Casual Fridays

The Rivals of Summer

It’s a Pro Tour, no, a paper Pro Tour, no, wait, a tabletop Mythic Championship #1 2019 next weekend.

If you follow the same sorts of folks I do on Twitter, you’re familiar with the jokes about names and awful branding and why does the 2019 MagicFest shirt have a design that echoes genitalia and so on but really, the change in the event names is the biggest fail of all. I could handle “Pro Tour Nagasaki 2017” pretty well but that failed to convey what the Standard metagame was like. In contrast, Pro Tour Dominaria will immediately call to mind how Teferi, Hero of Dominaria came roaring onto the scene. I will miss naming PTs after sets.

Last week I brought up some Ixalan cards that are buys or holds going into this summer and the rotation in the fall. There’s one subset of cards I wanted to mention, and then we’re into the Rivals of Ixalan cards I’ll be watching, plus a touch of PT spec.

I was remiss in not bringing up my favorite speculative pick of Ixalan: The buy-a-box/treasure chest promo versions of the Ixalan flip cards, which Travis Allen taught me to call Mapsterpieces, are fantastic pickups, especially the cheap ones. Search is about $60 and that’s a good price for a card seeing the Legacy and Modern play that this one is, Rites at $20 is a solid pickup as a budget Gaea’s Cradle, and the rest are super cheap, relatively niche, and a wonderful set to have put away for their inevitable spike. I have a soft spot for Conqueror’s Galleon, mainly because the flipped side is everything you ever wanted in Commander.

Rivals of Ixalan, as the last small set we’re going to have until they decide to bring back small sets, is in a smaller circulation than every other set that’s Standard-legal. This has not translated to a lot of expensive cards, but there are some sweet ones to look for.

The Immortal Sun ($16 nonfoil/$30 foil): Buy

I love this card in both versions but I’d so much rather have the foils. This is a card that goes in just about any Commander deck, is very one-sided, and shuts down all planeswalkers. Yes, that’s yours too, but that’s the price for the many other benefits you get. I think this is a very strong candidate to get reprinted in a future Commander deck, and so I advocate foils.

This saw a bump about the time that Guilds of Ravnica came out:

It’s seen some play in Standard, only 2000 decks over on EDHREC, and that’s why it’s $15 to pick up and not $10 or even $7. Still, I’m hoping it’ll come down in price, but I’m not holding my breath. If the price falls that means a good amount are still circulating, but my main thought is that most of the copies out there have been picked up and put into decks, never to come out unless they add more planeswalkers.

Jadelight Ranger ($9/$14): Sell

This is going to be a dollar by Thanksgiving, if it’s not bulk. It’s seen zero Modern play, it’s in less than 400 decks, the foil is 1.5x the nonfoil, instead of the two-to-three multiplier we’d prefer. It all adds up to a card that has no chance once it rotates. Please don’t keep a single one a moment longer than you have to. I respect if you have been playing with it for 18 months, and you want to hang on to the end, but even if this does well at the PT, I want no part of it.

Hadana’s Climb ($6/$11): Sell, then buy after it drops

Frankly, this applies to all five of the enemy-color flip cards from Rivals, as they are mostly very very powerful when flipped and run a wide gamut before then. I like cards with a low buy-in and low chance of reprint, and you’ll be able to get these dirt cheap. Again, I like foils a lot more and they won’t cost you that much more to get.

Azor’s Gateway ($5/$15): Sell

There was a point that this was a $15 card:

And that ship has sailed, friends. Yes, the land is amazing and a half, and if they ever print a card that allows you to transform target permanent this will be among the first to take off, but for now, I just can’t recommend it. I want to love this card, given that it’s two to play and just one to loot, but we can do better in Commander and the big payoff takes forever. I’m just not in on this card unless it drops to near-bulk prices, and then I’ll listen.

Now, as for the Pro Tour, and what to buy ahead of time, I’ve got some quick hits.

Kaya’s Wrath is going to have a good showing. River of Soot had a chance, I thought, but with both Cry of the Carnarium and Kaya’s Wrath, the control decks are pretty set. I don’t think it’ll win it all, but we’ll see a lot of boardwipe effects.

I really like having a few Venerated Loxodon at cheap prices. Don’t bother with the foils, but we’re going to see some impressive games on camera for this card, pumping a team before something else pumps the team.

I’m also a fan of picking up Expansion/Explosion before someone reminds us that it’s an instant and does sick things with Wilderness Reclamation. It’s $2 now, but it was $5 not long ago and that’s when it was being opened. Now that it’s at peak supply and lowest price, is there a bigger instant to cast?

Finally, if you’ve been holding Vivien Reid, I’m previewing myself a bit here but I think the best time to sell will be during the PT weekend. I foresee a spike for her, as she answers so many of Standard’s current problems quite effectively. I’m not buying her, not at this price with only two sets till she rotates, but if you’ve got spares, get ready.

Brainstorm Brewery

Brainstorm Brewery #326 Your Wish is Wrong!

DJ (@Rose0fThorns) gave Canada a gift over the weekend, Corbin (@CHosler88) is debating suing someone and Jason’s (@jasonEalt) wishes are wrong but they are here this week to help you navigate the waters of MTG Finance and the TCG Player changes.

Make sure to check us out on Youtube because everything is better with video. https://www.youtube.com/user/BrainstormBrewery

Jason Alt, ProTrader

Pro Trader: Identifying Blind Spots

5 Comments

Readers! 

I don’t have to do another article where I talk about how great I am at this because we can learn a lot from our failures, sometimes moreso than from our successes and while I don’t care about missing stuff per se as long as there are plenty of hits out there to identify, we don’t want to miss anyone who would have wanted to buy those cards for themselves. 

So while I didn’t really initially see cards I ignored as cards I was missing, I think it’s important to identify our blind spots and take a look at how we can avoid missing those cards in the future. I’m specifically talking about expensive foils that have spiked as a result of very competitive decks like Vannifar and how we can make sure we correctly identify future Vannifars and identify which classes of cards from those decks to buy specifically. 

So what went wrong with Vannifar, first of all?

Who Was Into It?

At first, it seemed like Vannifar was a very exciting, if not obvious commander. My twitter feed is full of both EDH and finance people and every finance person was talking about Intruder Alarm and Thornbite Staff and every EDH person was talking about Teysa. EDHREC data back up my assertion that the EDH community as a whole just wasn’t that excited by Vannifar. I was pretty secure in my assessment that it was going to be really tough to sell non-obvious cards to non-speculators, and it was a very specific buyout that made me realize something different was going on here. So what went wrong? My assessment was that Vannifar was a boring, obvious, linear deck with a pretty unsatisfying pod chain, and the general EDH community’s apparent rejection of Vannifar in favor of Teysa (and even Nikya) seemed to bear that out. EDH players, in general, don’t want boring, linear obvious decks and you need to sell a lot of copies of recent cards to move prices. I forgot to consider one thing I knew, and by the time I saw the card that had spiked and realized what it meant, it was basically too late.

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Watchtower

The Watchtower 2/11/19 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.

MagicFest Toronto was a good time (although you wouldn’t know by looking at the website other than twitter dot com, since WotC has self-imposed media blackouts on gatherings of paper Magic). The floor was humming, there was plenty of action at vendor booths even late into Saturday, two Taking Turns decks lost their win-and-ins, and Toronto continued to impress as a city. Those vendor binders are no joke, with James and I finding plenty of deals on Saturday afternoon. I recall just as we started to poke through them that I didn’t really understand how there could be value left, since by now I’d expect players with a more active memory of card prices to have picked them over. That was not the case though, with multiple $5 foil Blood Artists to be found, under-priced Spire of Industries, and even a $15 foil Geth’s Grimoire. Add in the excellent donuts, the literal duck heart, and an impressively inexpensive barcade, and I was glad to be there.

Thing in the Ice (Foil)

Price Today: $22
Possible Price: $40

Without question the biggest story in Modern lately has been just how big of an impact Arclight Phoenix has made. Initially completely overlooked, it has now become a dominant force in both competitive formats. There were two in the top 8 of Toronto, and that same result can be found in basically every Modern event, whether it’s a Grand Prix or an MTGO daily.

A ubiquitous component of most Arclight builds is Thing in the Ice. Since the deck plans on casting so many instants and sorceries for Arclight, TiTI is a natural addition. Get rid of any blockers, hit their face hard, etc. etc. TiTI fills the role well. With the performance Arclight has been giving for the last month now, TiTI is fast becoming one of the most played creatures in the format – 10th right now, according to MTGGoldfish.

Foils start at $22, and they don’t last long. They climb into $26 and $28 after barely a playset. Looking at the full supply, regardless of price, there’s less than 40 copies. With how popular TiTI is in Modern right now, how unlikely that is to change (since when are cheap blue spells not going to be good), foil TiTIs are looking like a short to mid term guarantee.

Spirebluff Canal (Foil)

Price Today: $19
Possible Price: $40

How does one cast those TiTIs and Lightning Bolts? With Spirebluff Canal, of course. The enemy-paired yin to Scars of Mirrodin’s yang, it quickly found a home in the format, which had been eager to see it and Blooming Marsh. (In contrast, nobody was really eager for Concealed Courtyard.) Admittedly I began by looking into Marsh, as I expected that to foreshadow better returns, but there just isn’t a lot of usage of the card at the moment. While the two The Rock decks made good use of it on Saturday, it simply isn’t seeing a lot of reps. That may change in the future – and with it, Marsh’s prospects – but for now, Canal is where the action is.

Izzet Phoenix is certainly the driving force behind Canal today, though there’s lots of decks leveraging the powerful intersection of its colors and speed. UR Living End builds are certain to run it, and really, any Electrodominance decks. Storm and various flavors of Blue Moon tend to want copies as well. Moving forward, I doubt this will change. Why would it? Izzet is a well established color pair that has proven time and time again that it has the chops to hang in Modern, even before Canal. Now that they have access to a land that so perfectly supports the lightning-quick gameplay that both colors are wont to play, we’re almost guaranteed to find a Canal deck in the top meta on any given day, whether or not Arclight Phoenix is involved.

Anyways, prices run similar to TiTI. $18 will buy you a copy, but for your second, it’s going to be $20 or more. There are eight foil playsets with copies less than $30, and then the market is gone. Prerelease copies aren’t any bountiful. Given what Blackcleave Cliffs managed, I’d be surprised if we don’t see $40+ Canals in the next several months.

As Foretold

Price Today: $8
Possible Price: $17

A card I’d love to see do well simply because it’s cool, and who doesn’t love cool cards. From the get go As Foretold, affectionately ‘AF’ from here on out, was noticed by anyone that could read. It’s three mana, casts free spells every single turn, including the one you play it. And has the nifty feature of playing “free” spells for actual free. Bingo! I’m still hoping it will break Restore Balance, but until then, it’s still doing work with Ancestral Vision and Living End.

Most recently someone ran UR Living End in what seem to be back-to-back MTGO Modern leagues, and earned 8th place and 1st place respectively. The list is straightforward, with 12 cycling creatures, Living End, Electrodominance, Ancestral Vision, and of course, AF. Between the 12 cyclers and a set of AV, plus some bonus Izzet charms, I have to imagine it’s not hard to plow through 10 or 15 cards pretty quickly. I especially love that with AF in play, you can chain AVs.

I was torn between looking at non-foils and foils of AF. The non-foil prices are what’s listed, with demand for this likely to come from people needing sets for competitive Modern play. Since demand would be “new,” rather than established as with TiTI or Canal, there will be a rush for non-foils first. If a strategy establishes itself, then foils will get eaten up shortly after.

Supply is deeper than TiTI or Canal, but not by all that much. There’s maybe 20 playsets on TCG, none on SCG, and no additional on CFB. Should one of these AF decks crack a paper Magic event – and that we hear about it, since apparently that’s a concern now – supply on these may drain rapidly.

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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