Unlocked Pro Trader: MOM’s preconstrughetti

April 11, 2023 Jason Alt

Readers!

We have to talk about the cards from the Mother of Machines preconstructed decks. If I am being honest, most likely the most difficult part of this article will have been the first paragraph. It serves two purposes -it engages people who are going to read the article and it engages the people who are going to read the article on Thursday because they didn’t know they weren’t going to read it today when they clicked on the link. I am not sure I am doing a great job of that right now. If you’re about to move on to the next paragraph, I am going to highlight a bunch of specs based on the MOM preconstructed decks and you can skip right to it if you want. If you’re going to read this Thursday, I am going to unlock the secrets of Mtg Finance and demystify the process of selecting good specs and the next 48 hours will be a free-for-all with readers who read on Tuesday running roughshod over store inventories. If you don’t want to fight for table scraps with all the other slowpokes, consider a membership which also gives you access to the discord server and exclusive group buys.

It might not seem like it, but all of that was sort of an apology that lately my articles have begun to blur together a bit. Even the names aren’t particularly memorable. I am not creating evergreen content here, unfortunately, I am generating a list of specs for my friends and loyal customers so that they don’t have to think about finance if they just like EDH and EDH if they just like finance. If you like both, perhaps you would like my podcast. This is going to be kind of dry despite my best efforts to make it…. juicy? I don’t know what the opposite of “dry” is in this context. You want-a the juice? You like-a the juice? It’s-a time for the juice (but read this in a Greek accent because it’s that SNL sketch, not like a Mario thing). Juice time.

The Juice

I will be honest, the hype around the combo potential with Shalai and Hallar sort of made me think the deck would be more popular since it’s so easy to build. I didn’t count on that having to compete with the popularity of a Ninja deck with Red in it. Let’s take a look.

There isn’t a ton to do here since the good ninjas mostly are reprinted, but there are some interesting things going on here, regardless.

This is a foil that didn’t start out expensive, rather it grew as ninja fever was at its pitch and cooled off as they started giving us 50 new Legendary creatures every month. The sheer number of decks people have distracting them has made it very tough for any deck to receive enough of a consensus to move the needle which is why I have begun to focus on the weekly leaders. Could another ninja deck make this go back to $10 on its own? Perhaps not, but Infiltrator might dodge a reprint in a set and if it does, the foils will be even better. This seems like a chance to buy a future $11 for like $5 now and I don’t hate it despite not feeling all that confident talking about foils.

It sounds ridiculous, but Gingerbrute is an unblockable haste creature for 1 colorless mana and it turns out lots of formats want that and this only has 1 foil printing.

Baldur’s Gate is the best MTG set in a decade and we are going to find cards that are $2 now that will randomly hit $10 years from now. Look at this graph – this card tripled in price in under a year. I would say there aren’t too many mythics from Baldur’s Gate that don’t have insane growth potential. Also, the showcase version is that awful PHB page effect meaning this is the only copy anyone is going to play with.

I don’t know if you ever noticed this dropdown before, but when there are very distinct and obvious ways the deck is getting built, we’ll start to separate them by theme. Looking through by theme is very instructive and I recommend you do it, but just looking at what the themes are is, too. You’ll pick a bunch of different specs if you grok that people are building extra turns decks with these cards even if you got a sense that people were playing that theme when you saw Karlach. You’ll also notice ninjitsu is ten times more popular than Extra turns, in case you wanted to ignore cards like Karlach. I would caution against ignoring top and high synergy cards, however. I realize that putting them on EDHREC means the cards will end up in more decks which will push them higher. That doesn’t mean EDHREC isn’t useful here, in fact, it accidentally works very nicely for our purposes. If we can guess the high synergy cards early enough, we’ll have our prices correct when the time comes.

Saprolings + Red is something I love to see, and if you play EDH, your brain immediately started firing off “Goblin Bombardment, Impact Tremors, Parallel Lives” and yeah, the obvious cards are good to have, but maybe not great specs. To me, great specs are old, cheap, specific, not obsolete, the less redundant the better, obscure, possibly a second spike, and featured on the EDHREC page for the commander. Cards like

The one issue we have? The wall.

Now, with over 600 lists registered in the last week, this wall can be overcome, but people will just root out more copies from binders and boxes. This has all the hallmarks of a good spec except for the new reality in speccing that TCG Player direct has made it worthwhile to list a $0.15 rare and it’s hard to chew through 458 instances of 2 copies per vendor which means you pay $3 for shipping like 250 times. You have to acknowledge reality sometimes, as much as I wanted to be the genius who picked this at bulk.

Here is some more fun – The card on the right is newer, has more copies out there, is worse in basically every way in a deck with a lot of small creautres and the card on the right is worth twice as much as the card on the left. Thanks, Dominaria Remastered. The thing about old cards that people discover when they build a very specific deck like this is that WotC has a long memory, too, and you could get pantsed by a reprint. Symbiosis was a solid $4 card when Slimefoot was peaking and how obvious it was as a spec didn’t matter due to how obvious it was as a reprint.

And then sometimes they don’t reprint something and you get to buy at $10 and sell at $20 like 3 or 4 times and it feels so good it should be considered cheating.

Looking at the themes dropdown page can help you figure out which cards are going to be played across commanders from multiple precons and identify cards that would have gotten lost in the noise generated by Magic players running the same staples in every Jund deck, for example. Also, I looked at a Jund deck and saw Ignoble Hierarch still isn’t done dropping in price and it’s made me realize nothing I used to know matters anymore. What does matter is making the most of your data sources and I hope you’ll consider this source a good one and come back next week so we can finish the rest of these off. Until next time!

Casual Fridays

The Math of March of the Machine

April 7, 2023 Cliff Daigle

Ah, here we are, the dawn of a new set and a whole lot of numbers for me to crunch. Wizards has given us some information, and I can make some good estimates based on research, that combine to paint a pretty good picture of what we should expect in terms of how often the rarest cards drop.

A gentle reminder that this is statistics, not certainties. You might open two serialized cards in the same box, beating the odds. You might open two hundred CBS and not see a single serialized card.

Let’s get to the math, shall we?

Here is the official link for Collecting March of the Machine: https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/feature/collecting-march-of-the-machine. That’s got all the information we need for most of this.

Serialized cards: There’s 65 Multiverse Legends, 500 of each. In the next slot, there’s a spot for the five Praetor-Sagas to show up serialized. Then after that, a slot which could contain a serialized Uncommon from the set of 65. For any serialized card, you’re estimated to get one every 142.8 packs.

The serialized cards overrule whatever else you were going to open in that slot. We know that you’re less than 1% to open one, even with it being in three slots. There will be a total of 35,000 serialized cards to open, and given all the data we have, I’m estimating that it’s more like 0.07%, or one in 143, to open any serialized card of any rarity. Uncommon or Mythic, that’s your odds. If you want a specific card, you’re looking at 70x as many packs, or 10,010. Good luck!

Theoretically, you could open a pack with two serialized cards (one ML and one PS) but that’s something like .7% times .7%, which would be one in 20,408 packs. I would expect to see that a couple of times if I were watching every CB be opened. Three in a row? Sure, that’s only 1 in 2,915,452 packs. Possible, but incredibly unlikely. We estimate that there’s around 5 million Collector Booster packs printed per Standard set. If you get better information, please, reach out to me in the comments, on Discord, or Twitter.

I also want to talk about your odds of pulling a MUL card in Draft Boosters. Every Draft Booster gets a card from that subset. The ratio has traditionally been three uncommons for every one rare and for every .5 mythic rares. Means now it’s 6:2:1, and given the number we have at each rarity level, the pool you pull from for a MUL card is 15 mythics (1 of each), 60 rares, (2 of each), and 120 uncommons (6 of each). Total of 195, and that’s how many packs you’ll need to open to get a nonfoil Ragavan. Only six boxes!

We have a handy graphic for what’s in a Collector Booster, thank you Wizards:

Let’s work from the top of the image downwards (This would also be from the last card in the pack forward, whichever terminology works for you.)

We are given this ratio in the Collecting article for Collector Boosters, and each version has its own collector number:

Traditional foil in 75% of boosters

Foil etched in 14% of boosters

Halo foil in 10% of boosters

Serialized double rainbow in < 1% of boosters

This first (last) slot is only rares and mythics, and we’re also told that there are 20 uncommons, 30 rares, and 15 mythic rares. The uncommons will be in a different slot, so we get to focus on the rares and mythics. Wizards likes a 2:1 ratio for rares and mythics, so the pool of available cards will be 75 cards deep. Your chances of getting a specific rare are 2/75, or 1/37.5. Specific mythics are 1/75.

However, that’s for any version. We have no less than three foil treatments to choose from here. Given the ratios, we can figure out that for every Halo Foil Ragavan, we’ll get 1.4 Etched Foil and 7.5 Traditional Foil versions of the same card. In execution, this means we have to roll for a card and then roll for the version, not counting serialized versions because those are just miracle pulls. Let’s have a table for this slot only, so no uncommons:

Rarity of card	CBs to get any version of a specific card	CBs to get a specific Traditional Foil	CBs to get a specific Etched Foil	CBs to get a specific Halo Foil
Rare	37.5	50	267.9	375
Mythic	75	100	535.7	750

This is a clever trick by Wizards to make new rarities of a card without extra frames or art direction. It will add both a lot of traditional foil copies for those who like shiny things and at the same time, give high-end collectors something to chase that isn’t the serialized version.

The next slot is more of ‘everything else jammed in here’ feeling from the main set. This has all of the following, all rares and mythics in traditional foil. We’ve established that Praetors are around every 142.8 packs, but let’s count up what numbers we’re looking at for these cards.

	# of rares	# of mythics
Planar Booster Fun from March of the Machine	18	10
Extended art from March of the Machine	31	2
Extended art from March of the Machine Jumpstart	5
Borderless art from March of the Machine		3
Extended art from March of the Machine Commander	42	12
	96	27

Important to note that these are foil pulls, and so there will be FEA versions of all the Commander cards. Other sets, there have been occasional foils, or EA only with no foils, and here we get the full FEA.

Our pool in this slot is 219 cards, which is lower than a lot of other sets have been if you compare them. ONE was every 326 for Phyrexian planeswalkers, and BRO was every 299 packs for FEA mythics. The big difference in MOM is that we don’t have multiple versions of the same card, aside from the Praetors.

I’m expecting a LOT of these cards to be out there, given the chase for serialized cards and the way players go after lotto tickets like this.

	Rarity	Percent chance for any card of that category	Percent chance for a specific card of that category	# of CBs to open one specific card from that category
Planar Booster Fun from March of the Machine	Rare	16.4%	0.9%	109.5
	Mythic	9.1%	0.45%	219
Extended art from March of the Machine	Rare	28.3%	0.9%	109.5
	Mythic	0.9%	0.45%	219
Extended art from March of the Machine Jumpstart	Rare	4.6%	0.9%	109.5
Borderless art from March of the Machine	Mythic	1.4%	0.45%	219
Extended art from March of the Machine Commander	Rare	38.4%	0.9%	109.5
	Mythic	5.5%	0.45%	219

The MUL uncommons get two whole slots to themselves: one for Halo and Etched foils, plus the serialized versions, and then a slot dedicated to traditional foils alone. With 20 uncommons in that subset, you’ve got this set of odds over those two slots:

	Rarity	Percent chance for any card of that category	Percent chance for a specific card of that category	# of CBs to open one specific card from that category
Halo Foil Uncommon from MUL subset	Uncommon	25%	1.25%	80
Etched Foil Uncommon from MUL subset	Uncommon	75%	3.75%	26.7
Traditional Foil Uncommon from MUL subset	Uncommon	100%	5%	20

With all this in mind, let’s put the data together and get some outcomes for different cards we might be after:

	Rarity	Percent chance for any card of that category	Percent chance for a specific card of that category	# of CBs to open one specific card from that category
MUL Traditional Foil	Uncommon	100%	5%	20
MUL Traditional Foil	Rare	50%	2%	50
MUL Traditional Foil	Mythic	25%	1%	100
MUL Etched Foil	Uncommon	75%	3.75%	26.7
MUL Etched Foil	Rare	9.3%	0.3%	267.9
MUL Etched Foil	Mythic	4.6%	0.18%	535.7
MUL Halo Foil	Uncommon	25%	1.25%	80
MUL Halo Foil	Rare	6.6%	2.6%	375
MUL Halo Foil	Mythic	3.3%	0.13%	750
MUL or MOM Serialized	Any	0.7%	0.0001%	10,010
MOM Planar Frame	Rare	16.4%	0.9%	109.5
MOM Planar Frame	Mythic	9.1%	0.45%	219
MOM Foil Extended Art	Rare	28.3%	0.9%	109.5
MOM Foil Extended Art	Mythic	0.9%	0.45%	219
MOM Jumpstart FEA	Rare	4.6%	0.9%	109.5
MOM Foil Borderless	Mythic	1.4%	0.45%	219
MOC Foil Extended Art	Rare	38.4%	0.9%	109.5
MOC Foil Extended Art	Mythic	5.5%	0.45%	219

And finally, let’s look at examples of the rarest cards:

Card/treatment/set	Approx. number of CBs needed to find one copy
Serialized Foil Double Rainbow Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer (MUL)	10,010
Traditional Foil Planar Frame Sheoldred, Whispering One (MUL)	100
Etched Planar Foil Atraxa, Praetors’ Voice (MUL)	535.7
Halo Foil Niv-Mizzet Reborn (MUL)	750
Traditional Foil Borderless Wrenn and Realmbreaker (MOM)	219
Traditional Foil Extended Art Guardian Scalelord (MOC)	109.5

There’s a lot of numbers here, and I’ve tried to clarify what is going on in each, as well as explain my math. If you want to discuss this, or point out my mistakes, please reach out on Twitter, in the Discord, or the comments below!

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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.

Jason Alt, Unlocked ProTrader

Unlocked Pro Trader: To Infinity and Beyond

April 4, 2023 Jason Alt

Readers!

I sometimes use naughty NSFW swears in my tweets so I don’t like them here, but if you have a cool boss or don’t browse on your company’s network, you should read my tweets because they are insightful and my number of followers shows that I am underrated and you are a hipster on the bleeding edge of Magic content made by people who don’t make YouTube videos or Tik Toks. Want to talk to a guy who is launching 2 different written-article-based content sits in year of our Lord two kay twenty3? That’s me, do it. I’ll even link my twitter for you. Now, on to the picks!

I called this article what I did because Wizards used to let a Saheeli Cat slip through once every 5 years or so, but that was when they were making 4 sets a year, not 4 products a month. It’s tougher to keep track of what you’re doing when you do nothing but fart out a steady stream of products. Imagine how much broken junk is coming down the pike now that the products coming out were made during COVID lockdowns by people who likely had trouble playtesting. It seems likely that we’re going to see a lot more boring combos where 1 part of the combo is a card and the only other combo piece is your commander. Super fun format, guys, thanks for focusing on it.

Whether or not you agree Saheeli Cat and its ilk are boring (I’m right but you’re allowed to disagree), we are getting more stuff, and there seems to be a very common culprit.

Now we could do an entire article about cards that combo with The Red Terror, but I might as well show you a website EDHREC helped build.

Commander’s Spellbook from Day 1 was a community-driven passion project where dedicated absolute lunatics set out to think up every Magic card combo and compile them in an indexable database. EDHREC is a good resource for how people are going to build decks, but Commander Spellbook is great for days like today where they show us a card and we have to quickly figure out what else that card combos with. Today, we got this.

Now, Shalai amd Hallar are not unique in being very, very new cards that combo with The Red Terror. Some of the combo pieces are VERY recent.

However, since an entire deck will get built, and everyone is going to build the exact same deck, we should try and anticipate what will be in there. Luckily, the internet saw fit to give us a ton of examples and I also know a bit about EDH so I compiled the best 5 cards to look at for going in this dumb combo deck where, again, you only need 1 card that isn’t your commander. Also, The Red Terror isn’t the only card that combines with Shallar over here, so let’s look at it first them move on.

Is this a real price, though?

OK, so this card plus Shalai and Hallar ends the game and it’s actually trending down despite the combo with All Will Be One. The card, not the set, the official full name of which I never learned.

I don’t think I can make a stronger case for The Red Terror than “Shivam tweeted about it” and Shivam, who is legitimately a lovely human and wonderful source of information, has a wide reach and a way of building decks that resonates with the people who want to have fun with Commander. This isn’t the way to do it, true, but that’s his base anyway.

He seems roughly as thrilled as I am. Still, if this dumb. obvious, linear commander is what we’ve got, let’s buy the rest of the deck so the people who build it next week have to buy from us.

I am not thrilled by a $20 buyin, but this is also a card that is other combos, including one in Modern. By “one” I mean “one deck” not one combo. People play up to 4 copies of this in not EDH so the fact that this has cross-format applicability and is a 1-shot KO with a new card means that we are unlikely to see the price stay the same. Maybe it won’t be $35 again, but it won’t be $15 again, either. You know, barring a significant reprint.

Historically, reprinted cards are capped at about midway between the pre- and post-spike price. $9 barring another reprint is respectable, but anything under $5 is very wrong based on the present circumstances.

This will never go up, they farted out too many special versions no one asked for. There are a million listings for this card under a buck on TCG Player. Shame.

A modest bump in buying in January saw this insane price leap for the foils, which we all probably have in our bulk foils but they’re too curly to flip through so they just stay jammed tightly in 4 rows under a dessicating lamp waiting for the day the moisture content is perfect and they flatten out to a pringles shape.

The non-foil is $3. What do we think the non-foil does under ideal circumstances?

This, ideally. I think Pure Flame is more likely to synergize with new cards even if Renewal is way better. Different sets, mind you, but same block and Worldwake packs got bought a ton because of course they did.

This is a good card. I wanted people to play Thief of Blood but they never did. Can I get people to play Blightbeetle? I doubt it! If I had any influence, Helm of Possession would be $20. Still, this was $5 at one point and now it’s 1/3 of that. Seems relevant.

I think new cards can cause a lot of shakeup, sometimes more than others, but with so many linear commanders every few weeks, only the truly popular will impact prices. Will this deck? Who knows, but in this game you’re either quick or certain and today I wanted to be quick. Thanks for reading, everyone. Until next time!

Casual Fridays

MOM’s Early Mythics

March 31, 2023 Cliff Daigle

Early pre-order prices have come out for some of the mythics in March of the Machine, a set premiering the first new card type since Lorwyn gave us planeswalkers. As a result, the prices on these cards are mostly very high, and while I’m unlikely to be buying anything right now, it’s always a good idea to at least look and consider before dismissing out of hand.

We haven’t gotten all of the mythics yet, but we’ve gotten a peek at Battles. In this set, all of the Battles are Sieges, where you cast the card, it’s in play and you get an effect, then you choose an opponent to defend it. Each Siege has a number of defense counters, which apparently can be attacked and removed just as planeswalkers can have happen. When the last is removed, the card transforms, and you’re told what to do. Neat!

Let’s talk about the cards we’ve seen. Please note that these preorder prices are accurate as of Friday morning, but those prices can move fast.

Wrenn and Realmbreaker (preordering for around $60) – There’s no doubt this is a good card, and anyone who’s played Chromatic Lantern knows how sweet it is to just tap whatever lands and cast everything. That’s a good ability, especially when stapled to WaR’s regular suite of land animation, regrowing a permanent, and an emblem that I’ll concede to just about every time because I can’t beat that level of card advantage.

However, this preorder price is a doozy. MOM is juiced as hell, with a set of expensive reprints, serialized versions, and serialized versions of expensive reprints! This is a regular Standard set, though, and that means we’re about to open an enormous amount of product. This price will fall quite far, and you should absolutely sell any copies you open/trade for at the prerelease before it drops to $20.

Sword of Once and Future ($30) – It’s really unfair that the first Sword of X and Y basically got you two cards’ worth of value on the first hit, because every Sword after that has had to live up to that standard. Several of the Swords can get you there, but this last Sword requires the right deck to be good. It will be very good in that deck, casting a free two-CMC-or-less spell every time it connects, but you can’t recast the same spell due to the exile clause. I think completionists will want this card, but I’m not sure about everyone else and this price will tumble to $10 or less.

Thalia and The Gitrog Monster ($27) – If you like giving your opponents a hard time, this is your Commander. It’s a huge slowdown, near-impossible to beat in combat, and can turn excess lands into cards in hand. I think we’re going to see a lot of these decks in Commander pods, and in Standard, it might be enough to get there given how greedy most manabases are. The price will fall, but I think there will be just enough demand to keep it from plummeting too far down.

Archangel Elspeth ($20) – This price feels about right, and that’s weird for me to think. Most cards fall, and perhaps this is the one that doesn’t. This version of Elspeth protects itself with a token, upgrades that token so you go from offense to defense real quick, and has an ultimate that may or may not be worth it, depending on your deck. There’s a mono-white aggro deck in Standard right now that is going to play at least two copies of this card, can you imagine a curve of Adeline, Resplendent Cathar into this?

Elspeth might actually rise from this price at the beginning, so be aware. If you wanted to get your copies now, knowing you play a deck that wants her, I’d say go for it.

Chandra, Hope’s Beacon ($25) – Most of the Izzet legendary creatures for Commander want you to be casting lots of instants and sorceries, and this Chandra is an auto-include for such decks. Double Vision isn’t expensive and gives the same static ability, but this Chandra jams on the gas hard for what those decks want. It’s an excellent card, it will decide Commander games, and it’s overpriced at $25. It’ll settle at $15 or so.

Monastery Mentor ($5) – This was already Pioneer legal, so don’t get your hopes up for a spike here. Regular nonfoils are going to be a buck or two, and maybe the fancier versions can get higher, but there’s a lot of sets and a lot of inventory. I just can’t see it climbing higher.

Zurgo and Ojutai ($15) – I am a Dragon enthusiast, and I am enthusiastic about this card. It’s card to cast at three colors, so it needs the right deck, but hitting right away (and hitting a battle!) gets you a card back right away. This is important, because your opponents will be envious and kill this creature right away. I adore everything about this card, but I also recognize that it’s tough to cast and not something most decks will try to do. I’m expecting to see this at half its current price or less.

Invasion of Tarkir ($20) – Again, as a Dragons player, I’m eager to try this card. It’s two mana to hit something for 6-8 points of damage in my average hand, and the flip side is probably an instant concession from most tables. We also have ample evidence that the regular versions of things that are Dragon-focused aren’t necessarily expensive, and I expect this to get to $5 or less for regular versions. Don’t forget that The Ur-Dragon is getting a reprint this August, and we’re going to see a lot of people building Dragon decks, so it might bounce in price quickly or never get cheap at all. (Club meetings are Tuesdays, I’m the EVP in charge of enthusiasm, welcome aboard!)

Invasion of Shandalar (no price yet) – Another card that’s hard to argue with in most decks playing Green, this is pretty darn amazing. Three permanents is a lot, and hopefully at least one of them is a creature you can attack with. Outstanding Commander card, and something I’d like to stock up on when these are at their cheapest near the end of summer.

Invasion of Ravnica ($23) – A cute trick of a card, this is incredibly niche. It’s a niche that fits into a surprising amount of decks, though, and while I don’t think it’ll be expensive, I think it will get a lot of people trying it out. If you have a two-color Commander, you ought to consider the card. If you’ve got a lot of two-color spells, you should give it a try. Lots of decks can use a 5 mana ‘exile almost any permanent’ spell. Price-wise, this will be under $10 in a few weeks, so you don’t need to be in a hurry.

Invasion of New Phyrexia ($27) – The comparisons to Kamigawa’s Eiganjo Uprising are merited, as this is a very powerful spell for its cost. There is no point where it’s horrible, though three mana for a single 2/2 vigilance is below the curve. If you need it, then you need it. Don’t overlook that you can bounce the battle to your hand, as it’s a permanent. Recasting it should be backbreaking in most games.

Should you flip into Teferi’s newest card, it’s also very powerful. The plus is great if you want filtering or have creatures, the emblem gets you farther ahead, and the minus three works great with vigilance creatures, which you happen to have!

I don’t think this will fall very far, price-wise. It fits into a lot of Commander decks, is likely to see some play in Standard, and being as modal as it is, it’s new and amazing. I’m doubtful it will fall much below $20 for a while, but it might by Christmas.