Tipping Point: Invocations About to Pop (Apr 2/18)

April 3, 2018 James Chillcott

Welcome to the second installment in my Tipping Point series, which looks to explore important cards that are teetering on the verge of major price spikes due to low supply. My focus here is to try and flag cards in time for you to grab what you need for decks or get in early enough to profit. In comparison to picks made earlier in the reprint cycle, the cards found in this series are going to a) offer less meat on the bone but b) be more likely to succeed (due to their already low supply/reprint risk). You will also notice that many of these picks will tend to be foils and promos rather than non-foils as for obvious reasons foils tend to dry up much faster than non-foils, except for the most important of staples, where regular copies may quickly follow during a spike in demand. In terms of timeline, I’ll be aiming to get you in and out of positions within a year, or setting you up to save good money on cards you might have been holding back on unnecessarily.

This week we’re looking at the Amonkhet Invocations. Perhaps the most maligned of the Masterpiece Series cards released so far, the Invocations put off many players due to their busy borders and near illegibility as game pieces.

Despite the fact that I’m personally not a fan of the borders, given my success with the Kaladesh Investions over the last year, I’ve been checking in on the Invocations to see which if any, seem likely to break out. Blood Moon currently has the lowest inventory of the Invocations in North America and is very near a tipping point of it’s own, but at $140 buy-in, the % returns are tough to predict from here forward given how popular the M25 foils may end up. (I’d guess Blood Moon ends up near $200 given enough time.)

Without further ado here are my picks for cards at the tipping point heading into early spring.

1) Blood Moon (Invocation)

Current Price: $140
Target Price/Timeline: $200+ (6-12+ months)

Indisputably the most important Modern card in the Invocation list, Blood Moon also sees play in both Legacy and EDH as well. This should mark this version as the most durably popular of the Invocations, but there are a few cautionary notes. Firstly, the card was a lot more exciting near it’s lows around $90. The other factor is that this card has a small pile of competing versions, including foils from 8th, 9th, Modern Masters, Modern Masters 2017 and M25. That really is a lot of competition, but the reality is that the inventory has been draining hard on this version. Given that word on the street is that Hour of Devestation is already out of print on low demand, Invocations from that set are likely to be very tough to restock moving forward and this could be contributing to the low stock.

2) No Mercy (Invocation)

No Mercy
Current Price: $30
Target Price/Timeline: $50+ (6-12 months)

Surprisingly, the other Invocation representing very low supply is black enchantment No Mercy, a powerful EDH card that has only ever been printed in foil (or otherwise) one other time, way back in Urza’s Legacy. EDHRec has the card reported in 4000+ decks, which suggests moderate demand, but it’s possible the card is underplayed by black mages overall. In contrast to Blood Moon, this is a cheap card that has only seen two foils in twenty years so it should be a strong option for acquisition given the solid price floor, broad utility in EDH and good possible upside.

3) Maelstrom Pulse (Invocation)

Maelstrom Pulse

Current Price: $55
Target Price/Timeline: $80+ (3-6 months)

Maelstrom Pulse is another card with multiple competing foil printings (Alara Reborn, Modern Masters & GP Promo) but with Jund back on the menu in Modern this season, all of them are on the rise. This version can currently be found between $55 and $60 and I can see it easily cresting $80 before the end of the year given how small the supply already is. As with Blood Moon there is some moderate EDH demand to backstop this play.

4) Diabolic Intent (Invocations)

Current Price: $32
Target Price/Timeline: $50+ (3-6 months)

This card may not be on your radar but that’s probably because it’s only EVER seen one other printing, with the original fifteen years ago in Planeshift. OG foils already go for $65+ and the odds of WoTC reprinting this again anytime soon are low given their general lack of interest in efficient tutors. Supply on the Invocations is already low, the black cards are the best looking of the set, and EDHREC.com reports 7000 decks running the card already, which as with No Mercy, is probably too low. I see no reason to hold off on picking a few of these up to add to decks and wait for the near inevitable payoff.

5) Hazoret the Fervent

Hazoret the Fervent

Current Price: $140 ($80 in the EU…for now)
Target Price/Timeline: $140+ (6-12 months)

We’re late on this one. Of course Hazoret was a major part of Standard this year, but it’s not Standard players that recently cleaned this version of the card out closer to $60. Those purchases were almost certainly made on the assumption that this will be an occasional player in Jund builds for Modern for some time to come. I’d pass on the card at the current North American prices, but you can still source it closer to $80 in Europe, so I’ve picked up a few on the assumption that the Invocation can hold $100+ moving forward. There is some possibility that copies will enter the market when Hazoret rotates out of Standard this fall, but I wouldn’t hold your breath on a major price drop for this version.

That’s it for this edition of Tipping Point. Expect me to check in with new editions once a month to keep you guys on the cutting edge. Take care and have fun!

Watchtower

PROTRADER: The Watchtower 4/2/18

April 2, 2018 Travis Allen 2 Comments

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. And if you enjoy playing Magic, make sure to visit https://scry.land to find PPTQs, SCG Opens, and more events on an interactive map with worldwide coverage. Find Magic near you today.

Overall Easter weekend was on the quieter side of things in the world of Magic. There was a team limited grand prix overseas, which was fun for the people over there I’m sure, but as far as we’re concerned, it would have been more relevant to watch a stream of kitchen table Magic.

There was a Modern MOCS yesterday too, which had some less-than-predictable results. Hollow One and Humans were the decks to beat, with the best performances by a sizeable margin. Storm and Jund face planted. Ironworks…showed up? And Tron probably upset some people.

Tom Ross wrote an article on Friday about some cool Modern decks, and it’s worth knowing he wrote that. That ran on DailyMTG, which is a lot of eyeballs.

Retract

Price Today: $3
Possible Price: $10

Tom’s article over on the mothership certainly got people talking this week, because I sold four playsets of Puresteel Paladin in two days after not having sold any in who knows how long. If Magic players today are anything like I was ten years ago, seeing a fairly cheap combo deck like that got a lot of casual players excited to build it, especially since it’s “adaptable” to be affordable. (That means cutting the moxes, which of course ruins the entire deck, but that’s the type of detail those same players will happily overlook.)

Anyways, if this deck picks up steam, whether on kitchen tables or final tables, Retract is the weakest link. A single printing in Mirrodin means supply is as low as possible in Magic’s most popular competitive format, Modern. It’s a cornerstone card in the deck, and I’m not sure you could ever build the strategy without a full playset. It’s a just about the ripest confluence of factors around a card spiking you could ask for. (Save for the deck, being like, good.)

Supply is decently high right now, but that’s in part due to Retract having had the briefest of moments in the sun a year ago. That jump brought the card up from $2 into the $10+ range, which dredged every spare copy in existence up. That supply is now sitting around in the hands of some vendors and various market operators, and much of that is available online right now. In other words, there’s not really any supply beyond what’s visible in the market.

Diplomatic Immunity

Price Today: $.5
Possible Price: $4

If you poke around over at EDHREC, you’ll see that Zur the Enchanter has been popular the last few months. He’s an odd commander that pushes players into notable card choices. One of them that jumped out at me is Diplomatic Immunity. Immunity is from a different time period in Magic’s design history. It gives itself and the creature it enchants shroud. That’s it. An annoying enchantment. Truly, Magic is the greatest game.

Diplomatic Immunity is a gold standard in Zur, since it helps ensure he hangs around for more shenanigans on follow up turns. Not only can Zur fetch it, but there’s a whole enchantment subtheme with the deck, so it fits in well. Overall you’ll find Immunity in about 2,000 EDH decks, which isn’t a remarkably deep pool, but it’s not insignificant.

What catches my eye here is that like Retract, it’s a single printed card. It’s a common from Mercadian Masques with no second printing. If Zur continues to see new decks being built, supply is going to drain on Immunity. We’re not going to see a $20 card here, but a jump from pocket change to several dollars is possible. Selling these one at a time on TCGPlayer or eBay would be annoying, but buying in at $.45 and then dumping a stack to a buylist for $1.50 a few months later would be awfully sweet.

Rhystic Study

Price Today: $10
Possible Price: $20

Anyone that’s ever listed copies of Rhystic Study for sale on TCG knows how hot a commodity this is. It’s one of the most popular blue EDH cards, which is really saying something. It’s also basically a meme unto itself; “You pay one for that? Pay one for that? Pay one for that?”

Given how quickly these move, as 1-ofs, there’s no doubt that EDH players are vacuuming them up at an alarming rate. So far there’s been enough churn to keep the market liquid, but I wonder if we’re approaching a turning point on that. Players have to be getting rid of these pretty fast to keep up with the demand in the market right now. EDH players often like to stash their cards, not sell them, so I’d expect a healthy attrition on a staple like this. A constant upwards price movement for years supports my suspicions.

$10 for a common may seem crazy, but this has moved far beyond its printed rarity. There’s not a lot left out there at this price, or less than $20 in general. If this trend continues, this will be a blue EDH staple that’s at least a Jackson before too long.

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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Casual Fridays

UNLOCKED PROTRADER: Kaladesh Block at Rotation

March 30, 2018 Cliff Daigle

We’re halfway into the Dominaria previews but I never want to lose sight of a much bigger deal: The yearly rotation is coming up, and fast. At the end of September, Kaladesh block and Amonkhet block will rotate out of Standard, and head for one of three areas:

Eternal formats like Modern and Legacy
Casual formats like Commander and Cube
The Bulk Bins (or the equivalent)

There’s going to be a bump in supply around the time of rotation, and in years past that was a big hit. That’s not so much the case anymore. Lots of soon-to-be-rotating cards have been trending downward for a while.

These are prices I want to watch, and I have an ideal price in mind. If things fall to that target, I’m moving in. If they stabilize above that price, I’ll have to evaluate what to do.

Spirebluff Canal ($8 nonfoil/$15 foil)

Red/Blue, available immediately…yup. Storm.

All of the enemy-colored fastlands are decent targets, especially because we’re overdue to get the allied-color ones reprinted someplace. They are not 100% gold in Modern, though, because a lot of decks don’t play the full set of four, often using two or less. Spirebluff is the most attractive because Storm, one of the most popular and least expensive decks, plays the full set. If Wizards decides that Storm is too good and needs a banning (again) then this will take a hit and there’s not much you can do to mitigate that risk.

Target Price: $6 and $15

I would like to hope for $5 but I think it’s a little too popular for that. $6 sounds about right, but I think this is a super-solid pickup at $15 for the foils, with the idea that you’re safe from a random Commander deck reprint.

Panharmonicon ($3/$10)

You know how good this is. It was $10 at release, as everyone sought to break it in Standard and it’s been trickling lower ever since. Frankly, I’m surprised that it’s gone this low already. It sees no play in formats besides Commander and casual circles, and that’s a two-edged sword. I love having a stack of these that can consistently appreciate over time, but this is also a card that’s very very easy to add to a new Commander deck printing and torpedo that value.

Target: $2/$10

I am much bigger on picking up foils here. Getting in at $2 won’t be traumatic, even if it gets reprinted I can put them aside for a long time and wait it out. Foils, though, because these are Commander gold. You don’t need a big stack of these, as the appreciation creeps upwards and I won’t be shocked when it is a $20 foil in a year.

Saheeli Rai ($4.50/$15)

There’s still an infinite combo to fire off in Modern, and considering that she hasn’t seen much play since the banning of Felidar Guardian, she’s not as cheap as you might expect. Nissa, Vital Force is $3. Dovin Baan is $2. That’s the expected rate for planeswalkers that see no play. Saheeli requires a Commander deck with artifacts for her ultimate, and she can’t be used in Atraxa decks.

Target: $4/$12

Something’s got her price up that can’t be tracked, and I suspect that it’s casual players. What I’m betting on, though, is a new infinite combo of some kind. It’ll be another mistake, and Modern will be awful for a couple of months, but I’ll be selling into that hype.

Inventors’ Fair ($1/$6.50)

What’s not to love about a land that will help your artifact deck out? It gets really tasty as a spec when you see that it’s a three-of in the Krark-Clan Ironworks deck that was 3rd place at GP Phoenix. Lantern Control has been playing one or two copies for some time, but really, this is a card that is an auto-add in artifact-themed Commanders. Being good in Modern will just accelerate the process.

Target: current price, maybe -10%

I don’t think this will fall farther, and honestly, the GP performance might lead to a spike. It’s already got a high foil multiplier, meaning that Commander players have been soaking up the foil copies these two years. The reprint risk is high here too, so foils are where I’d prefer to be.

Lifecrafter’s Bestiary ($2/$5)

Scrying and drawing. Are we sure its color identity is green?

I love this card. I honestly can’t play it enough in Commander. I love everything that it does for me and at such a low cost!

The reprint risk is still a real thing, and the foils are surprisingly low as a multiplier. The price has been edging upwards ever since it was sub-$1, and while you can still get playsets for $8 on eBay, that won’t last too much longer.

Target: current price

I don’t need this to drop lower, and I don’t think it will. It’s trending upward, and I expect it to stabilize in the current price range. It might even keep going up! Again, foils are safer and more likely to pop sooner, due to the much lower supply.

Whir of Invention ($2/$8)

I’ve sung the virtues of this card before, and while you can’t get it for under a buck anymore, you can still get in cheaply. I’m less afraid of reprints here, as it’s got a mechanic and a usage that’s more specific to artifacts and tougher to just throw in. It was a three-of in the KCI deck, so a spike this week may be incoming.

Target: Now. It’s been on an upward path, and the foils have hit prices of nearly $20 after it did well at the PT. Get your few now while the hype is low!

Bonus! Don’t buy these as spec targets, intriguing as it might be.

Verdurous Gearhulk ($4/$9/$27): The masterpiece foil makes the growth too slow for my taste, as great as it is. The foil will always be existing in limbo, but huge growth is not going to happen.

Exquisite Archangel ($1/$4): You might be thinking that this is Commander all the way, but really, how good is Platinum Angel? This is possibly good but it dies or get bounced first, and then you’re dead. Don’t fall into the trap here.

Cliff is an avid Cuber and Commander player, and has a deep love for weird ways to play this amazing game, as well as being guest host on MTGFF when needed. His current project is a light-up sign for attracting Cubers at GPs, so get his attention @wordofcommander on Twitter if you’ve got ideas or designs.

Jason Alt, ProTrader, Unlocked ProTrader

Unlocked Pro Trader: Speculating on Speculation

March 27, 2018 Jason Alt 2 Comments

Nerds,

I was going to take a look at Jodah or something today and while that’s probably relevant at some point, I think there’s something else that is pretty important and it’s never too early to talk about it. I saw something curious and maybe I’m reading too much into it, but probably not. I mean, maybe. Maybe not. Not probably not, I don’t know the actual probability. That’s a good point, actually. Let’s address that point before I move on.

Have you even made a point yet?

Yes, I sure have. I said I don’t know the probability that I’m right or wrong about this thing I’m speculating about that I’ll tell you about later. We never really know the odds but since I know less than nothing; we’re talking our unknowns are unknown, I’m going to try and make my picks with some caveats, namely that I’m not going to diverge too far from my current speculation ethos for this column.

Currently I am using data, albeit small amounts sometimes, to make very safe picks based on what I know the near future to be. EDH allows us to do that with the lag time between online decklist adoption and actual paper decklist adoption. I’m not going to stray too far from that. While I’m forced to speculate about speculation, I am going to try and confine my picks to ones that won’t leave you holding the bag later if one or more of our assumptions turns out faulty. I sold a lot more copies of Squandered Resources than I did Didgeridoo. Didgeridid? Whatever. The point is, if I make a pick that wasn’t going to go up anyway, albeit probably slower, I’ll make a note that you’re assuming risk and should only do so if you can afford to lose the money and agree with all of our dumb assumptions.

Isn’t it funny that I’m like 4 years into writing this column and I’m only now telling you to only spec with money you can afford to lose? That’s how good EDH finance is, I never assume we won’t get there. Even our misses are just longer-term hits, baby! Bet it all on black!

OK, that out of the way, let’s talk about the assumptions we’re making. First, the piece of news upon which our assumptions are predicated.

The News

Someone in the EDHREC writers Slack channel alerted me to this press release. No, that wasn’t intended as a name drop. It’s an exclusive Slack channel, but not in that good a way. It’s exclusive like the club of people who turned themselves blue drinking colloidal silver is exclusive – yeah, you’re not in the group but that’s fine, trust me. Let’s examine the thing.

Enhance

Too far

Awww yisss. If this is what I think it is, it’s another Commander precon series with Planeswalkers at the helm. That’s assumption numero the first.

My next assumption is that planeswalkers will be legal as commanders from now on. It’s possible that it’s just all of us wanting it that makes us think it’s so but I said I wouldn’t hose you by making picks that won’t pan out if this assumption is wrong so let’s pretend we already know it’s true and save ourselves some equivocating.

When Do We Make Some Money?

I thought I’d never pretend you asked. Let’s do that now, shall we?

Our main assumptions, restated are

Commander 2018 will have Planeswalkers as the commanders.
Any Planeswalker will be a legal commander starting in late 2018.

From that, I can make a few sub-assumptions that can help us figure some things out.

The decks are $40 MSRP which is more than normal. Either the walkers will be pushed in power level or they’re allowing themselves to reprint expensive cards they didn’t before (Doubling Season?)
4 decks means they won’t be all mono-colored. Commander 2017 showed they stress color balance over the set not over the decks and gave us a 5-color Dragon and 2-color cat and stuff in between.
My Ajani Vengeant deck will make them regret the decision to allow older ‘walkers to be commanders.

I think hype alone is going to drive some prices if any of this information is confirmed, so we have a small window to act on it before everyone else comes to the conclusions we’re coming to today and scoops the cards. Better from us at a higher price than at current retail because we napped on this info.

The Chain Veil

Old Chainy veil is calming down a bit and my initial impression was that this is a likely reprint in the Commander decks or more likely one of them, but I got to thinking, is it? The Chain Veil is played in two types of decks with Planeswalkers; Superfriends, which is a deck with a lot of Planeswalkers and Chain Veil Teferi, a deck that uses exactly one Planeswalker in particular and rarely any others, although not always. The two reprint scenarios, then are either a Teferi reprint or a ‘Walker that is similarly good with The Chain Veil which won’t happen because you can’t put the stupid Chain Veil/Teferi infinite combo in a precon and only charge 5 extra dollars and expect the other decks to compete. You also can’t jam $300 worth of Planeswalkers in a $40 precon and call it a Superfriends deck, and you can put 4 Planeswalkers in a precon and call it a Superfriends deck. Since The Chain Veil isn’t great outside of those two scenarios, neither of which is appropriate for a precon (though fine to be built by the end user) I think reprint risk is mitigated. That gives us a declining, second-spike-ready artifact that can go in any Planeswalker deck that wants it. I think this goes up on hype as much as playability and you can always sell off before the full decklists are announced if you really are afraid of a reprint.

The foil is down, too. Hallelujah. A lot of this decrease is post-Atraxa hangover where the bad angel promised to make every card in any possible build $20 forever but there is a real chance for this to recover, especially with its reprint risk farther mitigated. This doesn’t even have to play nicely with the new cards to go up on hype, so be on the supply side of the coming wave.

Doubling Season

This is a bit of an obvious one, too, but I don’t know how good it would be outside of superfriends builds, necessarily. Also, people could always build that before and allowing a Planeswalker to helm the deck isn’t necessarily going to make that option more attractive. Unlike the Chain Veil, this only goes in green decks and if there is no new 5 color Walker (can you imagine? Yuck) I don’t know. Now that the two obvious ‘Walker cards are out of the way, it becomes a little tougher to figure out what we can make money off of. Let’s add to that the fact that all of the other cards in Superfriends seem to only be good at finding ‘Walkers in the deck.

Meh.

Ugh.

Oy vey.

We’re going to need to try a different approach, and that is to look at any cards in common between the 5 existing Planeswalker commanders. So… artifacts? Lands?

If I don’t say something smart pretty soon, this was a waste of an observation.

I’ll save like and hour on EDHREC – there’s nothing. There are no common cards between the 5 current Planeswalkers as Commanders and I doubt there’s anything in common with the new ones. That means we basically have to slide down a tier of certainty if we’re going to come up with anything worthwhile.

We’re Speccing For Real

I’ll finish this article by talking about the Planeswalkers I think would be the best Commanders and if there are any cards that pair nicely with them.

Tamiyo, Field Researcher

This would be nuts as a Commander, especially in green where you can cast her with Doubling Season and get the emblem right away on top of refilling your grip. This card isn’t super exciting outside of the odd Atraxa build right now but if this is in your command zone, your mana dorks draw cards, you can frost dudes all day and you can say goodbye to mana. Whaaa? There’s no interacting with that stupid emblem, either. Good luck.

Cards that pair well with this build –

Doubling Season

Enter the Infinite

Every Eldrazi

Ajani Vengeant

This probably isn’t that good but I’m still going to build the stupid thing. Screw you and your lands in particular, scrub.

Cards that pair well with this build – I don’t even know, I regret bringing it up.

Kaya, Ghost Assassin

I see people call this a good Stax commander, and I can’t disagree. This would be annoying as hell to play against.

Cards that pair well with this build –

Stax cards.

I don’t know, Hokori?

Smokestacks probably? I think?

Let me google EDH stax cards.

Some dude wrote a whole crazy primer, but they all seem to want

So be apprised of that. Those cards are all probably good pickups anyway.

I feel like any of the decent commanders could get their own entire article. If we do it that way, we’ll want to wait until people start building the decks that way, so as much fun as I’m having here, there isn’t much point in continuing.

What I think we’ll do is revisit this when there is something more actionable and we may give any given commander the article treatment the way we would any new Legendary creature. For now, I think there are moves to make here and I am really feeling good about The Chain Veil because even an announcement is going to drive buying and we want to be holding copies when that happens.

I hope you got some value from this piece and we’ll try something a little more traditional next week. Until then!

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