…must come to an end, it was a pleasure.
Brainstorm Brewery – Website – E-mail – Twitter – Facebook – RSS – iTunes – Stitcher
Ryan Bushard – E-mail – Twitter – Facebook
Corbin Hosler – E-mail – Twitter – Facebook – MTGPrice
Jason E Alt – E-mail – Twitter – Facebook – MTGPrice
Marcel White – E-mail – Twitter
I figure I’m not the only one to make that joke, about this being FtV: Bore, but it’s so darn accurate that I’m not going to flinch.
This FtV is super disappointing, there’s no way around it. The marquee cards aren’t that expensive and they are about to get a damn sight cheaper. Uncool foiling, a tendency to warp, and unexciting cards just aren’t going to peg the needle very far.
Also, this set doesn’t have much of a connecting theme. I get that Magic has a lot of cool stories to tell, and cards that want to tell those stories, but this set is disjointed at best. FTV: 20 at least got to pick the best/iconic cards to represent twenty years of Magic, but this set didn’t hit a lot of the high points for me.
Financially, this set follows the previous From the Vaults, in having a couple of high-value cards, mostly $5ish cards, and a couple of super-bulk cards. I’m seeing presales vary, sets are going for $50-$70 right now and that seems high. You’re far better off getting your singles in a week or two when people are desperate to unload their extras.
Beseech the Queen – This is a $4 uncommon! Sneaky-great for picking out of bulk boxes, but these were two relatively small printings in Planechase and Shadowmoor. I expect this to end up in the $2 range.
Cabal Ritual – It’s a $2 common, and played in exactly one deck. It’s going to be a dollar or less, an easy pickup if you really need one or a set.
Conflux – There’s a Legacy deck which uses this and Dream Halls to really go off. It’s not good enough in Cube, it only goes in five-color Commander decks. I would expect this foil to settle out in the range of five to seven dollars.
Dark Depths & Marit Lage – This is one of the two money cards in the set. Dark Depths is quite the combo with Thespian’s Stage, and that’s why Stage has had a significant spike recently. A huge part of this card’s price is that it’s from Coldsnap, which was never in huge demand and 60 regular or 200 foil is about right for the play it gets. No one has ever done this card fairly, Vampire Hexmage caused a spike in Depths back in 2009.
This version will slice the price in half and then some, and I expect it to end up about $25.
Glissa, the Traitor – Nigh-impossible to beat in combat without help, she also has artifact recursion synergies. Don’t overlook that she was the prerelease foil, and so she’s going to be $1 at most thanks to FTV.
Helvault – Bulk before, bulk now.
Memnarch – This is one of the most terrifying sets of abilities ever. For seven mana, you can steal target land, permanently. Combines really well with other cards that make the ability easier and cheaper, which will absolutely, and rightfully, get you taken out quickly in Commander games. I would expect this to be about $10.
Mind’s Desire – If your Cube has a Storm deck, then it is up to you if you’ll run this as well as the other finishers (Tendrils of Agony, Brain Freeze, etc.) that cost less and are more certain to work. It’s barely a dollar card, and there is a Judge foil giving a top end, so I’d expect this to be around $3.
Momir Vig, Simic Visionary – I have to admit, I didn’t know this had gotten all the way to $10, and a $30 foil. It’s undoubtedly an amazing card in Simic decks, turning every G/U creature into a creature in your hand. Chaining Coiling Oracle into Prime Speaker Zegana and so on and so forth is certainly powerful. I think this will be lower than $10 and more than $5.
Near-Death Experience – So many things from Rise of the Eldrazi, and they picked this. Blah and bulk.
Obliterate – Oh joy, a card that resets the game, even down to lands. Suspending this with Jhoira of the Ghitu will get you attacked into oblivion. This won’t be much above bulk.
Phyrexian Processor – Yes, this is the first foil printing, and that is always awesome, but not every deck needs this card or this effect. The more life you pump into it, the more worried you’ll be. Waiting till you have mana to both cast and activate it is much safer. Price-wise, this will probably be less than $5.
Tolaria West – Another one of those ‘Holy crap, it’s a $5 uncommon!’ cards but a lot of that was the way this card was used in Summer Bloom decks. It’s not bad in Commander, where you can use it to find any land you want, or Pacts or other shenanigans, but there’s not much of a demand and I would be very surprised if this kept the $5 price.
Umezawa’s Jitte – This is tricky. On the one hand, it’s the best Equipment ever. On the other, it’s banned in Modern. It’s climbed to $45 based on a tiny original print run, and being the GP foil for the 2009 season. No one needs a playset of this, it’s always a one-of in Legacy thanks to Stoneforge Mystic. Generally speaking, Legacy players don’t like FTV foiling, so I don’t see much of a market there, and that leaves Commander and Cube. I think this remains in the $30 range, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it fell all the way to $20, simply based on few how many people need another copy.
Unmask – Oh, I love this card. I had a black deck once that wanted to go Swamp-Dark Ritual–Hypnotic Specter. A blue deck could beat that only with Force of Will, and that’s what Unmask is for. It requires an answer, or it strips the answer away. It’s only $6/$33 now, and I would expect the FTV version to be sub-$5, maybe as low as $1.
Spoilers for Conspiracy 2 have begun, and the early results are… concerning. I enjoyed Conspiracy 1 the few times I found people who were willing to play it, and the new mechanics so far seem to do a good job of addressing the inherent flaws in multiplayer Magic. On the other hand, there is a lot to be really nervous about from a financial perspective. Let’s start with the most obvious issue, one that we actually first broached when EMA was released.
EVERYTHING IN ITS RIGHT PLACE: When Mark Rosewater and company “discovered” the Magic psychographics (Timmy/Tammy, Johnny/Jenny, Spike/…Faye Valentine?), they were used as a means of explaining the various subgroups of players that particular types of cards appealed to. What has happened since then, however, is that we’ve seen a rise in smaller supplementary products which are geared more largely towards alternative types of play. In the big picture, this is a pretty good solution- too many big green idiots in a Standard set (an appeal to Timmy/Tammy) just makes green less playable in Standard. But printing a green Commander deck full of hydras and elves and ramp spells or whatever gives that type of player EXACTLY what they want (and all in one box!), without having to compromise standard for several months.
The system isn’t perfect, however. Some cards don’t fit neatly into one category or the other. Even though things like Lightning Bolt and Bloodbraid Elf look rather tame in Commander, things like Jace, the Mind Sculptor are still good enough to make the team. Additionally, and this is what we talked about with Eternal Masters, WotC wants to make sure that there are cards in these ancillary products for other types of players/formats. That’s where things start to get complicated. It’s easy to put a few splashy and interesting rares or “build-around-me!” uncommons in a normal set and keep people happy. For players who aren’t deeply entrenched in Magic or playing in sanctioned events regularly, it’s often enough to keep them interested. With things like Commander decks, supply-side factors like “making sure we print enough of them” and “maybe don’t make things like True-Name Nemesis anymore” have solved the problems that come with putting Legacy-defining cards in otherwise casual products. Ultimately, Conspiracy is neither of these things.
Let’s assume that there are three roughly equal markets for a product like Conspiracy: Constructed Magic1 players who want saucy reprints, Commander players who just want new stuff (and different flavors of saucy reprints), and people who play things like Cube or other casual formats. Because WotC can now direct entire product lines (in this case, an entire draftable set) at a subset of players that AREN’T tournament-oriented, they need to include cards that appeal to these other markets as a means of buoying interest among the underserved populations. Plainly, we want to make sure this sells, so some of the cards are not going to be for the people this product is meant for. In the first Conspiracy set, that was made obvious by things like this:
Only to be followed up by this:
This(!):
And (BREAKING NEWS!) potentially this:
If all of these spoilers are true, then it’s going to be interesting to see what percentage of rares/mythics are playable in Constructed. Why? Because (and this is not a sleight against casual players) the demand for tournament-level cards is stronger. Not necessarily “higher” (although we can’t know for sure), but you definitely need four REAL copies of Berserk to play Legacy Infect. Because there is no true pull to make sure that there are no proxies or worse versions of a card in your Kitchen Table Commander League, there is no pressure to get them at a time or price outside of your existing comfort level.
SUPPLY: If we can expect the majority of the remaining rares/mythics to be Conspiracy (the alternative play format) centric, then it’s very likely that this set holds a tremendous amount of value in a very narrow percentage of cards. Show and Tell is currently sitting around $65 on SCG, and they sold out of new Berserks at $50. Inquisitions are available around $13 in their previous printings, and Burning Wish is available for about $8. Ignoring foil prices, there are only two cards in the first Conspiracy set above $10. The majority of the rares/mythics in the bottom half of the price spectrum are multiplayer-oriented and essentially unplayable in Legacy. There is still some CNS available in most stores that I pop in to, but it’s largely because there’s not a huge drive towards getting it.
We don’t know the print run size yet, but it’s safe to assume that because this is a smaller market product (aimed at a narrower band of players, is not going to be in mass retailers like Wal-Mart) that it won’t be produced as heavily as Eldritch Moon. I expect a little bit of the product (10% or so) to stay on distributor shelves in case the product sells really well so that it can act as a proverbial carrot to move something less exciting (those new intro planeswalker decks?). A lot of it will get opened by players trying to get a set of Berserks and/or S&Ts, meaning that most of the cards in the set will bottom out right away. I don’t know how many copies of Adriana, Captain of the Guard YOU need, but they will certainly be available. Because things like Berserk are (nearly) impossible to print, expect these marquee cards to not show up again for several years. This is going to buoy the price once printing stops, and they’ll slowly creep back up after that. Also, because all the cards people REALLY want are mythics, don’t expect your local environment to be flooded with them overnight. You’re still going to have to work to finish out your Sneak & Show list.
Tune in next week for the shocking conclusion of my Conspiracy 2 analysis. That is, if the GOVERNMENT doesn’t get to me first. Or is it just a shadowy cabal of people who work in the government? And who does that alien bounty hunter guy work for? Them, right? You know, the one played by that actor who was essentially TV Schwarzenegger in the 90s? And Alex Krycek died, right? Man, that show was crazy.
The truth is out there,
Ross
1Bearing in mind that this set doesn’t affect Standard at all, and has, currently, one high-profile Modern reprint (at a higher rarity!). Constructed here really just means “Legacy and Vintage”.
Welcome back to PucaPicks!
I can’t wait to go over some of the cards which are undervalued and which are overvalued. Last week I talked about Oath of the Gatewatch and Battle for Zendikar, and this week most of my attention is on the rotation: Magic Origins and Dragons of Tarkir!
There are some cards in here which I love love love, and others barely worth the effort of a stamp. Let’s get to it!
ProTrader: Magic doesn’t have to be expensive.
