As Obeka begins to wane (though not out of the top spot), naturally something else must wax for the balance to be maintained (I don’t know what the balance is, forget I even said that, stupid STUPID, focus Jason) and today what the waxer is became clear. It’s someone who clearly knows a lot about waxing.
Look at this smooth-chested, Glenn Danzig-looking rejected Manowar album cover. If you’re not impressed by the time he spends every morning, shaving the part of his body not covered by his leather karate gi, you’ll be impressed by how he’s climbing the leader board.
Shoving decks aside like he’s actually Glenn Danzig and the other decks are a fan who wants an autograph, Jared is making a big splash in the format, and a few (viking, on fire) ships have sailed already on the basis of this cartoonish 80s throwback of a Magic card. I’m sorry, I know you want me to get to the specs part of the article, but read his flavor text. “I’m here for what’s mine” like he’s Glenn Danzig in the promoter’s office asking for his check before the last note from “Long Way Back From Hell” has finished reverberating in the speakers onstage. Man, I do NOT like Danzig, apparently.
Unlike Danzig who coasted on the success of the Misfits (last one, promise), Jared Carthalion is out here doing real work.
Jared doubled the price on this card just like Glenn Danzig doubles as a poor man’s Henry Rollins. Don’t expect to get these for under a 10-spot on CFB, either, folks.
So with the “Carthalion effect” (that would be a sweet name for a band) moving prices, why are we even bothering to dig through at this point? Hasn’t every ship sailed? Hasn’t ever boat been launched? Hasn’t every mother told her children not to hear Danzig’s words by now?
I don’t think so, I think there’s still plenty of meat on the bone. I think Jared is the Nikya to Obeka’s Vannifar and since it’s a non-obvious commander, I think there are some non-obvious specs. Pariah’s Shield was some low-hanging fruit but I think there is more fruit, higher up, but I’m mixing my metaphors now. Let’s do the spec part of the article now.
The Fruit Still On The Bone
I like this for a lot of reasons. I spiked hard because of a deck in Modern with Hardened Scales and while that wasn’t sustainable, we have a second spike incoming. When a second spike happens, there is no more opportunity for people to pull loose copies out of the binders at the LGS because those all evaporated the first time the card spiked. Copies are concentrated in the hands of dealers, meaning players have to pay whatever those dealers want for the copies. When that supply sells out, there is no way to get more supply in the hands of dealers without them raising the buylist price, so they do that. That’s how we get back out of them, usually. It’s a fun cycle of people paying each other to hold onto copies of cards.
Are we close to the card selling out?
With Card Kingdom out of NM copies and about to sell out of damaged and Coolstuff (where we have about 8 people who write about EDH every week) and CFB being sold out means that the card is about to pop. It’s not just Jared, by the way.
Neyith was printed this year and Marath was just reprinted in etched foil in Commander Legends. That’s quite a bit of interest just this year and the finite copies that were in the hands of dealers who probably paid like $2 to get these when they were selling for $5 are running out. With lots of people vying for the copies at once, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Jared finish what Neyith started. If people could actually get Jumpstart to build decks with it, Neyith might have been even more popular. Oh well, still plenty of fruit on the bone. Let’s move on.
This keeps flirting with $14 on Card Kingdom and when it goes back down, it never stays there for long. This is tough to reprint and does a lot of work. It also just wins the game, which is cool. I am looking forward to CFB figuring out whatever is wrong with their Crystal Commerce page – this is not $6 on CFB.
This is about to sell out at $11. If you find these for… you know, not $11, that’s a deal. Card Kingdom has 8 of these at $11, and the other number we care about doesn’t suck, either.
The non-foil caught up to the foil. I don’t think that makes the foil more attractive, but I do think it shows that this is a card that casual players like and which may have underpriced foils in the future. I don’t like EDH foils, you all know that, but once they become the same price, the foil looks better and those have a higher ceiling.
I don’t think Jared has enough juice to move the needle on a card like Pariah with 4 printings (it was also in a Saga precon that I bought a bunch of because there wasn’t a better way to get copies of Worship when you don’t have a credit card). That said, there is a tiiiny bit of movement in the price that is outside the typical noise, so it’s trending up, for what it’s worth. 4 printings means less when those sets are Saga, 7th, 10th and Conspiracy. It was basically printed in Conspiracy. I don’t love this, but they exist. It’s also a 7th Edition foil, which probably will see a bump just because it’s due one.
I like Bear Umbra a lot. We saw a nice dip and we’re starting to see the very beginning of that reverse-J shape that is the start of a nice U shape. I think this goes above $10 pretty easily and I could see CK going from selling for $7 to buying at $7 within a year.
Whenever a card costs more on TCG Player than it does on Card Kingdom, I investigate.
Well, THAT is good to know. I wouldn’t have thought to check every card to see if they’re all in-stock, but I was alerted by the TCG Player price being higher. That’s a big red flag to me. Sometimes it’s legit, but with Card Kingdom being an established Seattle store that charges more but has a super generous buylist and which, to my mind, is the flagship EDH price site, CK can usually get away with charging more than a marketplace like TCG Player. When CK is cheaper, I take 2 seconds and check. Card Kingdom sells a lot of EDH cards, if they’re sold out of all conditions, TCG Player could be the next domino to fall. We’re about to see some movement. It won’t go to $10, but it could go to $5.
That does it for me this week. Next week we may be out of commanders to talk about and with there being a lull between now and Kaldheim, I might write a treatise on why I trust Card Kingdom so much. Until then, stay safe and don’t build anything I wouldn’t build. Until next time!
Another week, another Watchtower, another loosely themed article. I don’t know if doing them like this is better or worse for you as a reader, but it definitely helps me to write them and nobody has told me they don’t like it yet, so I’m gonna keep going! (Please do shout at me on Twitter if you feel strongly either way). You can probably take a good guess at the kind of cards that I’m going to be talking about today, but I do like to bury the lede just a little bit to try and keep you interested, which means I can’t be too specific with my article titles. Anyway I’ll stop rambling – let’s jump in.
Obosh, the Preypiercer (FEA)
Price today: $7 Possible price: $20
I was flicking through some of the Standard decks that are being played at the moment, and something caught my eye. Almost all of the Temur ramp/adventure decks that are being played at the moment are playing Obosh, the Preypiercer in the sideboard as their Companion – it’s effectively a free-roll as you really don’t have to exclude many cards to get it to fit in, and you’re still able to cheat a little bit with it by playing cards like Bonecrusher Giant and Brazen Borrower that have odd converted mana costs but even costed spells attached to them.
This led me to looking at where else Obosh is being played right now, and it turns out that the current version of the Prowess / Burn decks in Modern are doing exactly the same thing (and even including the Bonecrusher Giants to boot). Being able to play a Companion without needing to significantly warp your deck around it is a great boon to any strategy, and we’ve seen Lurrus and Yorion decks still performing very well even after the change to the Companion rule. I think that Obosh is going to fall into a similar pattern, perhaps not being quite as prevalent as the other two but a decent role-player nonetheless.
I and others have talked about Lurrus in articles and on the podcast before now, as we’ve seen supply dwindle and the price going up and up. Yorion has done the same, and I’m absolutely sure that Obosh is going to do the same thing. You can currently get some outrageously cheap copies around $7 on TCGPlayer at the moment – bearing in mind that Lurrus, which sees around three times the amount of play in Modern, is over seven times that price. There aren’t too many under the $10 mark though, and it ramps up pretty quickly with only 29 FEA listings on TCGPlayer. I think that this will very easily be a $20 card in a few months, and probably head towards $40 before too long (given that I doubt we’ll see it reprinted any time soon).
Akroma, Vision of Ixidor (Foil Etched)
Price today: €8 ($9.50) Possible price: $30
Come on now, you didn’t think we could get another Akroma printed without a good bit of keyword soup, right? Give it a few years and the next version will probably have so many keywords that the text is so small you need a jeweller’s loupe to read it. But until then, let’s take a look at what we’ve got to work with for now. Aside from just being a decent body with a bunch of relevant abilities, the fact that this new Akroma has Partner strapped to it as well makes it a whole lot better, and we’ve already seen it being paired with other keyword-endowed cards like Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh, which is quite neat and fairly amusing really.
So it’s a popular card from Commander Legends – great. But what I want to focus on here, as is hopefully evident by the fact that I’ve given you the current price in Euros, is that these are way cheaper in Europe than in the US at the moment. It’s the age-old adage (I think that’s a tautology, but oh well) of EDH cards being cheaper in Europe, and yes I’m going to keep hitting you over the head with it.
Now let’s be clear here: the etched foils from Commander Legends can be found in regular draft boosters, unlike the EA cards that only come in Collector Boosters. That means that there’s a decent chunk more supply of etched foils in general, but Akroma here is a mythic and there really aren’t too many copies going around (in the US at any rate). Prices start at $17 on TCGPlayer, almost double what they can be had for on MKM, and even after you’ve taken into account the arbitrage gains I think this card is heading upwards if you hold onto it for a while. EDHREC is showing us that it’s one of the most popular new Partners, and that’s mirrored on TCGPlayer with it having much lower stock levels than the other etched foil Mythics. I think we’re onto a winner here.
Giver of Runes (Foil)
Price today: €18 ($22) Possible price: $50
I’m rounding things off with another arbitrage pick, and want to give a shoutout to one of the Protraders in the MTGPrice Discord for putting this on my radar last week – it’s a good find. I’m stretching the ‘friends’ theme a little bit here, but don’t worry, it’s worth it! I reckon that Giver of Runes could definitely be your friend, given the ability and flavour text on her – after all, friends are the family that we choose.
Either way, this is a card that’s been consistently performing well in various Modern decks since the release of Modern Horizons, as well as showing up in around 5000 EDH decks listed on EDHREC. Highlights include Heliod Company decks, Devoted Devastation builds and the more classic Death & Taxes lists; it’s really great at protecting combo pieces as well as shoring yourself up against removal-heavy strategies.
There are a grand total of nine NM foil listings for Giver on TCGPlayer at the moment, which start at $45 and don’t exactly go down from there. That makes the $22 copies on MKM an absolute slam dunk, great for immediate arbitrage and even better to hold onto for a little while. I can’t really think of anywhere that this could be reprinted soon other than Modern Horizons 2, which isn’t hitting until Q3 next year anyway (and even then I’m kinda doubtful that we’ll see it again there). On that kind of timeline this could be a $75+ foil by that point, especially if paper play has started to pick up again, even just at an LGS level.
David Sharman (@accidentprune on Twitter) has been playing Magic since 2013, dabbling in almost all formats but with a main focus on Modern, EDH and Pioneer. Based in the UK and a new writer for MTGPrice in 2020, he’s an active MTG finance speculator specialising in cross-border arbitrage.
I know that there are realities to the coronavirus that far, far outstrip Magic and drafting. I’ve eschewed family this holiday season and my kids haven’t seen their grandparents in more than a year.
That being said, the virus took away quite the run of sweet draftable products. We lost out on months of Mystery drafts, there haven’t been Jumpstarts cracked all over the place, Double Masters was a delight…but the pinnacle of things for me have been the Commander Legends drafts I’ve done on MTGO.
This set is awesome to draft. It’s pointed right at players like me, with the combination of politics, drafting synergies, and good reprints. Unfortunately, we’re not able to draft this set in person in the US, and so our supply of cards has been through the Collector Boosters.
We are approaching the maximum of supply for Commander Legends, though there is some more product undoubtedly coming. I don’t think there will be enough to depress prices more than ten percent or so.
I’m still going to be patient until after Christmas for buying quantities, but I’ve moved in on personal copies for my Cube and my Commander decks. Let’s talk about the best deals and what they might get to.
The rest of this content is only visible to ProTrader members.
Cliff (@WordOfCommander) has been writing for MTGPrice since 2013, and is an eager Commander player, Draft enthusiast, and Cube fanatic. A high school science teacher by day, he’s also the official substitute teacher of the MTG Fast Finance podcast. If you’re ever at a GP and you see a giant flashing ‘CUBE DRAFT’ sign, go over, say hi, and be ready to draft.
The economy of Magic: The Gathering has become increasingly vital to understand for the average Magic player. A global pandemic has caused numerous disruptions in the supply chain, causing product shortages and unpredictable prices. The Magic product mix is likewise increasing in complexity, with more (and more varied) product formulations that are increasingly targeted at different levels of disposable income. Further, the Magic market is, and always has been, an unregulated one, so it’s easy to see how some people end up lost in all of the commotion and choose to stay on the sidelines. This is where MTGFinance can (and should) help.
MTGFinance can be defined as the process by which players make or save money by engaging in the Magic market. Despite the controversy that may surround MTGFinance at times, the average player stands a lot to gain by learning more about this aspect of the hobby and how it can work for them.
While there are real and perceived issues with MTGFinance and related content, that does not change the fact that it is a persistent aspect of the game and something that other players and businesses are constantly participating in. This means that MTGFinance has a tangible impact on players whether they actively engage in it or not.
MTGFinance doesn’t have to be about generating a side hustle, attempts to “buy out” cards, or trying to take advantage of international arbitrage on a daily basis. If your goals are anything like mine, (to play as cheaply as possible), then you can still engage in MTGFinance content to your benefit.
Setting individual goals and having a realistic view of your available resources (both in terms of time and money) in mind is vital to determining which aspects of MTGFinance are most likely to be useful to you.
A common mistake that many players make is not properly assessing their own resources and financial knowledge before acting on advice from MTGFinance content creators. Take me for example. Personally, it doesn’t make sense for me to try and spend hundreds or thousands of dollars speculating on Magic cards when I have thousands in student loan debt that can’t afford to be ignored if I misstep. Instead, I try and focus on content that helps me get cards at their cheapest, and only if I intend to play with those cards, leveraging only the parts of the content stream that make the most sense for my personal scenario.
Regardless of your end goal, if you decide to engage deeper with the magic economy, I advise a heavy dose of caution and critique.
How MTGFinance Fails To Expand Its Audience
I believe that what prevents many from engaging with MTGFinance content is a vague sense of distrust and a perceived lack of transparency. This is compounded by the fact that more and more information from this side of the hobby is hidden behind paywalls, both by major retailers and MTGFinance services. A lot of players know they are at an information disadvantage and would rather not risk being made a fool of, instead opting to simply not engage. For this reason, players should demand that MTGFinance creators “go back to basics.”
When I first got into MTGFinance, I felt like I was constantly missing how content creators reached their conclusions. I didn’t understand what indicators I should be looking at or how to properly use the resources available to me. Instead of being taught how to fish, I felt like I was sitting on the shoreline waiting to be handed the catch of the day.
I ultimately decided to stop engaging with MTGFinance because I was tired of listening to advice and not fully understanding it. Even though I didn’t fully realize it at the time, what I really wanted were deeper explanations of selection logic and a more critical evaluation of those choices via data analytics. Why, I wondered, are certain content creators better at this stuff than others and how might better tools be applied to evaluating the circulating content in order to play and collect our game for less?
To be fair, some creators already do this. MTGPrice provides all new members with a lengthy Guide to MTGFinance and an ever increasing archive of evergreen articles as well as their MTGFastFinance podcast archive. There is a lot of great content in that archive, but without a strong directory structure on their public facing site and access to some basic definitions and related tools, there is certainly room for improvement. The Brainstorm Brewery podcast has made a point of covering more fundamental concepts on their cast for players who are newer to this side of the hobby. I doubt they are the only ones who have picked up on how much people want to understand the basics before jumping into the deep end.
Still, I believe it would be extremely beneficial for MTGPrice and other similar content streams to provide a free, public facing directory or archive where players who lack basic financial literacy and/or understanding of Magic’s particular secondary market can go to review information that covers some basic concepts.
Players should also feel free to ask creators in the space how they got to their conclusions and recommendations. Anyone who is giving any sort of financial advice should be prepared for and understanding of being questioned. At the same time, players should be ready to support content creators that they feel are providing value.
Players should also be demanding about transparency and integrity. There is no doubt that just the mention of MTGFinance often leaves a bad taste in some people’s mouths, though we sometimes have trouble articulating exactly why. There is a genuine concern about being intentionally manipulated and misled that should be consistently addressed and for many players the very notion of engaging with their hobby on an economic level may simply seem utterly unappealing. There have also been issues with scams, early access to product information/leaks and questions of self-interest that have popped up here and there.
When I guested on the MTGFastFinance podcast, the concept of “talking up your own book” was brought up. For those who are unfamiliar with this term, it refers to a scenario where a trader, portfolio holder, hedge fund manager etc identifies a particular investment as a good buy without explicitly stating that they own the stock and stand to profit should more people invest and drive up the value.
The MTG equivalent of this is someone identifying a particular card as a good buy, when they themselves already own (or intend to own) copies. In the most cynical terms, it allows them to sell to the speculators now driving up the price rather than waiting for natural market demand to drive the price of the card(s) in question. This tactic may work especially well if the individual(s) have a larger audience that will exert influence on limited inventory in a short time span.
Does this actually happen in MTGFinance? Of course it does. There’s nothing and no one to tell those bad actors that they can’t try to work an angle, except us. Except players who engage and demand that content creators disclose how much they stand to gain. Some already do, and go so far as to state their conflicts routinely. Regardless, it should be an industry standard, as a means to building trust and reliability.
If a content creator recommends a card as a pick up that they already have copies of, does that mean they are trying to swindle you? Not necessarily. There could easily be valid reasoning to support their conclusion of the card being a good buy regardless of whether they own some copies. After all, if it is a good pick up, why wouldn’t they have some themselves? However, disclosing existing holdings allows the community the opportunity to make a more complete assessment and hold creators accountable should a negative pattern arise.
As long as people are uninformed, they are more likely to be misled by other uninformed people or taken advantage of by the better informed. If more people are educated as to how MTGFinance actually works, holding people accountable and weeding out miscreants would be much easier and better for the hobby overall.
The Right Knowledge Can Be Powerful
The argument for players engaging deeper with finance related content is simple: knowledge is power. By understanding how the secondary markets work on a more profound level, players can make better decisions about what cards they buy and when, and better evaluate information they receive from others. As MTGFinance gets more complex, strong MTGFinance content that cuts through the noise and provides clarity is important.
Consider spoiler season. There is a lot of hype generated during this time, and a deluge of opinions on what will be standard or eternal format playable. Many players spend money on pre-ordering singles or sealed product. Depending on the accuracy of information on which they are basing their decision, determines if they have saved or wasted money.
Many content creators do not suggest buying during this period, because hype tends to inflate everything. Instead, it is a good opportunity to evaluate how these new cards may affect existing cards and strategies.
Another reason to conscientiously learn about MTGFinance, and more specifically, the tools and metrics used to evaluate cards, is to know when something is a trap. There are a litany of examples of people discussing cards who are misinformed on how to read particular data, or are relying on you to be misinformed and react emotionally. I can personally attest to falling for this multiple times to the detriment of my wallet.
Speaking of the cacophony of opinions on social media and accuracy of information, a run on Gaea’s Cradle was exacerbated in August due to such a misunderstanding.
This tweet was an emotional reaction to a poor evaluation of what was happening to Gaea’s Cradle. Many people admitted to panicking and buying copies because they thought a buyout was happening. Unlike with regular cards, Gaea’s Cradle does have Commander and Legacy demand backing it and is on the Reserve List, therefore it is more likely to stick at a much higher price than before and not retrace.
Cradle’s price had been increasing over the summer, hopping from the mid $300s to a little over $500 but sort of settling before this tweet was posted and climbing to over $800. However, this was just one data point from one website. At the time, there were much cheaper copies available on TCG and Ebay. The point is not to rag on @PleasantKenobi here. It is to highlight that if more players actually understood the tools and information available to them, and took the time to get the facts straight, they would’ve been informed enough to tell this person “look again.” Not to mention how many people would’ve saved money by not buying it while it was climbing.
MTGFinance content that has a strong focus on informing players about the tools available to make better decisions is worth engaging with. Even if one chooses to not engage from a speculation perspective, they are informed in a way that allows them to sidestep mistakes. That being said, there is work to be done when it comes to what information is being presented.
Developing Your Game Plan
Should you decide to engage with MTGFinance content, I would encourage you to develop a game plan for exploring this side of the hobby. If you enter the complex environment of MTGFinance without reflecting on what it is you want, you are more susceptible to take advice not relevant to you, waste time, and capital resources.
The first and most important step in your game plan should be to determine your goal. People engage with MTGFinance content for a multitude of reasons: they want to buy cards for themselves cheaply, they are completionists or collectors, they want to speculate on card prices in order to increase their own income, they want to buy and sell cards as a small business operators, and the list goes on. Not all MTGFinance content serves all goals, so keep that in mind.
When you are deciding what your goal is, you then need to take an honest and serious account of your own resources. This includes but is not limited to, your time, money, debt, existing MTG inventory, and knowledge. If you assess these areas honestly, you may find that you have to change your original goal to something more reasonable until you have developed your resources further.
Once your goal is in place and resources assessed, start exploring content until you find the kind of content that helps you the most. Figure out what works. Ask questions. Observe. Then when you feel comfortable, go for it. I would highly recommend joining Discords if you can so that you have access to a community ready and able to answer any questions or point you in the right direction.
I was surprised to see how active several different MTGFinance Discord channels were. I am currently observing the MTGPrice Discord, Brainstorm Brewery, and Magic Financial aid. Each Discord is diverse in its channels and includes at least one channel where its either non-mtg focused finance related. Participants in all of the Discords are welcome to ask questions, and are usually greeted with positive and informative responses.
Having spent some time on both sides of the fence, there definitely seems to be a broadly held misunderstanding of what it is and is not about for most of the content creators and communities that focus on the Magic economy. Those misconceptions alone can be enough to make people think MTGFinance isn’t important or beneficial to engage with.
There is no harm in stepping into the space in order to familiarize yourself and learn something new. Nothing and no one can make you act on the advice being given. Besides, depending on your goals and available resources, some content is not going to be beneficial to you anyway.
There is no shortage of MTGFinance content. Several podcasts, websites, and discords exist that include content for nearly every type of participant. Just make sure you understand which one you are and what goals serve you best.
Elizabeth Rice, aka @elioftheveil, is a content creator, writer and Twitch streamer with a focus on Magic: The Gathering.
MAGIC: THE GATHERING FINANCE ARTICLES AND COMMUNITY
