Casual Fridays

MOM’s Early Mythics

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.

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Cliff (@WordOfCommander at Twitter and BlueSky) 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 co-host 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: Still Don’t Look Right

Readers!

I know you think I pretty much nailed it last week, but I still decided to come back this week with some more hot examples, fresh from… wherever they originate? Which is somewhere hot? Rather than contemplate the consequences of my idioms, we should back to what really matters – specs of any temperature served to you in article form.

Today I did some poking around as I often do, and I found something I guess I didn’t quite expect, and it goes to show once again why it pays to look at data again in a new context to help figure out what it means. Let’s see if you catch the outlier here.

You can make a few pronouncements if you really study the data carefully, but when you look elsewhere for what is going on in EDH, you might see some of these cards in a new light.

The first picture was the set page for the PAWBO Commander precon decks, the second pic is the most built decks of the last week. Sure, it’s obvious that Urtet is a big deal, but you can’t look at the set page and pick out at a glance that the card is “5th most built deck of the week” good. All Will Be One is old news, they have begun spoiling two new sets since it dropped.

This naturally made me check Urtet’s page and I found something right away. I clicked.

The High Synergy cards came up. Do you see what I saw?

Wake The Past is more on TCG than on CK? I clicked.

It is certainly played in enough decks before and a big one recently. Still doesn’t explain the price discrepancy. One more click.

Here we have our answer. If a small number of copies go missing from TCG Player, there are enough sellers with enough copies to list them without too much disruption. Card Kingdom is at the mercy of their own online buylist and convention buyers in a post-convention era to keep stocked. TCG Player is in control of this card’s price and while the incentive to be the cheapest and have your copy sell first is there, it won’t be enough to keep this below $6, probably more until they reprint it before my copies sell.

These few investigatory mouseclicks led to a big discovery – a card that was secretly selling out and which is great synergy with all 900 Red White Artifacts commanders they have farted out recently on top of Urtet, which made me think we were getting a Memnarch effect and made me sad.

While we’re at it, this is another High Synergy Urtet card, same deal with the lower price on CK because it sold out there first.

This week, CK is a canary in the coal mine, weakly trying to choke out a warning. Every time I saw a price where CK was cheaper on Urtet’s page, it was sold out.

Every “x matters” (I try not to say tribal anymore and this is the cleanest way to swap in a new word, imo) strategy is going to be this obvious, but it needs to be backed up by building for the cards to sell. They’re selling, pay attention to cards that sell out on one of the most expensive websites for people who don’t buylist to buy cards. Card Kingdom can tell you as much or more about the EDH market as any other site, including EDHREC, provided you know where to look.

Is this method great for figuring out specs way ahead of time like I prefer to? No, certainly not, but if you spend enough time looking at prices on EDHREC, your eyes catches when CK is cheaper. This week, it appears to be because Myr stuff is finally popping and current TCG Player retail is probably fine considering CK will almost certainly restock higher than that if they ever get stock back in.

That does it for me this week, readers. Thanks for reading and talking appraisingly about my art in the MTG Price Pro Trader Discord which is worth the cost of a subscription in and of itself. Until next time!

Casual Fridays

What Makes A Bad Spec Bad?

 I’ve written hundred of articles about cards worth buying, but I don’t think I’ve ever done a handy summary of the main reasons why I avoid buying cards. James and I talk about this on the MTG Fast Finance podcast, where we go over our picks and reader picks, but I felt it was high time for a compilation of things that steer me away.

Plus, we’re in a perfect storm of buying opportunities. We know a lot about what’s coming (Tom Bombadil, Slivers, a sheet of Legendary reprints, etc.) and we know there’s a lot of reprints coming up as well. Time to examine the categories and qualities that make for a bad spec!

One joke we make is that there’s no bad specs, only long-term ones. I can attest to this, having made multiple purchases of cards that just didn’t get there. Perhaps I’ll examine the longest-term holds I currently have in the future, but when you’re speculating on cards, one of the risks is that you buy a hundred copies of Yawgmoth’s Vile Offering and they go nowhere.

Red Flag #1: Preconstructed deck reprints

Wizards puts a certain amount of value into the Commander-focused precon decks. Needs to be enough that people feel they are getting their money’s worth, but not so much that big operations can just take all the decks and crack them for singles. It’s a fine line to walk, made worse by the timing. They have to decide months, sometimes years in advance what to put in these decks. 

One of the things that we talk about a lot is getting premium versions of a card, because those are less likely to be reprinted. The worst feeling for me as the owner of 104 copies of regular frame, nonfoil Yawgmoth’s Vile Offering is seeing that card in a precon deck. The only difference between what I have and what’s in the deck is a symbol. Sometimes that symbol is worth a lot due to scarcity factors, but generally it’s a dollar or two at most. 

So one of the things I watch out for, especially when there’s many things on the horizon, is what version of a card I’m going for. There’s often profit to be made in the basic versions of cards, but safety is found in the premium versions.

Red Flag #2: Too many premium versions 

A card can be a good spec but if there’s several options to choose from, it can be very tricky indeed. An example of this can be found in Modern Horizons 2: the enemy fetchlands.

That’s a card (and a cycle of cards honestly) that are crying out to be purchased. Modern Horizons 2 was opened for a long time, longer than anyone expected, and while some of the chase mythics are hot as can be (Ragavan and the pitch Elementals) a lot of the other cards and reprints have become quite reasonably priced.

Question is, do you buy the old border foil? The textured retro frame? The FEA versions? This is to go with the OG Zendikar ones, or the Expedition frame from Battle for Zendikar? Maybe the Zendikar Rising Expedition? Perhaps the unique art and lower supply present on the Secret Lair nonfoil?

Whenever possible, we want to focus on one special frame. Cards that have gotten a retro foil, a Secret Lair, and a FEA version mean that while all of them might well rise, they’ll all move together and move more slowly. For example, Sram, Senior Edificer:

The Retro foil from Time Spiral Remastered is the only special version, everything else is a foil regular frame. Focus on cards like that.

Red Flag #3: Regular foil versions

In the Collector Booster age, it’s become obvious that players don’t want just a shiny card, they want a rare shiny card. For cards that have a regular, a foil, an Extended Art and a FEA, the first three versions of the card tend to be close together in price. Foil cards in the regular frame might as well be regular nonfoils, in terms of their price. 

Foils are just not prioritized the same way other versions are. Nonfoils are better for sanctioned play, as there’s no curling issues. Special-frame nonfoils are often more valuable than original-frame foils, making the choice that much simpler. The only time I’ve ever gone after regular foils has been when they are the last to spike, the leftovers. Otherwise, I’m staying away.

Red Flag #4: Cards that have been outclassed/obsolete 

Magic has had something like 25,000 unique cards printed in its lifetime. Power creep renders some cards worse than others, or just not good enough for the modern times. That’s perfectly okay, that’s the sign of a healthy game, it’s evolving past its origins. 

Some cards from early sets are ridiculously strong, undercosted, or did broken things. Others were too synergistic, and will never be reprinted. Consider a card like Ancient Ziggurat vs. Unclaimed Territory. Why would I ever spec on a strictly worse card?

Exceptions here can include things like a tiny supply or being on the Reserve List. there are some breathtakingly bad cards on that list, and some of them have gone through notable spikes for that reason and that reason alone. Would you believe me if I told you that in 2016, Narwhal spiked to ten bucks on RL hype?

I hope this list of what not to do helps guide your future efforts, and explains what we’re up to when we’re making picks. It’s important to avoid the bad, as well as buy the good stuff!

Cliff (@WordOfCommander at Twitter and BlueSky) 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 co-host 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: It Don’t Look Right

Readers!

This week I was going to write about the specs that I think are likely to go up in price as a result of the Lord of the Rings 20 years too late to strike while the Mount Doom is hot edition giving us a true Saga Commander in Bomb Tombadil. Cliff scooped me by writing that exact article a day earlier and that means that we at least have a consensus as a writing team. We didn’t discuss this beforehand, if we had, I wouldn’t have to pivot to another idea at the 11th hour.

I’m not complaining, I was looking for inspiration and found some quickly- some of the prices don’t look right. Whenever I come across a price that looks wrong, I investigate and about a third of the time it makes me think about something I hadn’t been keeping my eye on. Other times it’s nothing. I’ll talk about what to look for and also pretend this is more art than science so you keep taking my advice. Job security an all that. Speaking of job security, did I tell you I never learned how to segue?

This card is literally the first card I looked at when I opened EDHREC today. That’s phenomenal luck for a guy who had to audible to a new topic – can you see what looks wrong to me? Apart from the 3rd price being MTGO, that is. Left is Card Kingdom, right is TCG Player. That’s right, the price is higher on TCG Player than on CK. That’s unusual, and we should verify that the cards got scraped correctly. Sometimes the price is lower because they sold out and the scraper hits an art card or an oversized Planeswalker card or something. Sometimes the price is lower because CK hasn’t noticed the card is going gangbusters on TCG Player and no one bothered to scoop up the copies on CK. How many copies are we talking, anyway?

When it says “8 available” it means “8 minimum.” Card Kingdom has it set up so the Jasons Alt of the world don’t buy 300 copies and then tell them “You can hang onto those and just give me whatever you’ll be paying on your buylist next week.” How many EX copies, though?

You know that it’s actually 1 copy. Any number under 8 you know is probably their stock unless they have some unsorted yet. The cheapest copies have not sold yet, and they might even be cheaper than TCG Player. So far the opposite of what I expected is happening – and a trip to TCG Player might untangle this snarl a bit.

So not only is the real price above $4, it’s selling at that price.

The cheapest copy is actually $5.19 for a non-foil and $4.47 for a foil, because Collector Boosters have no pity or remorse and they fart more curly foils onto the market than the market needs or wants. The foil may be tanking but the non-foil price is going up. It’s above $4 and it’s going up.

Brainstorm Brewery listeners will be familiar with DJ referencing something he calls the “Direct Premium” and I think that may be the case here with the big partition between Zoopiez and TOA. I don’t know who Zoopiez is, but we all know TOA and they’re direct sellers. If a seller can get $6 for a card on direct, they will and the “last sold” price can sometimes confound the market price calculation. $6 copies selling on direct while $4 copies languish in stores with few sales and a good reason for that is the cart optimizer. The optimizer doesn’t always favor stores with the best price, it usually favors the largest inventories. That’s why you can get $1 more for a card because they have already paid shipping once and the optimizer will keep your copy in the cart for $6 rather than send the buyer a $5 card with $1 shipping because the $6 card with $1 shipping is calculated as $6 not $7 by the optimizer provided you have shipping set up to not charge $1 on each additional item. Another reason is that sellers are reluctant to list cards under $4 because after the flat payment and fees, you made less than buylist on a $3-$5 card.

Do I think that this card will continue to go up in price? I do.

Of the 28 non-reprint cards in the Brothers” War Commander decks, Workshop is played the most by a good 20% margin. It can go in any color deck, making it versatile enough to not immediately be ruled out as a potential staple, and it synergizes with weird, unfair lands that 12 year old me loved because they produced a ton of mana and 38 year old me loves because they still produce a ton of mana and they stopped making new Cloudposts because they were broken. It’s the most played card in precons that are all done getting opened because Brothers’ War was 9 sets ago (look it up) and it’s cheaper on CK than on TCG Player. One of those prices is about to change and my money is that the $4 will change to a $6 or a $7 soon, so get them at $4 why don’t you?

Also, don’t ask why the borderless version is cheaper, that makes no sense to me, unless you could only get the borderless one in collector boosters in which case it does make sense and I should just take out this paragraph where I figure out something obvious and act like it’s new information. Don’t let me forget to come back and delete this.

There is a good reason I always check when a card costs less on Card Kingdom – the scrapers on EDHREC are good but only as good as the API they access. I don’t have a problem with CK or their API at all, I am just saying that sometimes something was misreported and you can catch it with a quick spot check.

Well well well, what have we here?

And there you have it. The cheapest copy actually available is $8.49 for the non-foil, regular bordered version. If this sold out on CK at $8 but is going for more on TCG, I can’t imagine that CK is going to restock the borderless version for $8.

Also, TCG’s price was a little inflated at $8.89, but perhaps not for long.

The foils under $10 are gone, and the price is a bit all over the place, but it looks like nothing is even getting listed under $7 anymore whereas a few days ago you could snag one for $6.60. It looks like this isn’t actually cheaper on CK, but it did cause us to look at a card that might be making a move. It’s a mythic, after all.

A mythic that refuses to go below $7 no matter how much product is opened. Not that anyone is opening product from 10 sets ago (they released a new set since I wrote that previous paragraph).

It’s worth looking at cards like this, too, where the TCG Price is cheaper but, like, WAY cheaper. The thing about CK is that they can charge what they charge because people know and trust them and they have a great buylist where you can purchase cards with credit and like it or not, CK is the go-to shop for a lot of EDH Players. If CK is getting away with charging $18 for this card that may or may not be good, I’ve had no time to test it.

Great googily moogily, CK believes in this card the way The Darkness Believed in a thing called love. Is TCG Player really selling this for like half price?

CK may know EDH but TCG Player knows when a graph looks like this, it’s not time to buy, yet. I don’t know if the $20 on CK is correct, it might very well not be and they might very well lower the price soon. However, I have no confidence in this card as a spec. It’s likely not nearly as useful as people predicted it would be and the price tailing off on TCG as sellers race to the bottom coincides with there not being all that much you can do with this card. It seems like a bad card, it’s ranked 11th/28 in the set, which is a 40% which is a failing grade. I think TCG Player, a site that has multiple sellers competing with each other and where the price the card sells for is still falling, has it right here. Sometimes the cheap copies are a buy if the card’s $18 (or $20!) on CK is justified. In this case, seems not.

I hope it was informative to get a view into how I look at cards and evaluate them as specs. I didn’t give you my normal 5 specs this week, but if you’re feeling froggy, why not look at the other 25 cards we didn’t talk about from Brother’s War precons and see if any of the other prices seem off. A few are under $1 and I wouldn’t bother with those – any card less than the cost of shipping isn’t going to give you accurate price comparison data. That does it for me, nerds. Thank you so much for reading my stuff. Until next time!

MAGIC: THE GATHERING FINANCE ARTICLES AND COMMUNITY