Readers,

Today I was supposed to try and predict some more of what was going to be in Masters 25 so we can dump those cards because it didn’t feel like there was any sense of immediacy to buy anything (except stupid cryptocurrency, I guess) but looking at card prices of good EDH cards has made me marvel at how well some of them shrugged off Modern Masters printings. Iconic Masters seems to be printed more than we’d anticipated but people also seem to have moved on to draft Unstable because it’s a third of the cost and way more fun. With Iconic Masters prices near their bottom, maybe we should look at how long we expect it to be before prices recover, how much of their pre-reprinting value we expect them to recover and which cards we think are the best targets. I’ll try and find analogous cards in previous Masters sets so we can try and predict the future based on past price graphs. We can talk about Masters 25 some other time. Let’s get right into it.

 

Icons of Mythic Proportions

Iconic Masters has given us some terrible cards that aren’t really that good in any formats because they are “iconic” but for the most part, the set is loaded with good EDH cards, as are most Masters sets. There are plenty of really good EDH cards, so let’s take a look.

Consecrated Sphinx

EDHREC deck inclusion – 13,677

Current Price – $12ish

Older analog

Craterhoof was reprinted in Modern Masters 2017 but it’s already recovering nicely, especially if you look at the buylist price. Craterhoof lost quite a bit of value but it’s climbing right back up. We’re basically seeing 6 months into the future rather than 2 or 4 years like we could be with older Modern Masters sets, but Craterhoof nicely matches the ubiquity of Sphinx with both cards being in over 13,000 decks. If anything, this is a nice reminder that there is still kind of time to buy Craterhoof. The Masterpiece printing shows that Wizards has identified Sphinx as something of an EDH staple and another reprinting is possible, but that’s likely to take two years at least and we’ll recover quite a lot of our value by then. I am going to try and avoid using Modern Masters 2017 cards as analogs for the rest of this piece if I can since we’re only a few months ahead, but with both cards being printed twice at Mythic and having the same inclusion in EDH, it was too perfect to ignore.

Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger

EDH deck inclusion – 8219 decks

Current Price – $10.50

Older analog

With relatively the same EDH inclusion and two mythic printings each, I expect these two cards to share roughly the same trajectory. Eldrazi had a slightly inflated pre-reprinting price for reasons I don’t fully remember, but Kozilek has regained 50% of its post-reprinting value and if all of my investements could gain 50%, I’d be super happy. Unlikely to be in Commander precons or future Masters sets, I think Vorinclex is bound to grow and if we can get 50% more in a year or two, that seems pretty good to me. I think with more Iconic Masters copies running around, though, it may take more than two years. If you want a Vorniclex, though, buy now because it’s never getting cheaper and the card is stupid good.

Angels, all of them

If we were going to continue looking at Modern Masters 2017, I might say let’s look at Archangel of Thune, Linvala and Avacyn. I think there is a case to be made for growth for all of those cards. Avacyn is in twice as many decks as the others, so the growth potential is greater for that than those other cards (Linvala isn’t played as much outside of EDH as it used to be). I think we’ll be able to see some growth in Archangel of Thune and I think Linvala is probably a pretty good analog but the releases are as close together as Craterhoof and Sphinx so it’s possible we’ll see the same budding growth potential. If there is anything we can try and learn, let’s look at Avacyn.

EDH deck inclusion – 11,725 decks

Current price – $13

Older analog

This is basically a worst case scenario. Iona is in half as many decks as Avacyn (I know, I had a hard time believing it, too) but both were in a set, have this printing and are in FTV Angels. We see some budding recovery from Iona with the buy price converging very nicely with the retail price which indicates future growth potential in both. I think with Iona turning around a bit, unless Iconic Masters is printed entirely into dirt, Avacyn should grow even better than Iona, which is growing.

Non-Mythics

I think there are a few non-Mythics worth discussing quickly because even with them bring printed into powder at non-mythic in Iconic Masters, a set that apparently they’re selling at Walmart and Target like crazy, I still expect recovery.

Austere Command

EDH deck inclusion – 13676

Current price – $3

Older analog

Tooth and Nail took a long time to bottom out but when it did, it didn’t stay cheap long. If you told the average person that Tooth and Nail was briefly gettable for $6 retail ($4 buylist!) they would probably laugh. I feel the same way about $3 Austere Command.

Austere Command was in a Commander deck (it dodged the Commander Anthology bullet) and still went from $4 at the time of that reprinting to $14 before a reprint caught up with it. Buying these at $3 is cheating.

Rune-Scarred Demon

EDH Deck inclusion – 13,670

Current Price – Literally $1

Older analog

Does the price chart of Stonehewer look good to you? If I told you that Rune-Scarred Demon was in the same number of decks as Stonehewer, would you think that Rune-Scarred at $1 was way too cheap?

Well, I can’t tell you that. Rune-Scarred Demon actually isn’t in the same number of decks as Stonehewer. It’s actually in twice as many.

I think 5 examples is enough to digest for now. I can do a second installment next week because I think there are several more good buys. I also think there are good buys not predicated on EDH such as Glimpse the Unthinkable, but since I don’t really have the data infrastructure to prove it, I’m going to leave that up to someone else. I think we’re going to pinch it off here for this week. I’d like to thank everyone for sticking with MTG Price this year. We have had a few setbacks in 2017 but my articles are still fun to write, I think they’re still valuable and they’re still free eventually so as long as you keep reading them, I’ll keep writing them. 2018 is going to be an even better year for both MTG Price and EDHREC so you know I’ll let you know what is happening, what it means and how you can make some money. Buy those cheap Demons and Commands and always buy bulk rares – you never know what someone else is going to consider bulk and how much it will grow in a year or two.

That’s it for me this week. Until next year!

 

Last week I decided to delve a bit into what I thought was going to get reprinted in Masters 25 or at least felt risky to me. Some stuff feels sort of difficult to reprint and other stuff feels like it needs it.

I am holding like 100 Master of the Pearl Trident because I was busy thinking about other things when the duel deck was announced. I didn’t think they’d print anything I wanted to pick up so I figured the duel deck wasn’t really relevant and they never print cards as expensive as Goblin Guide so I didn’t give it much thought. But even though I was safe on getting wrecked for $15 a copy on Goblin Guide (That Masters printing worked wonders) I didn’t think about getting wrecked for like $4.50 a copy on Master. I was still cooking that spec and I ate it. Now, those copies are all gravy since I sold enough to break even and then enough to get that break even amount again, but still it would have been nice to get $8 a copy someday or at least get out for buylist before the buylist tanked. Even buylisting would have felt bad because that’s a panic move and people only panic because they weren’t thinking ahead, so let’s think ahead and not eat it again.

I think we can all agree that if you have Rishadan Port, dump them now. Once Port is confirmed not in Masters 25 (should that happen) the price will go up a lot so be ready for that, but I don’t like the idea of holding them right now at all.

We looked at a few cards last week that seemed like reasonable cards to dump because they were likely to be in at mythic rarity. There will likely be 15 mythics and 53 non-mythic rares so there is quite a bit of guessing to do but I think it’s worth doing this work so we don’t caught with our pants down.

I was going to do this by like, color or something but I think it’s better to just list some cards I think could use a reprint and have a decent shot at being in Masters 25.

I am going to have to make some assumptions just to give myself some space to work with but I am at least going to tell you my thought process. I really hope we can engage in the comments section of this one if you think I made some unfair assumptions.

Let’s look at some more cards I think you should get out of.

Assumptions on Assumptions

I made an assumption last week and that is that this is a good place to reprint Rishadan Port. I think that’s a good assumption to make, personally. I also think that Port is very unlikely to end up reprinted at non-Mythic rare. That means Port is mythic which means that there will probably be 2 mythics of each color and a 3rd cycle of mythics spread between land, gold and artifacts. That’s quite an assumption but it’s based in logic. They try to keep the color balance… err, balanced because this set it meant to be drafted and also, why would you not?

In Iconic Masters, there were 3 mythics per color for a total of 5. In Modern Masters 2017, there were 2 mythics per color, plus Cavern of Souls, plus 3 good gold mythics and one bad one. Port would handcuff them to doing this split. I think we can reasonably try and guess what the other mythics outside of the colors could be. I’ll tell you the 4 cards I think will be in the cycle with Port.

Phyrexian Altar

I know I have been banging this drum for a long time, saying it basically demanded a reprint in a Commander set when it was $18 but this is the last really good shot at reprinting this. Phyrexian Altar seems a little underwhelming in Limited, and people will likely bristle at getting a “junk” mythic like they do with Channel (which ends up being very good in Iconic Masters Limited, but it’s a bit of a booby prize given its current price). If there is a small amount of support across the colors, though, this can fit into most builds. Tokens, graveyard stuff, threaten effects – this does it all. Masters 25 seems like a bit of an awkward place to jam this, but where if not here? If Altar isn’t in Masters 25, even at its current ridiculous price, this might be a card we get into just because it’s probably safe for a while, though its growth potential may be limited due to it being out of a lot of players’ budgets at this point. I could see this in M25 and I’m starting to sweat the more it goes up and calls attention to itself.

Last week we said we could see some sort of Sliver card, Legion or Hivelord, in one of the spots. I think that’s possible but I won’t count it as one of my 4 picks for today.

Gilded Lotus 

This at non-mythic rare would be pretty disastrous for the price and a printing at mythic might feel bad to people. We need cards close to Port in value and while it’s possible a bunch of the cards in colors will hold up a lot of value, this could tank in the short term. This is about to be eclipsed in price by Chromatic Lantern again so it’s possible the FTV printing capped the growth potential but I still think this is a good inclusion in the set. If this is in at non-Mythic, get every single copy you  can get your hands on since this should recover given its relative ubiquity in EDH and the fact that it has “lotus” in its name.

Rings of Brighthearth

Like a lot of the cards on this list, it will take some finagling to make this worth it in Limited, which is the drawback of looking at EDH cards. However, once I started delving into Legacy and Modern, most of those cards were in Modern or Iconic Masters or they’re expensive because they’re on the Reserved List. They’re running out of new stuff that needs a reprint which forces us to look in the $30 range. The set is liable to have a Mana Drain or Aether Vial-esque card or 4 and it’s also liable to have a lot of Bonfire of the Damned-priced cards. Bonfire was like $10 when it was announced in Modern Masters 2017 at mythic, so it’s reasonable that some of our mythics are “only” $20 or $30. Rings is out of control and while it’s awkward to just jam it in a Limited set without giving it a ton of enablers, it’s also awkward to put a $30 card in a $39 Commander deck. Where else can this get a reprint?

Ugin, The Spirit Dragon

Karn has gotten the reprint treatment, but Ugin, despite holding pretty steady, stuck out to me as a card they might want to try and use to sell packs. If Masters 25 doesn’t have any Mana Drain equivalents, a pile of cards around $30 each at Mythic seems fine. That sells $10 boosters that also have a foil in them and the set is liable to have some really spicy cards at non-mythic rare. Ugin seems like as good a candidate as anything else and Planeswalkers got some extra relevance in EDH recently which only makes their stock go up. Could we see Sisay get another reprint (She was in an FTV, remember? It’s OK if you don’t – it was sort of terrible).

I didn’t really find any good candidates in the Land slot except for maybe one, which I’ll talk about then I have one more point to make before we wrap up.

Celestial Colonnade

This is tricky to reprint. In order to justify reprinting Horizon Canopy, the only card from that stupid cycle anyone even wanted, they reprinted the whole cycle. Do we jam a $40 Colonnade in at non-Mythic and get handcuffed to reprinting Stirring Wildwood a 40th time making it cost as much as a bulk common? Do we just do 5 lands from no cycle, some of which may tap for mana of two different colors and one of which taps for colorless? I think if we get this, we get the whole cycle which might be OK. That is, the cycle of 5. The cycle of 10 would ruin the EV of the entire set – I’m not trying to pay $10 for a booster and open a Wandering Fumarole.

Colonnade is a card that needs a reprinting but might not get it in Masters 25 based on the rules of Masters sets I’m extrapolating from what they have done in the past. We could see a “cycle” of lands that tap for allied colors, though – some sort of land that turns on Kird Ape rather than Raging Ravine, for example which does something that helps us build the set for Limited but doesn’t fill out a “true” cycle.

Speaking of cycles, the last card I want to mention as a candidate for Masters 25 would necessitate a cycle most likely.

Dragonlords

Is it too soon to give this cycle a reprint? It could be, but it might not necessarily be. Two-color combinations are tricky in a Masters set since it all but compels them to have 10 different cards to fill out every combination, taking huge chunks out of your design space. One card isn’t a big deal (like Colonnade) but it is when it requires 5, sometimes 10 spots to be designated to fill out the rest of the cycle to keep the colors balanced.

Before you head to the comments to say “They won’t print this many EDH cards” I would like you to take a look at the top 50 cards in Legacy and Modern and tell me what you think needs a reprinting. There are a lot of random stupid cards like Drop of Honey that randomly go through the roof but without the ability to reprint cards on the Reserved List (I don’t care if you don’t like the Reserved List, save it) they are stuck targeting cards in the more recent years. We’ll continue to see cards like Academy Rector pop and not have any remedy from Masters sets. What they can control, however, they should. Cards like Staff of Domination, Gauntlet of Power and Coalition Relic probably cost more than they need to.

Anyway, that’s it for me this week. Take to the comments and tell me why I’m wrong about the cards I think could be in Masters 25 and if you have suggestions for cards for me to analyze, let me know. We’ll try and get the 10 colored mythics next week if we don’t have anything spicy from Rivals to talk about. Until next time!