Rachel Agnes, The Collector, Uncategorized

Eye Candy from Grand Prix Vegas (Part 1)

3 Comments

Whewwww! Grand Prix Las Vegas is in the books and it was quite the experience. Having attending multiple two-day Grand Prix, I wasn’t sure what to expect as far as this massive five-day event was concerned other than “Yeah, this event is just going to be longer, right?” Well it sure was longer and larger than I could have imagined and I knew I had to document some of my favorite sights and scenes from the Grand Prix!

The WotC coverage team did a great job as always taking photos encompassing the venue, the attractions, and players of the event. I figured I would do something a bit different and would go hunting around for awesome photo opportunities and capture some less photographed rarities and special cards. Everyone would see pictures of cosplayers and artists’ alley, but would you get to see a full set of Summer dual lands? Original Magic artwork? Graded cards galore? Come take a look at the amazing items I found at the Grand Prix! (Sadly, no, I did not purchase any of these items)

Hopefully you got to attend the Grand Prix. If not, I hope these photos help you live vicariously through me to see some of the awesome eye candy from this historic MTG event.

Okay, I absolutely LOVE the way the Masterpiece Series looks in dealer cases. They are real eye catchers and so shiny that they get this girl to waltz right on over. Some pretty solid prices here to boot. Oh yeah, check out those ten Black Lotus on the right side there. No big deal right? There were certainly several hundred Black Lotus in the room this weekend which is mind-blowing to think about!

Speaking of power, here are some Power 9 cards that have various alters on them. Although admittedly, the thought of applying a paintbrush to a Black Lotus makes me shudder, I do understand that sometimes these can be restoration projects as well.

I am not too big a fan of the basic land alters such as the Mox Jet with the Urza’s Swamp background or the Mox Sapphire with the Zendikar Island background, but they are an interesting and unique take for sure. As for the prices, I honestly have no idea if they are a bargain or not. I certainly wouldn’t purchase them but that doesn’t meant they wouldn’t make great additions for some folks.

Similarly, the Power 9 with the updated artwork from the Magic Online Vintage Cube versions, while well-done, doesn’t do it for me. OG artwork all the way, but it is an interesting way to have your pieces stand out.

Magic calculators!! Well, sorta. Sadly, most have moved towards pen and paper to keep track of life totals, but real men and women use an abacus! These relics of days gone by were released by Duelist Magazine all the way back in 1995 and are still quite rare to this day. Obviously, the blue one is the most expensive of the lot, but $50 for a green one isn’t too shabby. If only this was the go-to method for keeping track of life totals we would see these be astronomically more expensive. However, if you and your opponent get into a life total dispute, if they have pen and paper and you an abacus, I don’t need to tell you who the judge will side with. SAD.

Be still my beating heart! What unholy disaster has taken place here? And before you ask, NO, these are not those new white border plastic inserts. Someone actually took an eraser to those borders and committed a cardinal sin. Jokes aside these look surprisingly cool and certainly are quite eye-catching. Don’t let the new white border inner sleeves trick people into thinking you aren’t deranged. There is plenty of crazy out there for us all!

SAND!!

But for real, these sculptures were really awesome! Someone was building each day of the event and they were hard at work toiling away like a citizen of Naktamun! Perfectly flavorful and super interesting addition to the Grand Prix.

This lucky fellow won an uncut rare/mythic sheet of Amonkhet. I wouldn’t know what to do with one if I got it. Would I frame it or just resell it? I’ll get back to you on that when I win an uncut sheet tournament!

I met some awesome people from Spain this weekend who played in the main events. One of them had some sweeeet Japanese foils to show off. A full playset of Japanese foil Mishra’s Baubles is something I’ve never seen before and must be worth a pretty penny (especially since the set wasn’t printed in Russian).

And don’t even get me started on those Thoughtseizes. Good gracious! I would love to pimp my ride one day with those beauties. What I love about images like this is that is shows the heart and soul someone pours into their deck to pick up rare cards and customize things the way they love.

The Original Magic Art, OMA, booth was bustling this weekend as well. So many amazing choices when it comes to tokens for your deck. So what’s interesting about them? They feature historic real-world art from around the world and through the centuries. What could be better than using The Great Wave of Kanagawa as a Master of Waves Elemental Token?

Alright, well here are some most Masterpieces! Quick trivia, without scrolling up to the top of the page which booth had better deals? Look at the Mind’s Eye and Mind Twist. Which booth was better? The previous picture showed Mind’s Eye at $16 and Mind Twist at $25 while here you would be paying $28 and $33 respectively. That’s a 67% increase, or a free $20 bill to spend elsewhere. Tsk tsk. It always pays to shop around at Grand Prix and for many floor traders and dealer flippers it works out like an hourly wage. For those who just want to pick up a sweet card for their decks or cube, it will still always behoove you to shop around.

Unf, I want theseeee. Look at those delicious black borders. There is nothing better than playing with cards from Alpha and Beta, and while I don’t always gravitate towards signatures, I would happily sleeve some of these bad boys up. Notice the lack of prices? If you have to ask, you can’t afford them 😉

At what would a wonderful and hectic Grand Prix day be without concluding with dinner? This was an amazing Wagyu Beef that was out of this world. The food in Las Vegas is world-class and this dinner was one for the ages. A big thank you to VintageMagic.com.

There you have it, some great finds and hidden gems from the monumental Grand Prix Vegas. I hope you enjoyed checking it out and will enjoy part 2 as well. What were your favorite things from the Grand Prix? I would love to know in 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_.

 

Jason Alt

Unlocked Pro Trader: Hanna are you OK? Are you OK Hanna?

7 Comments

I was going to continue the “Things I learned” miniseries this week since it was a hit last week but today’s article in an emergency article and I want to get it out as quickly as possible since time is of the essence for some of these picks. I am mostly going to focus on one new card and the financial consequences of such. I mentioned Hanna in the title because that’s a deck I can see jamming this new combo, but Brago can’t be ruled or, nor can Grand Arbiter Augustin or Lavinia or any number of UW commanders. OK, let’s stop talking about talking about it and talk about it already.

Solemnity is a card that’s going to impact a lot. In Standard, it’s going to make it miserable to play Walking Ballista and that snek that gives stuff counters and… look, Standard is lame, I don’t care about the names of Standard cards. Here’s what could be a thing based on this card.

Decree of Silence

This card is under a buck and foils are around $7. This is the first card I thought of when I read Solemnity, so naturally this is where I am directing people first. The foil has more potential to pop, but Scourge is in pretty low supply and this card has real potential. A few decks were running it already, which is also good because people who brewed with it before will be aware of its power. I used to use Hex Parasite to remove counters but this is way better.  This is perhaps the best combo with Solemnity, but is far from the only one.

Phyrexian Unlife

Not requiring any blue, this card is even more flexible making damage turn into counters which can’t be applied to you. It’s not that much of a chore to pair Solemnity with blue cards, especially since a lot of the decks that want this combo will be Azorius. People ran Rest in Peace and Energy Field, for example, and the tutors to get that combo and the counters to protect it make Azorius the place to be. However, other color combinations love stupid combos like this and now they have one they can play. Phyrexian Unlife is basically hitting a second spike so expect fewer loose copies than usual.

Celestial Convergence

This is another Mono-White pick that I think is saucy. If you have Solemnity out, the player with the highest life total wins the game when you cast this. Hot damn. Decks were running this before, a little, but it’s a lot easier to cheat with cards that come into play with 0 counters and accumulate them rather than the other way around. Too many cumulative upkeep counters on Mystic Remora? Brago that $^#&. Since we couldn’t do that with this (Brago loads it up with counters, which is not cool) people weren’t bothering as much. This is a card that hasn’t spiked before so expect a lot of copies in dollar boxes at the LGS. This will take longer to climb than second spike cards like Phyrexian Unlife, so don’t fee like you missed the boat if other cards dry up faster.

Glacial Chasm

Speaking of Cumulative Upkeep counters, this card can’t get those anymore. Great googily moogily, do we have a lot of ways to not take any damage! Suddenly Azor’s Elecutors and Luminarch Ascension are looking even sexier. I like this already since The Gitrog Monster is a deck and they just printed a Crucible of Worlds with feet. This was good before, it’s extra good now. Solemnity is going to get us more advantage than Mystic Remora. Speaking of Mystic Remora,

Mystic Remora

Of all the cards with a Cumulative Upkeep, this was getting the most play before. This gets a lot better with Solemnity, obviously, so combine how it’s starting to creep up a bit with how good it is when it’s a Rhystic Study that no one pays mana for and you have a recipe for a pretty good card advantage stew. It’s stupid that all of these cards are in the same colors. Either they’re blue like Mystic Remora, or they’re white like

Sustaining Spirit

This is as risky as Phyrexian Unlife, basically requiring you to got to 0 life before this kicks in, you still don’t die and that’s good. This can lead to hilarious games with you dead and fighting counterspell wars over enchantment removal. Being dead to Krosan Grip is risky and this deck will be fun.

Elephant Grass

This card used to be fair. It’s worth less than a dollar as a fair card. What could this be worth as an unfair card? It’s Ghostly Prison with upside for a mana with Solemnity out, and that’s not bad for a card that’s already playable.

There are several decks likely to jam Solemnity shenanigans in them, and those cards have upside, too, if Solemnity decks take off.

Enlightened Tutor

Not that this was ever not a good pickup, but this could be a better pickup soon. It’s down from its historic high and this could be just the push it needs to make you glad you bought at the floor.

Plea for Guidance

Search for Solemnity and any combo piece? K. I’m down.

Hanna, Ship’s Navigator Judge Foil

This could be at its floor. If this starts to tail upward based on hype from Solemnity and its myriad cheaty combos, Hanna could be a buy at its current price. Watch it to see if it stays flat or heads down a bit more, though. I think it’s worth waiting a bit and paying a little extra for some assurance that the card is on the way up. This is the deck most likely to run Solemnity, although a lot of the cards likely to be in the new build are already run by Brago. Brago’s worth nothing, but hte EDHREC pages for both Hanna and Brago are required reading. There are a ton more specs on those pages.

I’m sure people are going to discover a ton more combos with Solemnity over the next day or two, so keep an eye on twitter for clues. If you’re a Pro Trader, congratulations on getting this a few days early – that could make all the difference on hot specs like these. Thanks for reading. Until next time!

James Chillcott, MTG Fast Finance

MTG Fast Finance Podcast: Episode 72 (June 16th/17)

1 Comment

MTG Fast Finance is our weekly podcast covering the flurry of weekly financial activity in the world of Magic: The Gathering. MFF provides a fast, fun and useful sixty minute format. Follow along with our seasoned hosts as they walk you through this week’s big price movements, their picks of the week, metagame analysis and a rotating weekly topic.

Show Notes: June 16, 2017

Segment 1: Top Card Spikes of the Week

Faerie Macabre

Faerie Macabre (Shadowmoor, Foil Common)
Start: $1.00
Finish: $15.00
Gain: +$14.00 (+1400%)

Condemn (DIS, Foil Uncommon)
Start: $12.00
Finish: $30.00
Gain: +$15.00 (+150%)

Street Wraith (FS, Foil Common)
Start: $30.00
Finish: $60.00
Gain: +30.00 (+100%)

Aladdin’s Ring (ARN, Rare)
Start: $6.00
Finish: $12.00
Gain: +6.00 (+100%)

Ghost Quarter (DIS, Foil Uncommon)
Start: $35.00
Finish: $55.00
Gain: +$20.00 (+57%)

Crystalline Crawler (C16, Rare)
Start: $4.00
Finish: $6.00
Gain: +$2.00 (+50%)

Saprazzan Cove (MM, Foil Rare)
Start: $6.00
Finish: $8.00
Gain: +$2.00 (+33%)

Segment 2: Picks of the Week

James’ Picks:

Unearth

  1. Unearth (UZD, Foil Common)
  • The Call: Confidence Level 8: $12.00 to $25.00 (+3.00/108%) 0-12+ months)

2. Mystical Tutor (EMA, Foil Rare)

  • The Call: Confidence Level 7: $15.00 to $25.00 (+10.00/+67%, 12+ months)

3. Aether Revolt Booster Box (Russian)

  • The Call: Confidence Level 8: $95.00 to $150.00 (+55.00/+58%, 12+ months)

Cliff’s Picks:

Duskwatch Recruiter

  1. Condemn (MPR, Uncommon)
  • The Call: Confidence Level 9: $6.50 to $13.00 (+6.50/+100%, 0-6+ months)

2. Rishkar, Peema Renegade (Aether Revolt, Rare)

  • The Call: Confidence Level 8: $2.00 to $6.00 (+4.00/+200%, 0-12+ months)

Disclosure: Cliff and James may own, or intend to own, speculative copies of the above cards.

Segment 3: Metagame Week in Review

The guys touched on the results from the SCG Modern Open in Charlotte.

Segment 4: Topic of the Week

James & Travis discussed the 25th anniversary release schedule and all the latest previews and leaks.

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

Watchtower

UNLOCKED: The Watchtower 6/19/17

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.

Man, #GPVegas, right? I’m on about four hours of sleep right now, and I’d imagine anyone else that attended is in the same boat. Some Invocations were spoiled. Inventions Engineered Explosives was bought out. The Modern GP had a wacky top eight. Everyone who knew what they were doing spent way too much money on food and loved it. But man this Monday sucks.

Leonin Arbiter (Foil)

Price Today: $10
Possible Price: $20

Inexplicably, there were two Hatebears decks in the top eight of Vegas. I’m not exactly clear on how that happened. Nevertheless, here we are. Hatebears has been a permanent fixture in the tier 2.5 bracket of Modern, and this weekend we saw that even mediocre decks can occasionally overperform.

There’s certainly a subset of players that enjoy this strategy, and that will continue to be true so long as you can attempt to tax and needle players out of the game. People were doing this with Maverick in Legacy six years ago, and the strategy is still around and kicking today.

Leonin Arbiter is a permanent fixture in Modern D&T, and while normally I wouldn’t be keen on cards from a semi-niche strategy like this, Arbiter has now gone quite awhile without a reprint, and I wouldn’t say Wizards is gunning to print him again. He could show up in Iconic Masters or Masters 25 of course, but it would be one of those “well I guess” reprints, rather than a “we need to put this somewhere.”

There are a few foils at $10, and putting two copies into the top of Vegas is likely to inspire more people to move into the deck, as it’s a sort of validation of the strategy’s competency and competitiveness. I’m not sure that’s true, mind you, but it will read that way to some. In any case, $10 for foil staple in a tier two-ish deck that’s now pushing seven years old isn’t a bad pickup. Sales of just a few playsets would put this firmly in the $20 range.


Dictate of Kruphix (Game Day)

Price Today: $4
Possible Price: $12

I’d say there were two exciting things to see in the Modern GP, and UB Taking Turns was one of them. It was certainly a wild list, with specific quantities that appear to be tested. Does that mean it’s actually a good deck, rather than just someone that got lucky at the wrong tables in Vegas? Maybe. The tools for some sort of turbofog list are basically all there, and it’s a strategy that has been successful in other formats multiple times. Death’s Shadow existed for years without anyone discovering it; the same could be true here.

Whenever a deck like this pops up on the radar, a small rush of players look to pick it up. Time Warp and Temporal Mastery would typically be the cards most poised to jump in price, but there’s suppressing factors. Mastery was just reprinted in MM3, and while it’s been longer for Warp, there are still four printings out there with well over 200 copies available. Part the Waterveil was just printed and has a huge stock. Exhaustion has 1,000 printings. (Although I went looking for 9th Edition foils, and I cannot find a single copy anywhere at any price.) Howling Mine is the same. I figured normal Dictates would be a good place to start, but there are 250 copies on TCG alone. Maybe eventually, but that day is not today, and it’s the type of card Wizards will reprint off-cycle.

I had forgotten there was a Game Day promo of Dictate though, and it’s sweet looking. A quick check sees just 24 vendors on TCG with copies. That’s a number I like to see. Over on EDHREC Dictate shows up in over 4,000 decks, which puts it on the list of most popular EDH cards in the last year. That’s another number I like to see.

Copies are available right around $4, and UB Taking Turns or not, that number is going to rise eventually. This Modern deck is only going to expedite that.


Chief Engineer (Game Day)

Price Today: $1.75
Possible Price: $8

UB Taking Turns was the first interesting thing at the Modern GP; “Blue Steel” is the other one. Zac Elsik, with such credits as Lantern Control and Nourshing Shoal Goryo’s, showed up with a Grand Architect aggro deck. He did not design it, mind you — please don’t yell at me in the comments that he stole the idea — he just tweaked it, and performed reasonably well with it, with a final finish of 11-4. (With three losses to Eldrazi Tron, apparently.)

Grand Architect is certainly where you may want to look first, but the time for that was a few weeks (or years) ago. At this point, that ship has sailed. Lodestone Golem has too many printings and too little demand. Master of Etherium is already pricey. Smuggler’s Copter is too new. Chief Engineer was printed in Commander 2016. But — just like Dictate of Kruphix — I forgot there was a game day promo of this guy.

With over 2,000 EDH decks running Chief Engineer, there’s clearly demand. For reference, there are 2,200 Breya decks in the REC file. He should also be an auto-include in just about any deck with an artifact theme. And, again, cool looking Game Day promo that’s never showing up again.

You can snag these for around $2 right now, less if you get lucky. There aren’t too many out there though. Most major vendors are out of stock or low supply, and TCG is down to 50 sellers. That’s not miniscule, but it’s not a large reserve either. I’m not expecting a sudden buyout on this unless the deck top eights another SCG Open or Grand Prix in the near future, but pressure on supply will definitely be constant, and there’s no more copies coming.

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.

MAGIC: THE GATHERING FINANCE ARTICLES AND COMMUNITY