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UNLOCKED: The Watchtower 7/10/17

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.

Hour of Devastation’s prerelease was this weekend, with casuals and spikes alike swarming local stores to get their hands on new EDH fodder in the form of The Locus God, and competitive staples like…hmm…check back with me on that. In fact, HOU has an abysmal expected value at the moment; perhaps one of the lowest of the last five years or more. That’s pretty dang low. Two other spring sets come to mind that looked this way: Dragons of Tarkir, which came out of the gate looking like a heaping pile of garbage for Standard, and Dragon’s Maze, which, well, same.

There’s a remarkable divergence in behavior after prerelease weekend though. DTK ended up taking off — Dragonlord Ojutai was a major Standard staple, and the other dragonlords were reasonably popular. All of the Command cycle was respected, and there were some other hits in there too. However, over on the DGM side of things, it got worse and worse. Voice of Resurgence ended up at an absurd $40+, Blood Baron of Vizkopa hung around $10 or $15, and that was it. That. Was. It. Voice was so expensive because every other card in the set save for Baron was so miserable.

What’s going to happen with HOU? Will the god cycle pull up as it turns out they’re playable in Standard? Will several rares turn into sleepers, in the same way Atarka’s Command and Kolaghan’s Command did? Or will it be another Dragon’s Maze, with Nicol Bolas hitting $35 and the rest of the set a scene of devastation?

Anger of the Gods (Foil)

Price Today: $15
Possible Price: $40

Not quite the same gods, but still on theme to be fair. Anger of the Gods has been a mainstay in Modern basically since it was printed, and while supply was deep initially, given that it’s from Theros, it has slowly sapped over the years, and is finally turning the corner into a semi-valuable card. The non-foil well is still fairly deep at over 100 copies on TCGPlayer, but stock on the foils is perilously low.

Dredge is an obvious reason to play Anger, especially since they’ve moved hard towards using a fleet of small-ish recurring creatures. An Anger after one of their big turns could easily take out five or six bodies and leave them reeling. Similarly, it will frustrate Abzan Company players, exiling their Kitchen Finks and Redcaps while also clearing away all the clutter of their mana dorks and combo enablers. Valakut decks stalking the MODO queues lean on it, Boros Nahiri decks use it, even Living End and Scapeshift stash some copies in the board.

You can score copies for $15, but not many. I wouldn’t expect a run on these any time soon, but copies will slowly get eaten, and without a reprint, it’s not unreasonable to see a Modern staple foil hit $40. Look at Collective Brutality and Kolaghan’s Command for reference, which Anger is played less than and more than, respectively.


Astral Cornucopia (Foil)

Price Today: $4
Possible Price: $12

I feel like I’ve talked about this card before, but if I can’t remember when then it’s been long enough that I don’t feel bad bringing it up again, and it’s still a good choice. Do you know what the most-built EDH deck on EDHREC was this past week? Locus God? Scarab God? Scorpion God? Well it was none of them. It was Atraxa. Again. Nearly twice as many as Scarab God, in fact.

Atraxa is going to be the most popular commander for quite some time. I doubt any of these upcoming tribal commanders are going to surpass her, in fact, for the simple reason that Atraxa is so flexible. Want to make Planeswalkers? Atraxa. Infect? Atraxa. -1/-1 counters? Atraxa. +1/+1 counters? Atraxa. Filibuster counters? Atraxa. Her sheer versatility is hard to understate.

If you’re playing Atraxa, Cornucopia is one of the best mana rocks you can play, if not the best. Sol Ring is the only artifact mana played more than Cornucopia, and that’s probably incorrect. Sol Ring is better for like two turns tops. With Atraxa in play and a single additional proliferate trigger, Cornucopia gives you your mana back on the same turn you play it, and a few turns later could conceivably tap for more than your opponent’s entire mana base.

There are still foils at $4, and as the most popular commander in the format, these are going to keep getting bought, and without additional foil supply, these will end up over $10 soon enough.


Supreme Verdict (BaB)

Price Today: $10
Possible Price: $25

A player has at their fingertips an expansive array of sweepers these days. Most cost over four mana though, what with Wizard’s push towards bigger costs and bigger effects. Four mana sweepers have been deemed too efficient and oppressive to creature strategies in Standard. This all means we’re unlikely to see more four mana wraths anytime soon, and what we’ve got is what’s available for awhile. Of the ones legal in Modern, Supreme Verdict is right at the top of the pile.

Realistically, there are three top unconditional wraths in Modern. Wrath of God, Damnation, and Supreme Verdict. Damnation obviously occupies a different space than Verdict, which mostly leaves Wrath. Wrath has the benefit of being easier on the mana and wiping out regenerating creatures, but that last clause is irrelevant in 98% of matches. Not requiring a second color is nice, but really, the number of mono-white decks casting wraths is miniscule. The average deck in Modern that wants to cast Wrath would prefer Verdict, since getting through Remand and Stubborn Denial and whatever else is mandatory for when you absolutely have to resolve a wrath.

All that said, Supreme Verdict is also in over 12,000 EDH decks. That’s a lot of decks!

Admittedly both the Buy-A-Box and the pack foil have good art, though I’ve always been partial to the BaB copy. The colors are great, and more importantly for us, supply appears to be lower than the pack foils these days. With the spell as popular as it is in EDH and the go-to wrath in Standard, these BaB promos have nowhere else to go.

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.

Brainstorm Brewery

Brainstormbrewery #246: Hour of Devastation Set Review

 

Today we are joined by Phil DeLuca of the Commanderin’ podcast for the Hour of Devastation set review. Since this set looks to be much spicier in Commander than Standard, we invited Phil on to share his perspective. Also, DJ tells perhaps the worst joke in BSB history.
Douglas Johnson is our guest (@Rose0fthorns)
Phil DeLuca is our very special guest (@ketjak)
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Casual Fridays

UNLOCKED PROTRADER: How I’m using CardSphere

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Here we go, prerelease weekend! I’m planning on attending a midnight prerelease, because I am indeed crazy like that. I hope yours goes amazingly, you open well and play better, and that you trade everything away as fast as you can this weekend.

That’s basic advice that I give every time a new set comes around, and it remains true. Some of the Hour of Devastation cards are going to spike, eventually, but I am bad at that guessing game.

I know prices are at their max for most of these cards, and they are going to fall. I’m looking to out them pronto.

Which leads me nicely into today’s topic: Cardsphere, and why you should be using it too.

Full Disclaimer: I am not an employee of CS. I am going to give my experiences and my viewpoint. I have bought value on this site, I have sent and received cards. I’ve been a user for about six weeks. I advocated for Pucatrade, and I’m advocating here too. Your experience may be different than mine, and I hope you have as good an experience as I have had.

Now, I want to refer you to an interview that MTG Fast Finance did with the founders of Cardsphere a while back, but that was before it went into public launch. The interview is worth a listen, for the philosophy and the backstory, but let’s get to how you should use it and what is happening there.

If you’ve used Pucatrade at all in the past couple of years, the idea is the same: It’s a trading environment. You send off your cards for currency, and you can get cards for that currency. The primary difference is that the currency in CS is straight cash, US dollars. You can get your dollars out of their system and into your account, for a fee.

Otherwise, it’s a similar economic system. Because it’s in real dollars, the offers tend to be adjusted downwards, where they were going up and up and up in Pucatrade, since that was in a currency locked into their system. It’s an interesting flip: On Puca, the question was ‘How many extra points do I need to offer for someone to send me this card?’ On CS, it’s ‘How low can I go with my offer and still get the card I want?’

Philosophically, the experience with CS is that you’ll have to decide how far off of retail you can go. You’re setting your own wants, and how much extra you’ll give/take away. Then, when sending cards, you decide how much you want to get.

Right now, here’s what is happening. Granted, this is only my experience. I’m not trying to trade up for things (yet) but I have been getting cards for my uncommons Cube, building a Standard deck, and building a new Commander deck.

The experience has been amazing.

I am someone who did very well off of Puca in the salad days. I bought low, sold high, accumulated points. I got SDCC walkers, I got a Gaea’s Cradle, and a judge foil Sol Ring. Future Site hit, and the values tanked. Inflation is going mad there. I’ve gotten myself down to 92 points there, and while I’m monitoring the site and the subreddit to stay informed, I’m no longer putting cards or a subscription into that economy.

I say this so you’ll get what I mean when I say that the CS experience is wonderful. I can’t keep credit for more than a day or two. I have had a range of wants filled, and while I haven’t chased any foils, or any high end cards, I’m having a steady churn and it’s fun. I’ve been asking for uncommons and commons at about +20%, to make it worth sending, and most of my wants for Commander are between 0% change and -20%. I got a Deadapult for +50%, because that’s a crap rare and I wanted to make someone feel good about sending it.

I am seeing that there are two categories of offers on CS: The full-value (or nearly) or higher, for people that want to get stuff right away, and there’s the lowballers, the ones who are literally offering buylist prices plus ten percent. I’m finding that the offers at 90%-110% get filled fast, and the 60% and less offers take a lot longer to be sent.

Which is fine and the freedom of the platform, quite frankly. I would surely have a standing order to buy foil Thought-Knot Seer at $15 if someone wanted to sell them at that price, and then that person pays for the shipping to send it to me? Done and done.

Cardsphere is also doing an excellent job with transparency and feedback. The founders and other admins are very active on Discord and Reddit, the home page shows exactly the userbase and flow of cards, the most wanted and most traded, plus weekly updates on how cards are being traded. Here’s an example post. (It’s Reddit, while this post is safe for work huge swaths of the site aren’t, be forewarned.)

This image shows the quartiles of the trades being made, by % of value, for the month of June. Someone listed a card that was a dollar or less and put it at 224%. Someone else sent a card at 21% of that value. Hopefully that was part of a package. Someone listed a $5-$10 card at 7% of its value…and someone else sent the card at that price.

Where I feel really great is that last column. Of the $25-$50 cards traded, there’s a real packing together. Nothing under 71%, nothing over 110%. Should I decide to go for higher-value cards, it’s nice to know they will be there.

Cardsphere is growing slowly but surely. They have increased membership by more than two thousand users since they went live on May 27 of this year. As I said before, I put in $40 at the beginning and it’s given me a bit better value than I would have gotten on eBay or TCG, but the ability to send out stuff and get stuff back…I’d forgotten how much fun it is. Go try it! Costs you nothing but a stamp.

I’m going to be sending out all I can of Hour of Devastation on Saturday afternoon. See you there!

Cliff is an avid believer in saving money for stuff that isn’t Magic, and his goal is to enjoy this hobby without paying cash for individual cards. Drafts and other events are fine, but buying singles stings. It’s just cardboard! Nothing has the EV of Cubing, though, so that’s a solace to his cold, Scroogelike heart. Find him on Twitter @wordofcommander and tell him about the three ghosts that will be visiting him.

Rachel Agnes, The Collector

Eye Candy from Grand Prix Vegas (Part 2)

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Hello everyone! It’s been a few weeks since Grand Prix Vegas took place and it’s time to look forward to many more amazing events. First though, I would like to conclude my article showing off the amazing and unique items I saw at the Grand Prix Vegas. If you missed part 1, here is a link to it!

https://blog.mtgprice.com/2017/06/21/eye-candy-from-grand-prix-vegas-part-1/

So without further delay, here are some more amazing things I witnessed, and even something I picked up there.

Honey, I’m home! VintageMagic.com’s booth certainly had the lion’s share of Drop of Honey at the Grand Prix that weekend. It was quite the mover due to its showing in the 4th and 9th place Legacy decklists piloted by Jody Kieth and Jarvis Yu. This powerful reserved list spell is a new innovation for sideboards in the Lands deck. To start the weekend, you could still snag these off tcgplayer.com for under $100, but now you are looking to pay close to $300 apiece on them.

Well who’s that? That’s me! Of course, being the Lands player I am, I had to take an opportunity to snag up a few copies myself. Being in the know about a card this rare spiking is surely helpful. I had to drop some really honey to buy these, but not as much as I would if I were to buy them today.

There were many awesome sights down artist alley. Dozens of artists were featured at this historic event and many brought with them prints, playmats, and original artworks. On display above is a painted print by Dan Scott of his Ponder artwork. Up close and in a frame, it really  resembled an original artwork to the point where it even fooled me. I had been under the impression the artwork was done digitally (which it was) meaning a true original did not exist. The added brushstokes for texture really brought this piece to life. Who wouldn’t love to have this beauty hanging up on their wall?

If you have a keen eye, you may have noticed this sweet alter from my Drop of Honey picture above. Also at the VintageMagic.com booth, was an Alpha Forest signed and altered by none other than the legendary Christopher Rush himself. A piece like this is truly special as Mr. Rush is no longer with us, but his artwork and love of Magic will always live on. Illustrating his iconic Black Lotus on this Forest, which could very well have been pulled from the same pack as one, is the icing on the cake.

No one man should have all that power. That sure is a lot of old school Magic goodness. Literal rows worth of Power 9 cards, including black bordered versions? That’s enough to make my jaw drop. I just wanted to grab into this case and build a 93/94 deck right then and there.

Okay Snapcaster Mage and Jace, you guys aren’t old school but it’s cool you can chill. Mahamoti will allow it. We coo.

Do U Sea what I see? I see a down payment on a house worth of sweet cardboard crack right about there. I would killll to play with some of these beautiful cards in all their black bordered glory. Imagine the powerful spells cast by these iconic dual lands. Serra Angel and The Hive most likely, but hey, casting a Jace, the Mind Sculptor off these in today’s era would make this girl swoon.

Do you like your cards nice and minty? Well who doesn’t? These are some pristine cardboard rarities here. BGS and PSA 8’s and 9’s seriously skyrocket that price point, and for good reason. How can you one-up the next person’s Alpha Power and dual lands? Have yours graded and show off that pack-fresh godliness. Graded cards aren’t really for me. I have to take it out of the box and play with it!

It might have been long before I started playing Magic the Gathering, but many old school players surely have played against their fair share of Shivan Dragons. Gem Mint PSA 10 Beta Shivan is truly a spectacle and I would happily be scorched and engulfed in flames by this mystical and expensive piece of cardboard. Take my money!!

Well look what we have here! Stacks of cash? Meh. Richard Garfield exclusive cards? Shrug. One of each Summer dual land. JACKPOT. I have never seen one of each Summer dual land in one place, and you likely never will either. The prices on these I couldn’t even begin to figure, I will just let you know it’s a lot. Better yet, I saw them out of the case and being negotiated on by a potential buyer. I can’t even imagine the amount of money that changed hands during Grand Prix Vegas, but I am sure it puts that wad of cash there to shame. Also, yeah, that’s a blue Hurricane just chilling there.

Ohhh gurl, there she is! I was speechless seeing this beautiful card. Easily the most expensive card in the room at Grand Prix Las Vegas, a BGS 10 Beta Black Lotus is easily worth upwards of $80,000!! Don’t let my nails fool you, I couldn’t afford this bad boy even if I sold my entire Magic collection and my car. I was just happy to bathe in its light. What a truly inspiring and unique piece of MTG history.

On the topic of inspiring and unique, there was far more to take in at the Grand Prix than just Magic cards. Here was a cosplayer posing as Nissa, Steward of Elements from Amonkhet. And right beside her, the original artwork for that very Nissa. Illustrated by Howard Lyon!

It doesn’t get any more unique and spectacular than that! Owning an original Magic the Gathering artwork is an amazing feat, and one that is both rewarding and exciting. Be warned, once you have one, you won’t want to stop. I do not own this beauty, but I was lucky enough to pick up an original artwork at the Grand Prix of my own…

Makeshift Mannequin from Lorwyn! I was so excited to finally see the artwork for the first time in person. A very kind person from the Facebook Mtg Art Exchange page, Luke, sold me this amazing piece and I couldn’t be happier. I absolutely love the colors and details on this piece as well as the lighting. I love all things faerie and MTG, so when I saw the piece I knew I had to own it. Picking this up was one of the highlights from my trip to Las Vegas and I won’t soon forget it.

And so there you have it. My Grand Prix Las Vegas adventure. I was one of the last people to leave the event hall before closing time on Sunday, spending my last hours cube drafting the night away. I had a wonderful and magical time at Grand Prix Vegas and I would absolutely do it again next year! From all the artists and vendors to the friends and events, I couldn’t even express how much fun I had. I hope you also had fun living vicariously through me a little through these photo essays. I surely had a blast taking the pics and spreading the word.

Thanks so much for reading! What were your favorite sights from the Grand Prix? Did you pick up anything cool? Let me know it the comments!

Rachel Agnes is a VSL Competitor, Phyrexian Princess, Collector of all things shiny and a Cube, Vintage, Legacy, and EDH enthusiast. 
Catch on Twitch and Twitter via Baetog_.

 

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