, but borderless, it really explodes off the card. Realistically they’re going to be the most popular, and anyone that takes their Dark Depths seriously, which is exactly the type of person to make use of this card, is going to be looking to pick them up.

$120 is no small buy-in, but given the relative scarcity and overall distribution process, I’m expecting these to behave something like Inventions. Supply is relatively full right now, with seemingly high prices, but a few months from now it may be a bit shocking to see how many fewer there are and how much more they cost. I’d be surprised if Dark Depths doesn’t cruise upwards of $180, $190, or $200, and possibly more. It could be slow with the holidays just a week away, but come February things may start changing.


Demonic Tutor (Foil)

Price Today: $160
Possible Price: $250

Wizards has been surprisingly reluctant to roll out Demonic Tutor. Not counting the early Revised-era pritings (FBB, IE, CE, etc.), they put it in a very early Duel Deck. Then the reprint of that Duel Deck in the anthology series. And…that’s it. For a spell as popular as it is, you’d expect them to make it much more available. They haven’t, though. The release in UMA is the first “new” printing of it since 2009.

With the UMA release, we were also given the box topper. This is a big get. Up until now, the options for Demonic Tutor have been uninspiring. You can have the judge promo, which is dark and not particularly intriguing, for $260. Or the Beta version for well over $500. That’s really it. There’s a reason most copies you see cast are “Revised copy from a shoebox” quality.

UMA adds some much needed depth to the pool of options. Not only do you have the UMA pack foils at an approachable $60, you’ve got the topper at a current price of $160. Now, don’t get me wrong, that’s a steep buy-in. It’s going to be tough for most people to make a move that big. But it’s absolutely the coolest version of this card aside from possibly Beta, which is going to run you at least three times as much for anything that’s sleeve playable. If you want a cool Demonic Tutor, and don’t want to spend over $500, this is your best bet.

For arguably the second-most popular card in EDH, that Wizards has been absurdly stingy with reprinting, in the coolest version that has existed since 1993, $160 is probably going to look like  a good price in three to nine months. Seeing this climb to the current judge levels, or even higher, is certainly possible.

Travis Allen has  been playing Magic: The Gathering since 1994, mostly in upstate New York. Ever since his first FNM he’s been trying to make playing Magic cheaper, and he first brought his perspective to MTGPrice in 2012. You can find his articles there weekly, as well as on the podcast MTG Fast Finance.

Watchtower

The Watchtower 12/10/18 for ProTraders – Plan Your Specs

By: Travis Allen
@wizardbumpin

Don’t miss this week’s installment of the MTG Fast Finance podcast, an on-topic, no-nonsense tour through the week’s most important changes in the Magic economy.

Without a doubt, the story around the proverbial water cooler today are the massive changes to the organized play program. There’s now a $10 million esports circuit each year that splits activity between Arena and paper Magic. Gone are all of the non-Pro Tour/GP events, such as Nationals Worlds, etc. The Pro Tour is now called, uh, the Tabletop Mythic Championship I think? Also there’s events just called Mythic Championships that are played on Arena? Pro Points are being frozen soon, and the Hall of Fame will be renamed and the voting process is going to be overhauled. A bunch of platinum and gold pros had their benefits rescinded but were given $75,000 play and stream contracts. Overall, big changes. Expect a staged roll out here, both on WotC’s side, and the community discussion. Look for analysis on the upcoming @mtgfastfinance this week.

MTGO Cards

Price Today: $?
Possible Price: $??

Noticeably absent from any of the information regarding the changes to the organized play structure is MTGO. Arena is front and center in the spotlight, one half of the ten million dollar prize purse each year, while there’s no indication that any competitive level events will occur on the older platform. At the time of the announcement a few days ago, this generated a considerable amount of anxiety from the enfranchised MTGO community.

Several individuals, spooked by the announcement, started trying to sell out. This was reducing buy prices, which then further spooked more players, and resulted in a downward spiral that pushed ticket values down. Major bot chains started freezing their purchasing of cards and tickets, which generated even more fear (though limited the ability to dump your collection).

Prices have stabilized a bit as people have realized the sky isn’t falling. Buy-ins are low though, for sure. The simple math is that MTGO is profitable for minimal investment from WotC’s perspective. So long as MTGO makes a good amount of money per player, WotC isn’t incentivized to get rid of it. Modern, Legacy, and Pauper are going to continue to be played on MTGO for at least a good while longer. If you’re involved in the MTGO economy — and I stress people that are already involved, not newcomers — now is the time to look for some investment opportunity on staples that shed 10, 20, or 50% in the last several days. I’d recommend against those that are unfamiliar with the MTGO landscape though. Lack of familiarity with the platform may compromise any potential gains.

Counterflux (Foil)

Price Today: $4
Possible Price: $10

Over in the real world, Niv Mizzet, Parun has been quite popular in EDH for a few weeks. He’s even climbed to the top (accessible) slot on EDHREC’s most-built; third. (First and second are indefinitely locked on Muldrotha and Atraxa.) I’ll admit that I’m a touch surprised by his popularity, but there it is. He’s not tribal, he’s not big and splashy, and all he really does is draw some extra cards. I guess it comes from the fact that you’re incentivized to play a boatload of instants and sorceries, which are admittedly the forgotten class of cards in EDH.

Popular within Niv Mizzet, and indeed in EDH overall, is Counterflux. Even as a two-color card it has found its way into over 9,000 listings, making it one of the most popular two-color options in the format. It’s not hard to see the utility; it’s the hardest counter available, and even lets you step in and wipe out an entire stack of spells that may have been built up between an opponent or two. And while less so than EDH, you’ll find Counterflux in Modern lists as well. It pops up in Jeskai sideboards with some amount of regularity, and will increase in popularity as a self-policing force should Jeskai become a larger portion of the metagame.

Return to Ravnica brought us Counterflux, and we’ve seen only a single other printing, Commander 2015, which didn’t come in foil. That leaves only the foils from RTR, which just celebrated its 6th birthday. Supply is as to be expected on a card that old. You’ll find barely over 30 copies on TCG right now, and prices don’t stay at $4 for long. With the continued popularity of Counterflux, and how unlikely we are to see any more foils in the near future, I suspect we’ll see growth on the horizon.

Ashnod’s Altar(Foil)

Price Today: $10
Possible Price: $20

Two altars are exceedingly popular in EDH; one of a Phyrexian nature, and Ashnod’s. Phyrexian Altar climbed up to $50 before finally getting a long-needed reprint in Ultimate Masters. Ashnod’s reprint came a few years prior, in Eternal Masters.

I don’t need to speak much to Ashnod’s Altar’s strength. Over 30,000 decks are registered with this somewhere in the 99. It will never not be useful. Sacrifice outlets are quietly fantastic, allowing you to make use of creatures that are destined to die anyways, and also allow you to eat creatures you end up with that aren’t exactly yours, per se. There are few as efficient as Altar.

The market recognizes that. At the moment, as with Counterflux, there are about 30 foil EMA copies on TCG. What I notice here is the steep ramp up from $10. There are a handful of copies available at that price point, but it’s not long before you hit $15, and then just a few more before $20 and more. This is primed to be cleaned up below $20, and with UMA spoilers finished, it’s not clear when we may see another foil. One can see why paying $10 for the only foil of one of the most popular cards in EDH is a reasonable decision.

Travis Allen has  been playing Magic: The Gathering since 1994, mostly in upstate New York. Ever since his first FNM he’s been trying to make playing Magic cheaper, and he first brought his perspective to MTGPrice in 2012. You can find his articles there weekly, as well as on the podcast MTG Fast Finance.


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