Jason Alt, Uncategorized, Unlocked ProTrader

Unlocked Pro Trader: Commanding Value

Readers,

You know what I don’t talk much about? The prices of commanders themselves. If you go back through all 3 or 4 years I’ve been doing this column, one thing that sticks out right away is that I duck that issue a lot. On one hand, I think the price of the commander is a little tougher to figure out and I like to do easy things. Am I doing a disservice to people by pointing out easier and more likely specs? From the standpoint of you wanting to hear about specs, I am not. If that’s what you’re after, a spec is a spec regardless of the type of cards it’s on. However, I’m sure a non-zero number of my readers (and most of my podcast listeners) are also looking for advice about how to play the game cheaper, and knowing if and when to buy commanders is a useful part of that, so I’m going to crunch some numbers today.

The precipitation of this topic was a well-known member of the community messaging me privately to ask about Morophon as a spec. This is the type of question I typically try and duck but I’ve been writing about EDH finance for quite a long time and it’s probably a question I should be able to answer. Some commanders are worth a lot of money. Some are not. They are printed in Commander sets, supplemental sets, as foils only, as box-topper promos only, reprinted in Commander anthologies or regular sets or as judge promos. There are a lot of variables, but isn’t that true of anything? Don’t we know which cards (like Eternal Witness) will shrug off a reprint and which cards (like Gilded Lotus) won’t? We should be able to figure out whether Morophon is a good spec at its current price, even if it means talking about a LOT of variables.

The Card Itself

The number of total eligible commanders keeps changing so I will just say that at the time I wrote this, there were about 1,000 commanders on EDHREC and that puts this just outside the top 10%. It’s early – Morophon has only been legal for about 3 months, so climbing to the 90th percentile for commanders in that period of time is pretty impressive. It’s around $5 as a mythic, which means it has a higher upside than some other commanders which are non-mythic rare. $5 is a fairly reasonable buy-in.

This is a catch-all commander for tribes without a tribe, which helps it considerably. As new tribes get added without commanders, a certain number of new players will pick up Morophon to helm those decks. Morophon is also more reprintable than some set-specific commanders, and that’s a factor as well. Finally, Morophon has foils and non-foils, which isn’t always the case for commanders. There’s a reason for this.

Stats

How many of the top commanders have both a foil and non-foil option? It’s fewer than you think because a lot of the top commanders of all time per EDHREC are from the commander precons and only have a foil copy.

This is a little hard to see, but it’s a snapshot of the top commanders over the last 2 years. Of these 21, 13 are from a commander precon and of those 13, only 2 (Animar and Kess) have a non-foil option. So far, the commander in 21st has 3 times as many decks as Morophon.

Is $5 too cheap for Morophon? Of these 21 top all-time commanders, 9 are worth $5 or less. Of those 9, 6 have been reprinted outside of a Commander Anthology (I’m not convinced Commander Anthology affects prices a ton). The remaining 3 at $5 and under with no reprints are Nekusar, Lord Windgrace and Gishath. Nekusar has a judge promo, Lord Windgrace is a year old in the least valuable Commander 2018 deck and Gishath is basically hanging on with only EDH demand. I think Gishath is the only interesting card on that list. There aren’t too many cards like Morophon in the Top 21, which is fine.

Gishath’s Gishgraph looks like the card is going to grow a bit. It hasn’t rotated yet but it is also not really being buoyed much by Standard and looks to be picking up. Casual players love big, dumb dinosaurs and while I am really shocked to see Gishath in the Top 20, the numbers appear to be telling the truth.

With the most popular commanders not having a lot in common with Morophon, maybe we should look at commanders with about as many decks.

5 Color

Is Morophon the second coming of Sliver Overlord or is it a placeholder commander in 5 color decks? People building 5 color decks now have a lot of options for their placeholder – it’s not all Karona and Cromat. Najeela is perfect for aggressive builds and Golos has actual good abilities. Jodah can cast your spells. Morophon is incerasingly going to get sidelined by better and better 5 color commanders and every tribe that never had a commander and gets one chips away at his utility. The two cards closest to how much use Morophon sees now are Niv-Mizzet and Horde of Notions.

Kinda too soon to tell, here. People are still drafting WAR and every card in that set is $3, even the uncommons.

Horde of Notions is from a much “better” set in terms of value since boxes of Lorwyn are a mortgage payment and it was trash before its 2015 reprinting. Pre-dating the mythic era and still being dirt tells a sad tale about Morophon if it continues to hover in the same number of decks as Horde. One thing I will say about Horde is that a lot of Horde decks were built before EDHREC can scrape them and Morophon has been built a lot more, lately. Another thing I will say is that Elementals just got a ton of sick new cards and no one is building Horde, so it means once people sort of forget about Morophon, he likely stays forgotten. It’s cool to be able to give your Squirrels +1/+1 and make them G cheaper, but I think once you compare Morophon to cards with similar demand, the picture is pretty bleak.

More Generally

So how do we evaluate new commanders? I think we should run down a list of questions to find the cards to compare the new commander to and test it out.

  • Are there both foils and non-foils?
  • How many decks is it in? (Better for older cards)
  • Is it rare, mythic or uncommon?
  • Is it only in a precon?
  • Is it reprintable?
  • Is it likely to become obsolete?

Once you find the right card to look at, just check price trajectory and you should get a sense for what’s up. Let’s look at an old commander and a new one.

  • Are there both foils and non-foils?

Just non-foils – only the face card got a foil that year.

  • How many decks is it in? (Better for older cards)

414, but the raw number matters less than its rank – 201 out of 1,000, so 80th percentile.

  • Is it rare, mythic or uncommon?

Mythic, but that matters less for precon cards

  • Is it only in a precon?

Yes, but there was a commander anthology (didn’t do much to Meren’s price so probably didn’t here, either).

  • Is it reprintable?

Not especially

  • Is it likely to become obsolete?

Not especially.

We have a lot of graphical data for Mazirek and while there was some interest around the time they printed a bunch of new Golgari cards in the new Ravnica sets, ultimately interest has tapered back down. This is likely $5ish forever while its deckmate, Meren, flirted with $20. If I didn’t have the graph to look at, I’d likely conclude that $5 was appropriate for this card. If I had to pick a card to compare Mazirek to, I’d go with Taigam.

Taigam is in about as many decks, is overshadowed by better commanders in its precon and is the same price now. Could we predict Taigam’s price trajectory based on Mazirek?

It’s damn close.

Would this seeming to work out on a card I selected fairly randomly work on a newer card whose graph won’t help us out much, which is our situation with Morophon? What about a card that’s new enough to be standard legal?

  • Are there both foils and non-foils?

Yep

  • How many decks is it in? (Better for older cards)

1143 so far, 90th percentile

  • Is it rare, mythic or uncommon?

Mythic

  • Is it only in a precon?

No

  • Is it reprintable?

Eh, it has a set-specific mechanic and isn’t used enough to be a judge promo. This would be tough.

  • Is it likely to become obsolete?

Not to people who like her for flavor reasons and anything that draws this many cards in the colors artifact players want would likely be a mistake to print (not that they won’t – look at Chulane).

Before I cheat and peak at her graph, I imagine her price was around $3-$5 then dipped and is pretty flat right now. I also think the foils are roughly the same graph shape.

Except for the part about the price being flat now, I was pretty close. The price is in flux but it’s all within a buck so who knows? The foils are a different story.

I would not have guessed $8-$10 on the 55th-most-built commander on the site. I personally think EDH foil demand is overstated and that large volumes are tough to move (which is why I think they’re fine for one person but not an entire readership so I don’t recommend them) but I am also a little surprised. I think it goes up from $10 over the next year or two but I also don’t want to run out and snipe all of the $8 copies on TCG Player. This is sort of confounding, which is why I stick to cards that Jhoira decks made go up in price and ignored Jhoira herself.

If we want to pick out a historical card to compare Jhoira to, we can try to estimate what the price trajectory will look like over a longer timeframe. I have a good pick for this.

That’s a hot price-tag for a card a few years older. What were the past few years like?

Could we expect Jhoira to shoot up in a year or two like Xenagos? Let’s check one more thing, first.

Xenagod isn’t the perfect comparison for Jhoira because it’s in 3 times as many decks (for now) as an inclusion. If you’re dealing with a commander, don’t just check the number of decks it’s helming, you have to check how many copies are in use.

That’s better. What does the future potentially have in store for Jhoira?

Are we right, here? We might be, we might not be. But we at least have some criteria to narrow our search to cards that are good corollaries and checking their price trajectory.

I likely continue to ignore commanders in favor of the cards they make go up, but now if someone asks me the question, I have a method for trying to answer them, and now you do, too. That does it for me this week, tune in next week where I’ll have actual specs. Until next time!

Uncategorized, Watchtower

The Watchtower 9/16/19 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.

While I personally find the overall design of Throne of Eldraine to be sophomoric, there’s no disputing that it’s bringing a great deal of potent cards to Standard, and possibly Modern and beyond. Just today, Drown in the Loch was spoiled, a two mana counterspell that may possibly become a common component of control-oriented builds in Modern. There’s no shortage of cards of this nature in TOE, and I’m looking forward to seeing how the set impacts each format.

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  ProTrader: Magic doesn’t have to be expensive.

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 2013. You can find his articles there weekly, as well as on the podcast MTG Fast Finance.

Casual Fridays

(Most of) The mythics of Eldraine

Preview season means all sorts of new goodies, and there are some showstoppers in Thrones of Eldraine.

Today, I want to talk about the dozen mythics we’ve seen, and where they are likely to end up. Some of these are available for preorder, and as I’ve stated many times before, preordering is a bad idea in almost every circumstance. There are a few more mythics coming, and we will catch up with those next week or so.

One other factor I’m noticing: I’m not sure how strong some of these will be in Constructed, but holy hell, almost all of these are going to have powerful followers in casual circles and Commander pods. 

The preorder prices I’m citing are a combination of eBay and a couple of other prices. If you find different prices, forgive me or jump on them. 

Harmonious Archon ($4)

It’s six mana for 10/11 worth of stats, and I can see this being a pretty strong card in assorted token decks. It’s probably not great in Constructed, though flickering it for a pair of 3/3 creatures is pretty strong.

I don’t see this as becoming a lot more expensive. It’s got a high mana cost, multiples are less than impressive, and there are situations where it’s bad. I’m not planning on buying these unless they drop to nearly-bulk prices.

The Magic Mirror ($10)

I completely expect this card to be a player in Standard, and it’s pretty amazing in the other formats too. I think a lot of decks are going to try this out as a one-of, a late-game advantage engine. It’s very difficult to land this super-early, but turn 7 or so, a control deck can put this down and still have Cryptic Command open.

Standard is really going to like this too. We don’t have big Teferi to end games anymore, but we do have space open for a card-advantage engine. Being legendary, and a mana cost that is impossible early, it’ll never be a four-of.

I like this card to end up about $7-$10 based on casual demand alone, and if enough decks in Standard (and perhaps Modern?) pick up one or two, that will go significantly higher.

Rankle, Master of Pranks ($8)

I don’t think there’s a deck waiting for Rankle, but this is a set of abilities worth building around. Being able to make every player do something is a ‘drawback’ that some very powerful decks have exploited. Keep in mind that you can do none, or all three, all on a 3/3 flying haste body. Eight bucks feels high for a legendary rare creature, and I expect this to fall by half or more. Even an aggro deck isn’t going to play a full set of these, but the dedicated combo-like decks will. Commander players will add this to the Faerie decks, but likely not much else.

Robber of the Rich ($11)

What this is NOT is ‘draw a card’. You’re getting the ability to conditionally cast the card that was on top of their library. The good news is that you’re almost always going to have less cards than your opponent, since you’re playing a more aggressive build. The timing restriction makes it less hard to break, but much depends on how many cards you need to cast before you feel you got a good deal. 

We know mono-red was good before rotation. We are getting some amazing tools for aggressive decks, and this is a card you will absolutely play all four of. In multiples, this is breathtaking to watch, and that’s a factor in the price as well.

What I don’t know is if this has legs in Modern. If he does, if he fits into Burn or strategies like Jund or Death’s Shadow, then this is a $20 card. If not, it’ll stabilize in the $10 range. This is not going to see much play in Commander, even with the difficulties Red has with drawing cards.

Questing Beast ($22)

My problem with this price is that it’s a legend, and extra copies will rot in your hand. That said, holy crap is this card pushed. To start, it’s a 4/4 for four mana with haste, it’s difficult to imagine anything else (sans deathtouch) being able to block profitably. And even if they have a wall, or a five-toughness creature, it’s got deathtouch! Can’t race it, because it’s got vigilance! Can’t chump block it! And now you don’t have to choose between taking out the planeswalker or attacking their life total! 

Planeswalkers have that inherent pseudo-life-gain mechanic baked in when it comes to creatures: Yes, you can attack them but that’s an attack which didn’t go against the life total. Would you play the following sorcery: 1WU: bounce a creature or artifact, draw a card, gain four life. Seems pretty strong, and that’s why Teferi, Time Raveler is so good.

The only drawback here is that the Beast is a legend, which is probably going to stop this from being the most expensive card in the set. I don’t think it’ll hold at $20, but right now there’s a dearth of board wipes. I suspect this will dip a little in price and then climb back up slowly, but never get below $13-$15.

The Circle of Loyalty ($5)

I want to see this card get broken, I really do, but I am doubtful. It’s got a lot of abilities, and is great on an empty board, but it’s fated to be a niche player. $5 feels about right, maybe a buck or two lower.

Embercleave ($6)

This is pretty overpowered as Equipment go. It’s giving that magic combination of double strike and trample, and plays a lot like a combat trick which sticks around. I don’t know if the goal here is to stick it on turn three (presuming 3 one-drops to start the game) or if it’s better as a “Surprise! Take ten!” sort of play in a midrange/tribal deck.

Either way, I don’t think being Legendary is a huge drawback. Playing a second one after they lined up blocks on the creature carrying the first has an appeal, or perhaps they killed the first creature carrying it.

If I was preordering, this would be my early pick. Aggressive red decks are going to want to play this card, probably with 3-4 copies, and that’ll cause an early spike above $10.

The Royal Scions ($19)

This is pretty absurd, three mana to plus right up to six loyalty. That’s a lot, and thankfully, these two can’t protect themselves at all. Clearly, this is pointed at a control strategy, but in a UR aggressive deck, the middle ability makes blocking nigh impossible. The ultimate is certainly worth building towards, with a worst-case of draw four and deal four anywhere you need to.

It’s hard to see this as dropping below $10. Three mana is a pretty sweet spot for planeswalkers, and while I don’t think it’ll maintain at nearly $20, the decline will be a slow one.

Garruk, Cursed Huntsman ($20)

This Garruk is am amazing finisher, and a clever design. Making two 2/2 creatures as a zero is rather powerful, and making those be the method for gaining loyalty is an elegant design. The minus ability is everything you want in the late game: Get rid of something and get ahead on cards, and the emblem might not be an immediate game over, but it is going to speed up the game impressively. 

This feels like a $15 card by the end of the year, but it’s not going to go crazy before then.

Oko, Thief of Crowns ($20)

Again, we’ve got three mana for what could be six loyalty when it comes down, and that’s solid. Being able to upgrade what you’ve already got into a 3/3 feels good that early in the game, and hopefully you’re not overwriting anything too powerful. The turn four play of “Here’s a Food, now give me that creature of power 3 or less” is going to be delightful too.

This is surprisingly underpowered for such a high preorder price. Oko can’t win on their own, nor solve a problem with power 4 or more. Yes, it can downgrade everything they make into 3/3 creatures but then you still have to remove it. I think the fall will be significant, and the price here will be trending downwards slowly until it hits the $5-$7 range.

Outlaws’ Merriment ($4)

If this was not a random choice, this would be a very powerful card indeed. As it is, you’re getting a haste creature of varying abilities, but the combination of that unknown plus not getting a creature until the following turn means that this is never going to be in high demand. It’s neat, and cool in multiples, and an adorable theme, but this is a bulk-rate mythic by itself.

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.

Uncategorized

Pro Trader: Wait and Rotate

I don’t have any specific specs I am dying to go over this week. Instead, I think I should address a topic that people ask me about a lot and which seems to be changing while my advice stays the same. It’ no good to give outdated advice to people and if my worldview has to change a bit, it’s going to come as the result of some data analysis. Let’s do that analysis today and update how we handle something that keeps happening whether we want it to or not – rotation.

By rotation, I refer specifically to the time of year when Standard loses a bunch of sets at once and prices are impacted. Cards that are very strong in Standard but not strong enough for Modern or Legacy play lose a lot of value and cards that were $2-$3 on maybe one deck worth of Standard play go to bulk rares where they join cards that were bulk all along. It’s a sad time for binders but a happy time for the finance community. We can pick up good cards for dirt cheap and watch their prices rebound.

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ProTrader: Magic doesn’t have to be expensive.

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