Brainstorm Brewery #293 Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!

June 7, 2018 Jason Alt

Corbin (@Chosler88), DJ (@Rose0fThorns), and Jason’s (@jasonEalt ) all host their Patreon guest Steven (@SteveMKestner) as they recap the weekend of Battle Bond, how to identify odd looking foreign cards and what really causes spikes. Also, we announce the winner of our first youtube giveaway!

Make sure to check us out on Youtube for hidden easter eggs and facial reactions https://www.youtube.com/user/BrainstormBrewery

Battle Bond Experiences
Corbin thinks momentum is a thing in magic
Breaking Bulk
Black Bordered Foreign Cards
Not In It To Get Rich
Evil Finance Community
Game Knights Effect
Pick of the Week
Outro
Oh crap the Winner… We had to announce the winner.
Send us your emails!
Support our Patreon!

Need to contact us? Hit up BrainstormBrew@gmail.com

Jason Alt, Unlocked ProTrader

Unlocked Pro Trader: No Data No Problems

June 5, 2018 Jason Alt 1 Comment

EDHREC data for Battlebond isn’t available yet. I don’t have a problem with that and honestly, it might even be a bit premature at this point, anyway. All of the coin flip cards already went nuts because they were obvious to people who don’t play EDH and that kind of stuff is kittycatnip for the uninformed class of speculator. Thinking is hard and checking the Reserved List for cards that haven’t been bought out yet or searching for “flip a coin” in gatherer is easy and sometimes that makes people think they’re geniuses.

The non-obvious stuff is just sitting in store inventories because, like I said, it’s not obvious and that means it could take a minute to go up. I’m going to make a few guesses this week based on no data, just like the rest of the lunatics still sitting on a million copies of Jazal Goldmane. Where do I get off doing that? Well, I sort of have to this week, I’m bored and I’ve done this long enough that I feel fairly confident in my ability to say a few obvious things about a few obvious other things. This article has no theme to it other than “not supported by any EDHREC data” which is not a very good theme. Oh well, you know what they say; “mo data mo problems” (no one says that) so let’s wing it. If you want to argue with me, there’s a comment section below. Let’s do this!

Probably the Last Heading

This is going to be a few thoughts that I have thought and I will try to make convincing cases for these cards mattering.

Arena Rector

I stopped incorrectly guessing the prices of cards like Recruiter of the Guard and Arena Rector when I stopped making myself guess. I don’t care what Arena Rector ends up costing. I think the value of the set has to go somewhere and short term, a lot of the reprinted cards will tank a lot but the reprinted cards are almost all EDH staples so I bet they go up before it even matters. However, there will be a few weeks where cards like this need to pull their weight so this could maintain some of its value. I don’t care either way. If you want them, buy them at peak supply as long as the price graph has rebounded a bit. Don’t grab a falling knife, folks. But this card’s price bores me so let’s talk about the cards that this will affect.

The Chain Veil

There seems to be no shortage of opportunities to make money on this card. I like its a lot at $0.75 but I kind of don’t hate it right now. Arena Rector means more interest in Planeswalkers in general and Atraxa will be in Commander Anthology shortly which means you can pay like $120 for 4 decks, one of which is Atraxa versus paying $100 for Atraxa right now. This means you get 3 decks for $20 and people are about it. I expect cards like the Chain Veil that get jammed in Superfriends decks are extra buoyant in the future with those two things converging.

See the thing the arrow is pointing at? on EDHREC’s Atraxa page, you can click on themes and find the cards that are only in Atraxa Superfriends builds. That will let you filter through more relevant cards in a shorter time by eliminating infect and other cards and letting you see Superfriends staples. That will help you figure out what has upside with Arena Rector becoming a thing.

There are some interesting cards on that page and they don’t warrant a ton of explanation.

This is near a historic low after a recent brush with arbitrage. There are a lot of these but they’re also foil mythics and that means supply will eventually run out and drive the price up.

There are more of these but we’re in week 4 of arbitrage watch and I think it’s the dealers who have the right of it, here, not the low retail price. I can’t think of many places I’d rather park a few bucks at $1 per.

You’re seeing the inherent weakness in the ability of fringe EDH to move prices of non-mythic cards under 2 years old. That said, how can this get cheaper? It’s good in White Planeswalker decks and if you’re playing Arena Rector, there is a 100% chance you at least have access to Djeru.

Najeela, the Blade-Blossom

I will do a full article on this because I expect this to move a lot of dials, but the most popular way this is currently being built is a combo build and the combo pieces are already known to me because the people who are inclined to go super spiky with a commander like this are equally inclined to get their thoughts published on the internet first. I think the combo pieces are worth a look.

Druids’ Repository

At 1,540 decks currently, this card isn’t exactly unknown. It’s also over half a decade old and supply of Innistrad isn’t exactly getting replenished with boxes being so expensive. This card is instrumental to the Najeela combo and if you’re buying in at like $1, you basically can’t lose. The combo needs this card in a few of its iterations and all of the ones that are fewer than 4 cards. I like this as a pick-up a lot.

Aggravated Assault

This back on an upswing after the Explorers of Ixalan printing, which isn’t that surprising. Two innovative ways to try an curb the price of this monster card, the Masterpiece and the Explorers printing, gave decent opportunity to buy low on these. Considering this is a way to do the Najeela combo without having WUBRG I think this is pretty important and anytime a “combat matters” commander comes out, this goes up. This is an EDH semi-staple basically from now on. Staple is a word that a lot of people throw around, but semi-staple should catch on because a card that’s in a lot of copies of a few builds isn’t a format staple but isn’t chopped liver, either. Auto-includes deserve a classification because their demand is less linear a curve and more a series of leaps and plateaus and that’s good to know.

Nature’s Will

These were $2 the first time I mentioned them in an MTGPrice article, so I hope you used those gains to buy a Pro Trader subscription for life. If not, that’s cool, just calling out my hits and ignoring my misses like everyone else.

Anyway, this card is usually worse than Bear Umbra because you have to connect with something to get the benefit but considering you’re farting out a ton of tokens, you’ll be connecting for sure. Both Bear Umbra and Nature’s Will are like $10 now which makes me wary of a reprint but in the short term, they’re not exactly going down and Najeela has created more demand.

Cryptolith Rite

I don’t want to shoot my wad and not have enough cards to cover when I do a Najeela article (if I even do one at this point) but Najeela has a lot going for it just vis-a-vis the combo wins I have seen online and this card features in a lot of them. Its days in Standard are over leaving us to speculate about how much EDH can prop it up, and considering how much Earthcraft costs these days, I think we’re pretty safe calling this at like $2. This is like Druids’ Repository in that it’s an easy pick and if you don’t buy these, some non-Pro Trader will on Thursday.

Champion of Lambholt

Not going to list too many Warriors here, but this looks pretty damn good to me.

This is what I could come up with off the top of my head based on what people have already built or said they were building. Normally my articles have more words but they don’t have fewer cards discussed and since a picture is worth 1,000 words, I’m way, way over my word count anyway. There’s a lot of digest here and if you felt this was too brief, here’s a homework assignment – take the 3 minutes you would have spent reading 3 more paragraphs and mess around on EDHREC. Get used to the filters like the one I pointed out that can be used to filter just the Superfriends cards and look at some of those cards. Which White Planeswalkers are always likely to be in decks with Arena Rector? Here’s a hint – you can use EDHREC to figure out which Planeswalkers get played the most overall and also use the Atraxa page to find the Superfriends ones. Maybe go to a Planeswalker card like The Chain Veil’s page to see which White ‘walkers (heh) correlate the most with that card. I’m teaching you to fish as much as I’m feeding you hand-cut sushi every week. Next week I’ll either have some EDHREC data to look at or I’ll be looking at speculating on stuff like Pir and Toothy and I hope to not have to do that. Until next time!

Watchtower

The Watchtower 6/4/18 for ProTraders – Plan Your Specs

June 4, 2018 Travis Allen

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.

Typically, this is where I would talk about the Pro Tour that wrapped up about 15 hours ago. We’d look at dominant archetypes, scour them for keystone cards, and try to identify potential pillars of the new Standard in October.

Except that the Pro Tour was a wasteland. Look at the top performing Standard decks — Mono-Red Aggro, Red-Black Aggro, Red Vehicles, Red Menance, Red Scare, Red Square, Seeing Red, Redoubled Efforts, uhh, RedderRabbit.

There isn’t even any blood in the stone that is the control lists. I was all set to look for key UW Control cards, except that the first Ravnica set won’t have Azorious — they’re getting Dimir instead. Which means Teferi, and Lyra, and History of Benalia may not be part of the control archetype. Instead we should be focusing on the black control cards, since that’s the strategy that’s getting paid. Once Standard prices deflate over the summer, mid-August perhaps, it will be worth trying to find opportunities. Until then though, we’re going to be focusing on EDH, maybe the reserve list, and Modern, should the opportunity arise.

Swiftfoot Boots (Foil)

Price Today: $5
Possible Price: $15

First up this week is Lightning Greaves’ cousin, Swiftfoot Boots. A touch more expensive in the activation cost, but that’s because you get to upgrade from shroud to hexproof, which is not a negligible difference, as any equipment-themed deck will tell you.

Swiftfoot Boots is the third most played artifact that isn’t a signet. It goes Sol Ring, Lightning Greaves, Swiftfoot Boots. 72,000 decks, according to EDHREC. That’s, as they say, “an assload of decks.” I do not need to give you more reasons why you should believe me that this is a desirable, in-demand card.

Boots have been reprinted a lot. After their initial run in Magic 2012, they were in Commander 2013. And Commander 2014. And Commander 2015. And Commander 2016. And Commander 2017. And then Masters 25. You’ll notice that only two of those have foil printings — the original Magic 2012 run, and now Masters 25. People that didn’t want to spend $15 on foil M12 copies got a break with M25, since they’re now down around $5. That’s where we are now, and it’s not going to last. Pick up your foil M25 copies before they’re $15.

Kodama’s Reach (Foil)

Price Today: $6
Possible Price: $15

Cultivate is the most played sorcery in EDH. The second most played is Kodama’s Reach, which is the original version of the functional reprint that is Cultivate. Kodama’s Reach is like Swiftfoot boots. It has its original foil printing, a zillion Commander printings, and a second foil printing. (Although the order is a bit difference I believe.) Point being that there’s two foil copies of Kodama’s Reach – the original Kamigawa one, and the Modern Masters one.

I do not need to tell you that neither Champions of Kamigawa nor Modern Masters are recent sets. Modern Masters was 2013, and Champions of Kamigawa is even older than that. And without any more Masters sets on the horizon, there are basically no foil reprint venues on the table right now. This year’s core set I guess? That’s it though.

You’ll find roughly ten foil MMA printings of Kodama’s Reach on TCG right now, and zero — yes, zero — NM foil Champions copies. Of a card in 45,000 EDH decks.

Command Tower (CMA)

Price Today: $60
Possible Price: $100

We’ll wrap up the week with a bigger ticket item. Command Tower is the most played land in EDH, behind only basic lands. (Amusingly enough, none are played in 100% of decks they could be). Like Kodama’s Reach and Swiftfoot Boots, it’s found in nearly every Commander set. Anyone building an EDH deck is going to get to the mana base, and there’s a good chance the first card the scribble down on the back of the Denny’s napkin is “Command Tower.” Its utility only continues to grow, as we see more viable five-color decks enter the fray in the way of Ramos, Dragon Engine and Jodah.

There’s two foil copies of Command Tower available. One is the judge promo, which is fairly cool. Fairly. But honestly, not as cool as the Commander’s Arsenal printing. The judge promo has the original art, which is, come on, just not that cool. Sort of a bland…tower. While the Commander’s Arsenal printing isn’t blowing anyone away, it’s at least got some color in it, which is an improvement over the judge copies.

In any case, judge copies, where you can find them, are $100 or more. Commander’s Arsenal copies, of which there are like six available, are between $60 and $70. Probably not going to be long before that gap closes and both copies end up at $120.

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.

James Chillcott, Pro Tour Coverage

Pro Tour Dominaria: Financial Preview

June 1, 2018 James Chillcott

Pro Tour Dominaria, the second Pro Tour of 2018 got rolling this morning in Richmond, VA, USA.

As per usual the world’s best players have been holed up in east coast hotels and rented homes for the last week or two, all seeking to answer the only query that matters: is there a fresh deck or reconfiguration of existing archetypes out there that will allow them to catch the field off balance while offering consistent play against the known quantities in the field?

With $250,000 USD on the line, and $50,000 for the winner, players looking to Top 8 will have to tap into both luck and skill to secure the victory.

Six weeks after the release of the ultra-popular Dominaria set, we find ourselves well entrenched in one of the better Standard formats in recent memory. With a relative dearth of major Standard tournaments over the last few weeks due to significant Modern and Team Trios representation, our hard data on the best decks of paper Standard is more scarce than usual. Perhaps the most relevant recent result can be drawn from the Standard decks of the Team Trios results from GP Toronto, two weeks ago, where the following decks made Top 4:

Entering into this weekend, the online meta would suggest that the top decks sync up with what we saw at the recent IRL team tourneys:

RB Aggro (12%)
UW Control (7%)
GB Constrictor (5%)
Red Aggro (5%)
UB Mid-Range (4%)
WB Vehicles (4%)
Green Aggro (4%)
UB Control (4%)

By any standard that is a fairly diverse and healthy looking field.

It is worth noting that the Pro Tour currently requires that players succeed in a mixed schedule of booster draft (DOM/DOM/DOM) and constructed play with 3 rounds of draft this morning at 9am , followed by 5 rounds of Standard starting around 1pm EST/11am PST, Friday.

For we finance types, this is going to be a tricky tournament to make or save money on, given the various factors in play. Firstly, Dominaria’s popularity has resulted in demand exceeding supply on the first wave or product allocations. As a result, heading into this weekend, we still have five mythic rares from the set commanding prices over $10, including Karn, Scion of Urza, Teferi, Hero of Dominaria, Lyra Dawnbringer, History of Benalia and Mox Amber. Of the rares, the most relevant thus far is Goblin Chainwhirler, a consistent four-of in the red decks that is holding $5 at present. On the other hand, additional supply is now making it’s way into the supply chain, and we’re also heading into the summer season that typically leads to a general collapse in card prices, especially for Standard staples, and even more so if they are rotating in the fall. As a result, our focus is likely to be most productive when used to identify the cards that may be set up to spike after the major fall rotation and that we may be able to get on discount during a summer vendor sale or Ebay coupon day.

Cards to Watch

Karn, Scion of Urza

Current Price: $50
Odds to Top 8: 1 in 3
Monday Price: $50

Initially widely underestimated, the new Karn with pants immediately started putting up results in multiple formats as soon as he was released on the unsuspecting Magic population. In Modern, Frank Karsten has been advocating Karn, Scion of Urza as a 2-of in Affinity lists, and we’ve also seen the big metal planeswalker show up in Legacy Mono-Red Prison, Eldrazi and Affinity/Prison hybrid lists where the presence of City of Traitors and Ancient Tomb make Turn 2 Karn a real possibility. In Standard, Karn is in the top 10 most played cards in the format, most prominently appearing in WB Vehicles decks as a 3-of. UB Mid-Range & RB Aggro decks also have been spotted running Karn, though not as consistently. Generally speaking I am most interested in Russian or Korean foils as close to $250 as possible, since they are highly unlikely to see a reprint in the next five years, and should enjoy some strong multi-format support rolling forward that pushes rare original printings sky high. If you have been looking to acquire your personal play set, your position is uncertain. In theory, summer doldrums and additional Dominaria supply should lead to downward price pressure, potentially opening up access to sub $40 copies. On the other hand, a dominant showing this weekend might encourage even more players to pile onto the card speculatively, which would open up a chance for the card to top $60 in the short term. Net, net, I’d recommend holding off for the summer sale season.

Teferi, Hero of Dominaria

Current Price: $35
Odds to Top 8: 1 in 5
Monday Price: $35

Oddly enough, we have not one but two planeswalkers from Dominaria showing early signs of multi-format utility. During spoiler season, players also widely underestimated Teferi but just a month later pro players are now wondering aloud whether the classic character is actually better than the recently unbanned Jace, the Mind Sculptor in blue-based Modern control shells. In EDH, the interaction with Doubling Season in Atraxa super-friends decks will set up a solid support base for the card longer term even if he won’t see the kind of Legacy/Vintage play that Karn does. In Standard, Teferi is only really showing up in the U/W control builds, where it is a rock solid 4-of. As such, price movement over the weekend on Teferi is likely to hinge on that archetype making waves in the Top 8 and winning the tournament without triggering any serious calls for a banning. That’s a narrow tightrope to walk for short term gains, so as with Karn, I am more interested in targeting rare foils and personal playsets of non-foils a bit later this summer.

Goblin Chainwhirler

Current Price: $4
Odds to Top 8: 1 in 5
Monday Price: $5

Goblin Chainwhirler is a hyper efficient aggro card, presenting a significant body, dueling prowess via first strike and the ability to needle the final point of damage against your opponent or pressure Karn or Teferi from outside the red zone. That being said, it’s pretty tough for Standard only rares from a popular set to hold price tags over $5. As a result, I am more interested in this card to potentially top $10 in the fall once supply has drained, on the assumption that there will still be a red or Rx aggro deck that wants this card in the aggro friendly early days of the fall post-rotation format. If a red aggro deck wins this Pro Tour or dominates the Top 8, there is a chance that Chainwhirler could briefly push $8-10, but supply pressures will likely force a retrace in the coming days or weeks.

Mox Amber

Current Price: $12
Odds to Top 8: Near Zero
Monday Price: $11

Mox Amber was perhaps the most hyped card of Dominaria, with pre-order pricing topping $30 a copy. It’s a mox! Buy, buy! Thing is, this is one of the tougher mox incarnations to reliably squeeze early mana out of, and since a deck hasn’t emerged in either Standard or Modern, we are likely to get a good shot at a solid long term spec here. Later this summer I would expect to be able to snag regular copies under $10, and foils under $20, which is something I feel confidant will pay off over a long enough horizon. Eventually, EDH demand is likely to be supplemented by a tipping point of one and two mana legendary permanents, and an interesting Modern deck should emerge that wants the full four copies. Of course there is also a decent chance that your funds get buried in the spec box for three to five years when you could have turned your funds over multiple times in the interim, so you really just need to decide how much of a pet spec this one will be for you.

Walking Ballista

Current Price: $20
Odds to Top 8: 2 in 5
Monday Price: $20

At this point, we should all be fairly suspicious of any XX colorless creature that WoTC deigns to print into Standard. Ballista is another multi-format all-star, with significant play in Modern, Legacy and Vintage. Showing up in 40% of decks in Standard at present Ballista has a very good chance of winning the trophy this weekend, in any of GB Constrictor, UB Control, Rx Aggro or WB Vehicles. This card has more than proven it’s mettle at this point but none of that is likely to overcome the gravity exerted on non-foil copies as we head into the fall rotation of Kaladesh block. Consequently you should almost certainly be trying to unload your non-foil copies. Longer term I like foils (especially Russian/Korean copies) as a hold or rotation period acquisition, but for now you should be looking for the fire exit.

Current Price: $12
Odds to Top 8: 2 in 5
Monday Price: $12

Vraska’s Contempt has seen a surprising amount of play in recent Standard decks given that it carries a CMC of 4. Turns out that in a format that revolves around powerful planeswalkers and threats that need to be exiled to be handled effectively, flexible removal that also adds a bit of a life buffer is at a considerable premium. This card has been as high as $16, and may fall closer to $8 this summer. There is a chance that post-rotation in October this is still one of the best removal spells in Standard, and that that fact pushes the card back over $14, but I think I’ll elect to stay clear in favor of safer plays. I think this is also a sell call, especially if you have copies beyond your personal play set.

Lyra Dawnbringer

Current Price: $20
Odds to Top 8: 1 in 5
Monday Price: $15, $30 if it wins

We have seen expensive mythic angels on the back of strong Standard play patterns before in both Archangel Avacyn and Baneslayer Angel. Lyra however has so far been on a downward trend, starting out around $30 and falling 50% or so since release. With 20% of Standard decks running Lyra, and in a couple of different archetypes, there is a shot that she can recover and push higher if her pilots start putting up big wins this weekend. Overall however, I feel safer with selling Lyra now, and potentially looking to reacquire in late summer once we have a sense of how the fall Standard meta will shape up.

History of Benalia

Current Price: $20
Odds to Top 8: 1 in 5
Monday Price: $20, $30 if it wins

History of Benalia is an interesting spec. This is a mythic card that is showing up in 20% of Standard decks, and the play is supported by 3-4 of inclusion in both UW control and Wx Aggro shells. That’s a strong pedigree, but in just one format. The real question is whether this can be just as good after rotation. If it is, this could be an excellent fall payoff, with the card spiking over $30 at some point in the next year. On this premise, I suspect I will be interested in $15 copies later this summer. On the other hand, if the white enchantment posts up strong Top 8 results and/or wins the weekend, the spike could come a lot sooner. Keep an eye on the Day 2 conversion rates to decide if that’s a decent play in the shorter term.

Will any of the teams find a way to unlock a hot new deck with solid game against the entire field? Will a fringe deck from the early weeks of the format suddenly end up perfectly positioned to take off? Will there be a chance to get in on a must-have card that shows early promise or will the hype train leave the bandwagon speculators out in the cold without enough buyers come Monday morning? Follow along as we explore Pro Tour Dominaria!

Editor’s Note: We will not be providing round by round coverage this weekend but we will provide relevant notes as the weekend progresses.

James Chillcott is the CEO of ShelfLife.net, The Future of Collecting, Senior Partner at Advoca, a designer, adventurer, toy fanatic and an avid Magic player and collector since 1994.

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