Accumulated Knowledge

PROTRADER: A Game of Crowns, Part I

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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.

You need your insulin!
You need your insulin!

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:

This card is awful in a 4-player game.
This card is awful in a 4-player game.

Only to be followed up by this:

This card is roughly as awful as Stifle (in this context).
This card is roughly as awful as Stifle (in this context).

This(!):

At least this kills a guy?
At least this kills a guy?

And (BREAKING NEWS!) potentially this:

Honestly, this one makes the MOST sense.
Honestly, this one makes the MOST sense.

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.

But hey, cheap birds.
But hey, cheap birds.

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”.

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PucaPicks for August 18, 2016

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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!

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ProTrader: Magic doesn’t have to be expensive.

City of Traders

PROTRADER: Expeditions, Ten Months Later

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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.

The rest of this content is only visible to ProTrader members.

To learn how ProTrader can benefit YOU, click here to watch our short video.

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ProTrader: Magic doesn’t have to be expensive.


A couple of weeks ago we looked at how Battle for Zendikar prices have fared overall with respect to the Expeditions. This sort of retrospective is useful, as it informs us about how the market responds to changes in typical expansion products. The next time they do an Expeditions run, we’ll know much more about how the set they’re included with will react.

How about the Expeditions themselves, though? Originally released in Battle for Zendikar on October second, it’s now been a little over ten months since the initial run, with the Oath of the Gatewatch cycle coming three months later. This special print run was the first of its kind in more ways than one. The closest we’ve seen to special pack inserts at that distribution level was the original Zendikar “priceless treasures” promotion, which included cards from Magic’s earliest years showing up extremely rarely in packs. We had never seen “luxury” lands quite like this, at least not in this volume. They came with all new art and all new borders. Some of the cards were Standard legal while others weren’t even legal in Modern. Overall, Expeditions as a whole was a theretofore unknown quantity.

Initial expectations were that prices would be wild on these. Alternate art, new-border foils of some of the most played cards across Magic’s domain had to be valuable, especially if their print run was limited. What devout Vintage, Legacy, or Modern player wouldn’t at least consider them? Every writer chimed in, even the non-finance ones, with their expectations of how these would impact Magic as a whole. It didn’t take long before there was activity. Scalding Tarn exploded pretty quickly, and other blue fetches saw rapid movement as well. Expectations were generally that it would be tricky to pin down exactly what the rate of growth would be, but that there would almost definitely be steady growth for a long time. With limited supply and no foreseeable reprints on fancy, highly-desirable constructed cards, what else could happen?

Today we’re here to see how that has panned out. I noticed a couple on my desk the other day and began thinking about how well they have or haven’t done. Several months ago I bought quite a few, and I haven’t bothered to check in on them in awhile. I’m sure I’m not the only one with spare copies set aside, so let’s see how Expeditions are looking almost a year after release.

cata1c

floo

vents

stom

Clearly, things are not all rosy profits.

Looking through price graphs for all the Battle for Zendikar Expeditions (I’m ignoring ones from Oath of the Gatewatch for the time being), there’s a consistent theme among them. Prices were loopy at pre-release, then dipped pretty hard. They climbed to a peak sometime in January, and since then they’ve mostly been losing ground, albeit at a snail’s pace. There’s minor variations on that theme, but overall, it’s a recognizable pattern.

If we extend our purview to the Oath of the Gatewatch copies things don’t change much. Anything that isn’t Ancient Tomb or Eye of Ugin — both lands that were (and still are, in Legacy) part of Eldrazi Winter — remarkably resembles the bunny hill at your local ski slope.

Looking at this data, I find myself with two questions. What the hell happened, and what do I do now?

As for the first — I’m not quite sure. Sussing out causality in a muddled market burdened by the inconclusiveness of reality is always a questionable endeavor at best. Without clear and measurable evidence you’re never really quite sure why things that happen, happen. You’re left with educated guesses and not much more. (And if you’re Hume, that’s all you ever get, period.)

Basically everyone expected these things to begin rising in price within a month or two of hitting shelves. A simple understanding of economics would lead you to that conclusion. You have a good for which 95% of supply will be available within several weeks of its initial release. After that players will slowly acquire their own copies whether via binder grinding, PucaTrading, or purchasing them outright. Slowly but surely less and less copies will be available to the general public. Prices will begin to rise as a result. Seems easy, right? It can be tricky to nail down the scale of time, but the general trend was clear.

Instead, these have lost ground since the beginning of the year for the most part. Why would they do the opposite of the obvious?

One explanation is that they’re still on track to behave as we always planned, except over a much longer time frame than anticipated. Perhaps the period where supply is outpacing demand and prices are falling as a result didn’t take two or three months, but instead is taking upwards of a year or more. These are undoubtedly expensive cards, and it may take time for people to scrounge up enough capital to acquire these. Only after the slack in the market gets picked up will supply begin to see constraint and subsequent rises in price. If this is the case, then we would expect to see an inflection point eventually, and then the climb back up. At the very tail end of some of the shocks you can see an upturn. Is that a wrinkle or the start of a trend? It’s impossible to say at this point.

Perhaps instead it’s not a time frame issue, but one of incorrectly assigned demand? Prices may have been as high as they were early on because everyone thought everyone else wanted copies, but it turns out nobody actually wanted them. Upon examination, they’re truthfully not the greatest looking. They’re dark, trend towards warping, and the foiling process isn’t ideal. Even though the frames and art are selling points, once they were in people’s hands, the general consensus was “oh, these aren’t as cool as I thought.” As a result perhaps there’s considerably less demand in the population for these, and we’re just watching the prices fall until they finally meet people’s revised opinions.

Another perspective is that it’s just been a mediocre eight months for flashy manabases. Here’s the chart for a few Return to Ravnica block foil shocks.

vents 2

tomb 2

shrine 2

grave 23

Looking at these graphs, with the exception of Steam Vents perhaps, I find the word “malaise” on my fingers. Foil RTR shocks have been around a lot longer than Expeditions; certainly enough to burn through excess supply. Why then would prices be softening on these as well? This would indicate it’s not just a matter of Expeditions trying to work through the initial onslaught of supply. Interestingly, the original Zendikar foil fetches have fared a bit better. Only Marsh Flats looks worse today than it did around BFZ’s release.

flats

tarn

My suspicion is that this has to do with our understanding that the overall playerbase of Magic is shrinking, or at least growing far less quickly. Evidence of this is found in Magic’s product release schedule changes over the last year and a half or so. Standard seasons have been shortened, requiring players to purchase more cards to keep up, and the product release schedule is blazingly fast these days between expansion sets, summer multiplayer set, clash packs, commander decks, limited release products, and more. If you’ve got fewer total players buying cards, increase the number of cards each player needs to buy.

If it’s true that this is related to playerbase shifts, it still makes sense that cards from the Zendikar era can rise in price while cards from RTR and forward just can’t keep it up. Return to Ravnica was the tipping point where they cranked print runs to 11, and since then, there has seemingly been far more supply relative to the player base than years prior. As a consequence of that, it may be that luxury (as if that somehow differentiates one Magic card from another) cards from newer sets aren’t going to have the staying power that older ones do. Now even if we went into BFZ with this as a clear concept we wouldn’t necessarily think Expeditions would be as vulnerable to this, given the limited run. And yet, here we are.

We could probably sit around and philosophize about the flaccidity of foil mana bases for awhile. We’ll never have an exact answer though, and we’ve got to decide what to do before this article ends.

This is not an easy call. In one universe, I hold onto the Expeditions with the expectation that they begin rising. Instead they continue to falter, and rather than having cut my losses, I end up even deeper underwater. In another universe, I sell them now so as not to get gotten by the gambler’s fallacy, and by this time next year they’re up 30%. How do we avoid getting nailed by both of these?

I went looking for more data points to try and better educate myself on what the right strategy is. What has happened with other cards in the same general vein? I started with FTV sets. Those are limited run reprints that always contain a handful of constructed relevant cards. They’re not exactly the chasiest of chase cards, as the FTV foiling is heinous and a detriment to the product rather than a boon, but the Expeditions foiling isn’t superb either.

FTV: Realms

Realms

FTV: Twenty

Twenty

FTV: Legendslegends

Basically across the board FTV sets have been flat lining for years or falling. There’s almost no impressive growth from them as an entire category. In a few places we see growth — FTV Realms, most notably — but that was almost assuredly because the cards inside became more desirable from a constructed standpoint.

I also checked in on judge promos. Gaea’s Cradle, the most expensive promo to date, was flat, saw a huge spike in response to the legend rule change, and then is flat. Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite: flat. Lightning Bolt: flat, spike, flat. Imperial Recruiter: flat, spike, flat. Last year’s Wasteland: steady decline. Karakas: A year of growth, followed by a year of loss. Sneak Attack: flat, spike, steady decline. Gemstone Mine: steady growth.

Evidence on the judge side of things is less clear. Most are worth more now than they were in the past, though their path to get there is not consistent nor inspiring. Many go long periods of time with no action at all, and then spike suddenly, whether because of a rules change or just the whims of the market. After this spike they mostly plateau again. Others, though fewer, trend up or down. Overall they’re a mixed bag, generally marked by an increase in value, not reliable or predictable. As a whole they’re partially inspiring, since large spikes that you can’t see coming appear par for the course, which would mean that my Bloodstained Mires may be $180 one morning after months of no activity. It’s only partial though. I could be waiting years, and who’s to say it will ever actually happen?

It’s been several days since I started writing this article, and as I send it to publication Tuesday evening, I find myself wringing my hands over the conclusion. I’m underwater on the seven Bloodstained Mires I bought, but I’m in the black on the Wooded Foothills at enough to basically break even across the board. The Temple Gardens and one or two other assorted ones I have are all in the black as well, though once you subtract fees and shipping, only by pocket change. This isn’t an article where I can just pick a direction and throw it out there without really caring if it’s right or not. (Not that I do that anyways.) I’ve got a lot of personal money wrapped up in this, and making the right decision is important.

At first I was thinking about selling the ones I’m positive on and holding the ones I’m behind on, with the thought process that I’ll take the profits where I’ve found them and hope things get better where I haven’t. I find that the profits are so marginal though, and the losses on the Mires shallow enough that neither of those is compelling in either direction. Selling everything is just about break even, and probably the safest play overall, though it’s tough to shake the feeling that I’m leaving a lot of money on the table, especially when going back and reading my original article on the purchase shows several intelligent peers all recommending these as investments. I do have to admit though, those foil shock charts are scary. Why are those losing value over such a long period of time? With Modern’s growth over the last two or three years, shouldn’t they be rising instead?

I suppose I’m landing on holding for the time being. It’s the default option for now, as it’s what happens if I take no action. I have to think — hope, I think is probably more accurate — that things turn around later this year or early next year. Even if it’s taking longer to burn through excess supply, they’re still distinct and some of the most playable cards in every format of Magic aside from draft and Standard, and even not necessarily on the latter. It’s a small comfort that prices aren’t dropping precipitously, so if at any point we decide that it’s better to move funds elsewhere, they shouldn’t be too much cheaper than they are today. And all the while we maintain the possibility of doubling up on these, and if judge promos are any indication, practically overnight.

After this article is live I’ll be quite curious to see what others chime in with. I don’t think I’ve ever finished an article with so soft a conclusion. Sometimes there’s no obvious answer.

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Conspiracy: Take the Crown Financial Review

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Hey, everyone. I’m going to be soloing the financial review for this set and I couldn’t be happier to have additional pressure. I’m going to be doing the best I can to extrapolate where I expect prices to go based on any similarities I can draw between cards in this set and cards in the first Conspiracy which I expect to be drafted roughly the same amount. This is an unlimited print run set so comparisons to cards in Modern Masters 2 will only be made when it is used to illustrate how much more profound a price drop will be for the Conspiracy 2 card. For reference, what’s even worth what in the first Conspiracy set?

Untitled

This set cratered prices. Misdirection and Hydra Omnivore, in particular, were high-demand cards with low supply due to where they were originally printed and the new copies at non-mythic rare just buried them in an avalanche of supply. I expect Conspiracy 2 reprints to share the same fate. Let’s look at what we have so far.

8/20 Spoilers

Spitting Slime

This is a bulk rare. I like it, but, come on.

Kami of the Crescent Moon

This was a victim of Nekusar hype plus some non-deck in Modern all happening roughly the same month. This is going to be fun in Limited and if you get a sealed pool with this and Loevold, your deck is built. This will get very cheap indeed. And Nekusar can’t bail it out. Sell these and buy Puzzle Boxes if you didn’t already.

Spirit of the Hearth

This had crept up to $2. It will probably never be $2 again.

Manaplasm

This was bulk before

Ghostly Prison

Untitled

This is an Emperor’s New Clothes scenario. This high price is predicated on how good it is against Splinter Twin, a card that’s banned into Oblivion. EDH loves it, obviously, but Modern isn’t really killing people with lots of tokens the way it use to. This is less useful. However, it’s a popular EDH card so is a dealer who paid $10 for it going to sell it for $9.50? But the reprinting is going to make people start paying attention to this card, questioning why it’s as high and realizing the new supply and the lower demand means this card will plummet. Buy at the bottom and if you’re holding, well, them’s the breaks. This could have just as easily happened in Commander 2015 or 2016.

Guul Draz Specter

This was bulk before

Beast Within

This is a card that has shrugged off multiple reprintings and maintained a decent price. Could it shrug this off, too? Yes, but only in the long term which means buying opportunities.

Followed Foosteps

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This is a bad graph shape if you’re holding these. The buylist price started tanking years before the reprint. This is a bulk rare waiting to happen.

Gratuitous Violence

Well this has been crawling up because of Narset decks, but this is going to crater this. I don’t know if Narset demand can help this pull itself out of the crater its price is about to start residing in.

Forgotten Ancient

$3ish for a card with multiple reprints is pretty promising. I think if this hits bulk, you trade for all of these, despite the reprint risk being pretty substantial. I think it will take more printings than just this one to make this worthless forever.

Throne of the High City

This can start the Monarch shenanigans in any EDH deck. I’m not sure I hate this since if they can’t hit you, you get a free Howling Mine just for you. I don’t think this gets above bulk, but I will be checking EDHREC to see if people are brewing with this so I know whether to move in on foils.

Covenant of Minds

This was bulk before

Sphinx of Magosi

This was bulk before

Horn of Greed

This climbed its way to $9 and with The Gitrog Monster and other land decks popular, it’s easy to see why. I bet this tanks, and I’m a buyer when it does. It’s not just scarcity that made this card a monster lately.

Pariah

This is under $5 and cards under $5 are about to plummet. This doesn’t have enough EDH demand to recover from this in the near term.

Hamletback Goliath

This was bulk before

Sangromancer

This only got up to about $2.50. See what I said about Pariah.

Hundred-Handed One

This was bulk before

Psychosis Crawler

This wasn’t quite bulk, but this should be the final nail in the coffin built by Commander 2015.

Selvala’s Stampede

This is a better Tooth and Nail in some decks and a silly value monster in other decks. Mayael, Maelstrom Wanderer, Omnath – the list of decks which will call this green Browbeat an on-the-spot win is long. It’s impossible to find presale data on this right now, but this has the capacity to gain in price as other cards tank. I think this will be underappreciated off the bat. Target these if the price seems too low, like $2 or under.

Show and Tell

So this is the Blue mythic in the spot where they’re going to print Damnation, I guess. This is going to tank the price of this significantly. Either this card is 50% of the price of a box or this takes a bath. Right now Show and Tell is the same price Sneak Attack was before it was reprinted in Eternal Masters. Right now Sneak Attack is $25. Things will turn out much, much worse for Show and Tell since it’s in a set with $3 boosters not $12 boosters.

Platinum Angel

These are gettable for like $6-$8 right now, which means this is about to be pretty cheap. That’s good because it’s an EDH staple and will always, always trade out. Pay whatever buylist on these is in a few weeks (like $2, I bet) if you can do that locally and sit on them for a year before you trade them for like $5 worth of specs. You’ll never have a hard time getting rid of Platinum Angel.

Damnation

The new art makes it look like Damnation costs 6BB instead of 2BB and RK Post put a power and toughness in the bottom corner, but make no mitake, Wotc knew how badly we needed this card to be reprinted and they delivered. What, did you think they were going to give us a $2 rare that had already been printed 6 times in the same slot as Show and Tell, did you? After EDH players have been begging for Damnation for years? Give them some credit.

8/19 Spoilers

Selvala, Heart of the Wilds

This is pretty boss. It’s going to ramp you quite a bit and draw you some cards to boot. In a mono-green situation, you’re just going to play a ton of huge creatures and draw some extra cards, keeping your hand stocked as you play bigger and bigger dudes. You need a way to keep them off of big creatures, which can be tough in green, but if all this does is tap for GG, then GGG, then GGGG etc, you’re in good shape. If this is not your commander, but is part of the 99, the mana ability is even better. I like this a lot and this is getting jammed in my Mayael deck for sure.

This is preselling for $6 on eBay and that seems about right to me.  With all of the gas in this set, it’s going to take quite a bit to get over that mark and I don’t know if this card has the juice. This is going to just fart out Eldrazi all day and that’s cool, but I don’t know if it will be better than Marchesa was in Conspiracy 1 which it would need to do to get over $6.

Caller of the Untamed

This is a sweet ability that you’ll basically never get to use. Bulk rare unless Cube plays this to a degree that would be unprecedented for cube. EDH couldn’t make this not bulk on its own for at least a year or two.

Stunt Double

People play Clone in EDH. Quite a bit, actually. As many times as they have “improved” Clone by tacking weird stuff onto it, they haven’t really made something that was just so much better than Clone that Clone was obsolete.

Until now. They fundamentally changed the way you can play Clone and there’s no reason to be forced to play it Sorcery-speed anymore. Clone is dead. Long live Clone.

This is also going to be a bulk rare with an expensive foil for a long while. Maybe Carter Hatfield, the largest collector of Clones I know and owner of Perfect Storm MTG, can start collecting these and the price will nose up.

Birds of Paradise

Just reprint the stupid Mark Poole art, already. Pay him what you need to pay him and bring back the iconic birds.

As far as this is concerned, this reprint is going to tank its price a bit, but it will be back. If you missed your last dozen chances to buy these for dirt cheap at reprinting and then you were surprised at how high they climbed later, don’t miss this one.

8/18 Spoilers

Subterranean Tremors

I don’t think any of the cards in this set can possibly be worth any money at this point. This will be a set with 20 $10 cards. It’s crazy how good this stuff is. If you don’t know about formats other than Standard, this card is bugnutty in formats where this can replace Vandalblast such as EDH and Vintage. This has a ton of upside compared with any card that does any one of the three things this card does. 9 mana is super doable in EDH and getting a Blasphemous Act/Shatterstorm/Devastating Summons for one card is stupid. Cube is in, Vintage is in, EDH is in. People love this card. How much will it be worth? Probably less than its presale price at this point! This set has too many good cards.

Regal Behemoth

Speaking of good cards, this is good. I don’t think this is “be worth money” good but I think it’s bound to be a roleplayer in EDH or at least get tried out. I like cards that make you the Monarch in EDH because if no one else is playing those cards, you’re the one that introduces the Monarch emblem to the game. This is solid when you have it out and you’re the Monarch, doubling and fixing your mana. This is a very EDH card and I could see it being a buck or two in the short term and more in the long term, especially if the flashy mythics that are soaking up all of the value now fall off. I’m still not buying these for cash but I will trade for them, especially foils.

Volatile Chimera

This could be very good in cube, but I feel like there are more EDH decks than cubes and EDH couldn’t save this from bulk. We could see a high foil multiplier, but stores are getting better at predicting that when the set comes out instead of like 3 years later like they used to. I’m not interested in this card.

Berserk

Well, this was unexpected. This is a very narrow card but it’s also a very old and iconic one so seeing it here was a surprise. The price is about to take a gigantic hit, which is what they wanted, I suspect. Infect in Legacy is a thing and this goes in it and that’s basically it apart from Cube. That’s not to say there won’t be demand, but I think this squashes the price of Berserk, which is probably fine. This also gives us decent foils, albeit with the same art as the FTV ones.

An Unlimited Berserk is $100 right now and the price will likely try to start out there, but with all of the gas in this set and MSRP being enforced by stores like Target, pack price is going to tank a lot of these preorder prices. Don’t be surprised to see Berserk for $15 soon.

Duskmantle Seer

This was $0.75 when it was a mythic

Dragonlair Spider

This was about $4 and it had a ridiculous 1.1 foil multiplier, maybe due to distaste for Commander’s Arsenal foils. Whatever the case, this is going to get a big hunk taken out of it. I doubt this ever recovers.

Skyline Despot

This is pretty savage. You’re going to really punish people for not attacking you so this may bring some additional heat, but I could see this coupled with a card like Blazing Archon in my Mayael deck to just bury them in a slow avalanche of card advantage. This isn’t powerful on the level of Scourge of Thrones, though, so I bet this is a few bucks, maximum, but it could start out at bulk and climb.

Grenzo, Havoc Raiser

I like this card a lot and it’s both a sweet commander and sweet inclusion in the 99. I don’t, however, think this will be more popular as a commander than the other Grenzo.

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This may start to climb a bit, soon, but I feel like this is probably a pretty good corollary. The new Grenzo is sick, but so is the old one and it’s like $1.50

8/17 Spoilers

Exotic Orchard

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This card may just be done. It was crawling out of the hole formed when Planechase reprinted it and I don’t know if it can recover. The foil is also likely to be impacted which seemed safer since Planechase only reprinted the nonfoil, allowing it to climb to $10. This is an OK land that can screw you sometimes and it barely hit $4 before this. This is most likely $1 again for quite a while.

Spy Kit

This is much better than you think. There are endless shenanigans possible with this card and I’ll let the EDH subreddit tell you all about it. I think this could end up being a decent foil though I don’t think EDH demand will move the needle on an uncommon for quite a while.

Keeper of Keys

This is just a solid evasion-enabler that can draw you cards. I’m really excited about this card, although I don’t think it will be above $2. If you look at the stuff that was above $1.75 last time around, nothing of this caliber with its appeal limited to just EDH cracked the $2 mark.

Leovold, Emissary of Trest

This. Card. Is. Insane.

This is the best EDH colors, has elf tribal synergy, draws you a ton of cards, turns Howling Mine and Teferi’s Puzzle Box into bludgeons… I could go on and on about this card. I think this has the potential to be as popular as the last Marchesa or even more-so.  The floor on this card is $5 if you ask me and it could go higher. Again, though, Marchesa from the last Conspiracy is very popular and that’s like $5.50 so insane or not, I don’t know if we buy these at $4 for cash hoping to make anything. People are excited at least.

Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast

This seems pretty narrow. It’s not good enough for Vintage in all likelihood except maybe in some sort of Tezzerator deck? I am not sure. I think this goes in a lot of EDH decks like Shattergang Brothers (how good would it be to ultimate this targeting Wurmcoil Engine or Myr Battlesphere?) but I don’t know if that’s going to be enough to prop his price up, much. This is one more planeswalker than I expected to see in the set. Is this part of a cycle? Could there be 3 more?

This is preselling on SCG for $20 and I think that’s a little high even though I like this card. It’s a 3 mana walker that can use his -3 3 times before he dies, which is really good. But until I see someone who knows more about Vintage than I do (almost everyone) or Legacy (still a lot of people) tell me why this is as good as Dack Fayden outside of EDH, I’m out at $20.

Edit – I finally got a chance to talk to some Vintage players about it and they are hyped about this. I still don’t think this gets as expensive as Dack Fayden since this isn’t the only good card in the set, but  it could have upside at $20 in their view. His middle ability does a ton of work in Vintage where the number of permanents is smaller and they are more important and 3 mana happens routinely on turn 1 in Vintage. It’s hard to know how the value will be spread out in this set, but it’s bonkers so far.

Wild Pair

This used to be $2. That bodes poorly for the future of this card.

Burgeoning

The new art is pretty sweet and it’s the first time this card will be foil, which is super relevant.

Right now, a Conspiracy Exploration is $11, down from a high of $40. Burgeoning is at like $30 so I could see Burgeoning getting to $10 or cheaper as a result of this reprinting. The foils are anyone’s guess, but I would guess they will decline from their initial price the way Exploration did. Exploration is a very nice price corollary and I’d follow its trajectory to see what to do with Burgeoning.

Sanctum Prelate

Wow. This is one of the craziest hatebears ever printed. This can straight shut people down. It gets worse in EDH where you can’t just name 2 or 3 and drop the mic, but it’s still good there. I don’t know if this is Containment Priest good, but it’s certainly very solid. I’m still waiting on a presale price for this, but I imagine this will be $20 at least. This basically makes me less confident in the ability of Recruiter of the Guard to maintain even $20. I wrote about that card not knowing if there would be other good cards in the set and every card I see spoiled makes me less and less bullish on Recruiter, as good as it is.

8/16 Spoilers – Updated

Inquisition of Kozilek

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This is a crazy price trajectory for an uncommon and while it’s already sinking on its own due to the relative lack of Modern events lately (?) I expect the Conspiracy 2 printing to cut its legs off.

If you’re whining about it being rare and think this won’t torpedo its price, you haven’t been paying attention lately at all. We had an expensive uncommon reprinted as a rare in a smaller, limited-print-run set and we can look at what that did to prices.

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Look at the price of Heritage Druid. If you’re worried that Conspiracy, with its $3 booster packs as opposed to $12 booster packs and its unlimited print run versus its ridiculously tiny print run, can’t lower the price of an uncommon printed at rare, you aren’t paying attention. Inquisition could his as low as $4 or $5, especially in the short term. Buy your set then, and buy a second set in case it ever hits $30 again.

Desertion

This is a card that’s in some trouble, finace-wise. It was already down to like $6 because of the multiple printings. The Commander’s Arsenal version was a paltry $9, so sexier foils from a real set are going to start out around that and tank. If Desertion hits like $1, I’m a buyer for cash, though because the price should do an OK job of recovering and they always trade out well. It’s sicko in EDH and cube.

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Phyrexian Arena 

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This card has been printed a lot and keeps on ticking. I expect a dip and I expect people who care about the new art to pay a little more if that’s what they want. The real loser here is the foil versions from other sets which have enjoyed a lot of safety since Arena has been reprinted 3 times since 9th edition and none of those times have been foil. 9th Edition foil is the cheapest at around $50 and we could see the Apocalypse version approach that if people indeed prefer the new art foil. I would say rather than think about how much the old foils are going to be dragged down, think about how high they could get and if you can get a Conspiracy 2 foil for around $25 or $30, I think we can see there should be upside. This is a good card and EDH will always want it because it’s a great way to draw cards in black decks.

Burning Wish

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Some speculative buying began to abut reality in a way that exposed the price was artificially high. This card doesn’t get played like it used to. Goofy Wish board combo decks in Legacy and Vintage aren’t as appealing when you can dummy-proof the game with cards like Past in Flames. This is a fine card, but it can’t possibly maintain above $10 with the copies we’re about to get since it was on the decline already and was barely clinging to $12. This is a $5 card soon, I think. I also think it may have upside at $5.

Hallowed Burial

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This card is going to slip to a buck or two. It was played in Modern sideboards for a hot minute, including back in 2014 when everyone was all “Modern plays a copy of this in a sideboard? BUY EVERY COPY ON TCG PLAYER!” and cards like this and Fracturing Gust were $10 overnight. I think this may have upside when it gets very cheap. The thing about EDH is you can pay an extra mana for upside on your wrath effects (or more than one mana – I win games off of the back of a big Decree of Pain) and this is a good wrath variant. Modern doesn’t have to fight pod decks like it used to do this isn’t as appealing anymore but I still think this is a trade target when it craters, and it will.

That’s all of the reprints from the last day or two. The next cards will be a little murkier without anything solid to  compare them to from the first Conspiracy.

Dack Fayden peaked at $60 last time around. We could see that again if we don’t have multiple cards trying to pick up all of the slack from the whole set. A strong planeswalker would have to be quite strong indeed to compare to Dack, for example. Another card that isn’t a planeswalker would need to be played in as many formats. It’s tough to judge.

Kaya, Ghost Assassin

Kaya is not going to be $60, I fear. She is cool and EDH players are excited but I don’t think this impacts the game enough for Legacy and Vintage and Cube. The colors it’s in are awkward. If you want a WB walker in your cube, you have a dozen decent Sorin versions to choose from. This is preordering for $20 and while it could have upside at that price, I would have to be misevaluating this card AND the rest of the set so far pretty badly. If there were no other good card in the set, I could see maybe wanting this at $20 for speculation purposes, but there is one. I think $20 may be the price this settles near, but it’s hard to imagine.

Recruiter of the Guard

This is a card that could hit $60 in a world with no planeswalker in the set? Maybe? I guess it really depends on what else they reprint to soak up some of the value. This snap sold out at a $20 preorder and I think this could get closer to $50 before they are out of pre-sale copies to list.

People are comparing this to Imperial Recruiter which is wrong, but I don’t know how wrong it is. It has some distinct advantages in decks like Death and Taxes which was splashing red in some versions for Recruiter. There are a lot of decks running Recruiter but that has a lot of different roles in a lot of different decks and this doesn’t do all of them. It’s better in a D&T variant, sure. It could go in a reworked version of Aluren where you can grab Whitemane Lion or Deputy of Acquittals to get your combo going? Maybe? I don’t know, Aluren sucks and this can’t grab Lobber Crew and killing someone with Lobber Crew and Harpy is the one reason I’d play Aluren. Oh, and this new card can’t grab Painter’s Servant. So that’s a big red X in its “How does this card stack up against Imperial Recruiter?” column regarding whether it could be an affordable replacement for Recruiter in the best deck running Recruiter.

I am not super high on a non-mythic in a set with other cards in it. Let’s not forget a great deal of Recruiter’s price is predicated on its relative scarcity since it’s a P3K card. Let’s also not forget that this is a rare and Dack Fayden was a mythic. That means $20 is a more likely ceiling.

I like this card and it’s fully possible this is the best card in the set. I do, however, think the set will be structured such that this won’t need to soak up all of the value. I expect a high foil multiplier but I don’t expect the foils to be like $600 like Dack’s were unless the set is truly garbage. Oh, and like Dack, this card is super reprintable in Eternal Masters, so I’m a seller if I crack this in a draft, not a buyer.

Capital Punishment

This is a bulk rare even if it gets played in EDH, which is the only format which could conceivably play it though I’m not sure we want it.

Paliano Vanguard

Draft-specific cards end up bulk rares unless they’re cube all-stars like this isn’t.

Queen Marchesa 

The other Marchesa is $5-$6 right now. I expect this to be less popular so the ceiling on this is basically $5. There might be money to be made in the short term, but just know that this is headed to $5.50 or lower and you don’t want to be holding them when it does if you paid more than that. I don’t know how much cheaper I like this at because I don’t know how close it will get to the old Marchesa’s price. That’s a very popular commander and it’s in blue. This will not be as popular and it’s in worse colors. That all bodes poorly.

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Archdemon of Paliano

I kind of don’t understand this card. It could be silly fun to draft it late in the pack where your last picks are garbage, anyway. Still, I don’t want this in cube and that’s the only thing that could save this. I’ll be padding out instant collections with copies of this forever.

Is this good enough for Legacy where the draft-specific stuff doesn’t matter and you’re left with a better Juzam Djinn? Do we care about this in a world where Tombstalker both exists and doesn’t get played all that much? Hard to know. I think this is probably bulk, but I wouldn’t be surprised if people decided this was playable in Legacy. Stranger things have happened.

Arcane Savant

This is going to be sicko in cube. I have a feeling foils of this will be something absurd like 10 or 20 times the price of the non-foil, especially if the foil ends up a bulk rare.

“Protector of the Throne”

When Protector of the Throne enters the battlefield, you become the monarch.

If damage would be dealt to you, you may instead have that damage be dealt to Protector of the Throne.

Bulk.

Custodi Lich

This is one of the best cards that makes you the Monarch, and it disincentivizes people to attack you better than any of the other Monarch-centric cards. This may get above bulk. Note that even if this is the only Monarch card in your deck, you can use this as a kill spell that also draws you cards. I think this will be above bulk.

Adriana, Captain of the Guard

To the extent that there are only a few legendary creatures ever that fewer than 10 people submitted decklists for to EDHREC.com this is playable. But that is by no means an endorsement. This is just another super boring Boros commander, it forces you to play subpar creatures if you want to stack melee triggers and it’s a non-mythic rare. I think this is headed for bulk bins and I’m not even optimistic about the foils.

“Confiscate Riches”

Sorcery
Council’s dilemma – Starting with you, each player votes Time or Money. For each player that voted Time, take an extra turn. For each player that voted Money, gain control of a permanent that player owns. Exile ~.

This is exactly what I want a 9 mana EDH sorcery to be. This is an excellent Time Stretch variant and even if you take 0 extra turns, you still get an awful lot of value from this. I’m in love.

 

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