Casual Fridays

Urza and Mishra Count Down Their Top Ten Artifacts!

Sure, we’re a month into Dominaria United, but I’m going to let at least another five months go by before I buy any of that. I’m certain there will be great deals, I just have to let them find the bottom.

Instead, what I want to do is a fun exercise with artifacts and The Brothers’ War: What are the top artifacts in Commander and which ones are ready for a bump? It’s true that some of these will be cards we’ve mentioned before, and some of these might get the ‘retro frame artifacts’ treatment, being one of five hundred numbered copies too.

I can’t predict what will be in that subset of cards, this Artifact Archive, but this will be a good list of cards that might go up because they are good and they are popular. If something feels likely to be an inclusion for that subset of cards, I’ll mention that.

One warning about the EDHREC ranks: This is a database created by the most enthusiastic of people, and has a bias towards preconstructed deck inclusions. Don’t get too wrapped around the handle of this data, but do allow it to inform some of your decisions.

Timeless Lotus (cheapest version is $20, most expensive $35, 3200 decks on EDHREC) – One of the things we noticed right away was that there were no Extended Art or other Showcase version for this, Karn’s Sylex, and Weatherlight Compleated. This seems to scream out that the special version is coming, because not even Wizards would print a special version and then in the next big set give us a retro frame version. 

I will likely be all over the retro frame versions when they come out, being a great mana rock but keep in mind that it can only be in five-color decks. I imagine that the popularity of this card has a lot to do with five-color Dragon decks and Jodah, the Unifier being in the same set.

Herald’s Horn ($7 to $20, 77,000 decks) – We are getting a special foil version for the Year of the Tiger later this year, and there’s a Surge foil in the new Warhammer 40k decks. That’s two very good foils but in the same frame. Putting this in as a retro frame card is very likely, but if it’s not, watch out on both foil versions. This is a very popular card despite never getting large-quantity printings.

Whispersilk Cloak ($3 to $12, 76,000 decks) – This is in the all-foil Heads I Win, Tails You Lose deck coming soon, thanks to printing delays. It should have arrived a whole lot sooner, but for our purposes, it’s not that big a deal. Not a new frame, but also not really reprinted in a major way for several years now. I expect the first premium version of this to do very well.

Panharmonicon ($5 to $40, 71,000 decks) – We’ve got the Secret Lair blueprint version, and we already have a retro frame version from the Time Spiral Remastered set. It’s not impossible for Wizards to give us a second retro frame, but we also just got an Extended Art foil and an etched foil from Double Masters 2022, so being in the Artifact Archive is not happening. I don’t want to spec on 2X2 yet, but I’m tempted by the blueprint version, being as rare as it is.

Isochron Scepter ($11 to $40, 68,000 decks) – Amazingly, this has never had an alternate frame. It’s got a super-sweet Eye of Sauron thing going on with the FNM version from way back when, but this is a prime candidate for inclusion in The Brothers’ War set. If it dodges that reprint, we’re off to the races.

Phyrexian Altar ($29 to $500, 67,000 decks) – At least three times, Wizards has reprinted a card whose original was in the retro frame: Time Spiral’s Timeshifted sheet, Mystery Boosters, and the judge promo Animate Dead. There might even be more, there’s so many cards to keep track of these days! I don’t think they would put a new retro version of Altar out there, given the history and the recent printing, but again, I’m still waiting for 2×2 to hit its floor.

Altar of Dementia ($8 to $20, 62,000 decks) – This was originally in Tempest, has its first foil in Conspiracy of all things, and has kept its price due to a total lack of reprints. If this is in the Artifact Archive, I’d expect it to be pretty cheap at the end of things, and then I’m content to swoop in and buy up some copies.

Helm of the Host ($16 to $33, 55,000 decks) – Extremely popular for an artifact with a crazy-high cast and possibly the highest equip cost of anything people play in Commander, this is so very ready for a reprint and I fully expect it to do well in a retro frame. Don’t buy any of these, even for personal use, until after we get the full list in BRO.

Thousand-Year Elixir ($5 to $81, 48,000 decks) – I’ve got a couple of decks that love this card, but it’s only had the one foil printing, way back in Lorwyn. It’s also got a price that’s high due to scarcity, just like Altar of Dementia. It’ll always be a niche card, but very very good in that niche. Retro version is very likely here, and hopefully the cheapest copies get down to a dollar.

Alhammarret’s Archive ($8 to $25, 45,000 decks) – This is a card that makes a table gnash their teeth and turns a free-for-all into an Archenemy battle. Doubling up on card draw and life gain is a tough bargain to pass up, and this has only gotten a Mystery Booster reprint and a Commander 2021 set of copies since its debut in Magic Origins. I’m doubtful that this will be reprinted, and it doubles up two effects that decks love to do, so wait for the list to come out and then move in.

Cliff (@WordOfCommander) 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 official substitute teacher 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: Out With The New

Readers! A lot can change in 7 days. From last week’s article, here is a graphic of the 5 most recent sets in the EDHREC dropdown menu.

And here is, and I’m definitely padding the word count to create somewhat of a buffer between the two images in case you’re on, like, mobile, I guess? And you have big old Kind Charles fingers and can’t select one without the other? I feel like I did it, and not a second too soon because you have to get a lot of this BS. This is that same menu 7 days later.

Superlative. No notes. Is there a reason for this glut of products apart from 40k being delayed?

Super duper. OK, then. Since we’re all whales, now and Ol’ Cap’n Ahabsbro seems to want to see us all dead. If Magic goes away, I need to get a real big boy job and I have 0 skills. I’m like an indoor cat who ended up outside with a dog whose internal monologue is voiced by… I want to say Scoot McNairy. Actually that sounds pretty chill. I’m like a 38 year old with no relevant experience in the last decade who can’t pass a drug test. That’s what I’m like. And I’m scared.

The cure for the “I wasted my life on a children’s card game that doesn’t love me back” blues is more hot specs. With new sets every week comes new specs every week. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Looks like the community is spoiling to build around this creature all the Vorthos people recognize from the Ice Age comic book that came with a free pack of Fallen Empires but I’ve never heard of. The only way to get a deck built is to build it before the set’s out because by the time you have the physical cardboard, they’ve spoiled 2 more sets and 8 more secret lairs. Let’s look at these specs, shall we?

No real shock here. Kayla likely gets built as a mean, stax style deck that you can sac your own pieces to get them back. Everything that makes her better at doing what she does is 2 or 3 mana and an Artifact or Creature. This is basically a Tiny Leaders deck, but like a mean, antisocial one. If people figure out how to build this deck like not a complete sociopath, I’ll report on those specs, too, I guess, but for now, feast your eyes upon my pics.

This card is under $10 and should not be. Every time it goes under $10, it goes back over $10. Is this going to get reprinted again? Perhaps. But what you should really be asking yourself is how many times does it need to get reprinted not to trend towards $15? At least one more, so make this one count.

I could type more because of that thing I said earlier about a buffer between images, but this graph is 1,000 words and I don’t want this piece to turn into a snooze to read if we’re at 1,500 words already.

This is $1 above its recent floor an $20 below its historical high. I don’t know where it will equilibrate, but it’s not going to be $8.

There are basically very few wrong answers here, honestly. Half of these are cards I liked a long time ago. Some of them are way underpriced. WAY underpriced.

I thought this was a $5 last year and nothing has happened since then to make me feel otherwise. Unfortunately, nothing has happened since then.

I don’t know, this just doesn’t seem like a bulk rare to me. It’s in a lot of decks, it’s about to be in more, and it’s good. Illusionists’ Bracers were cheap forever, I stand by this pick and I’ll either be vindicated or out of a job because the game collapsed under the weight of the products they release because no one wants to buy Monopoly or Nerf guns right before a recession.

Speaking of bracers,

This is in a lot of decks. This should be $10 everywhere, maybe more, so sniping cheap copies seems like a good play. They somehow have never reprinted this, which makes me a bit nervous considering they have a chance to reprint it every set, now.

I think this commander actually has a ton of potential. I really like the idea of a Boros type of Birthing Pod, and with it as your commander, you’ll get a ton of value. For reference, here is the rest of Kayla’s page. Thanks for reading, nerds. Until next time!

Casual Fridays

The Only Three Things I’m Doing Now

If you’ve paid any attention to Magic news over the last week or so, you might have missed out on the news that there’s a new version of the Collector’s Edition coming out, called the 30th Anniversary version. Or the news before that, telling us that there’s going to be a Universes Beyond set for Final Fantasy and Assassin’s Creed. Or the news before that, where there’s a new set of Transformers cards coming with The Brothers’ War. Or the news before that, where we’re getting a Secret Lair for $149.99 with thirty cards as a countdown. Or the news before that, with Dominaria Remastered as an upcoming set full of reprints. Or the news that just came out, regarding the 40k Secret Lair drop.

My point is, there’s a whole lot of new sets and teasers for upcoming things. It’s an enormous amount to keep track of, and I’m someone who writes 5-6 articles a month about Magic!

The Collector Booster/Secret Lair era has changed some of what I do, and today, I want to go over the rules. This stuff applies to sealed product and single specs alike. I’ll explain my view on each as we go, but I’ve resolved that this is the only time I’m spending my money.

#1: Underpriced/Arbitrage opportunities

There’s frequently deals to be found between different stores, different continents, or special sales. Once you get access to those sorts of things, getting 10 or 20 percent off of retail puts cards in an amazing light. If you’re a ProTrader, and active in our ProTrader Discord, you can be part of great group buys, but there’s other access paths as well.

There’s often arbitrage opportunities if you can manage the logistics of international shipping. Not every store will ship across an ocean, but the strength of the dollar against other currencies means that you can gain some impressive deals on cards. It feels like cheating, to buy cards with such a lower price, but again, the shipping internationally can eat up a lot of those margins. Do your research and plan well before embarking on such an endeavor.

#2: We are 7-9 months removed from the initial product run

In the last couple of years, I’ve learned this lesson the hard way: The time to buy is not when the set moves on from being the drafted set in stores and Arena. The time to buy has become several months later, when supply has trickled to max and interest is at its lowest. Here’s a recent example of buying low and reselling high:

To be fair, in January 2021, I did write about this as a pickup at $1.50 foil. Easy pickings, given the EDH numbers then and what it’s at now. 

This is exactly the pattern, though. I made other purchases at that time that continued to track downwards, and I could have gotten in even cheaper on things like Felidar Retreat and Ruin Crab. 

#3: The Quick Flip/Presale

One of my longest-running tenets has been to never preorder anything, but there’s been some occasions where buying early and flipping right away is a valid strategy. This is especially true with sealed product.

The time before the official release is a wild, wild time. Singles are put at prices that reflect crazy amounts of hype, combined with the low amount of vendors who’ll put up singles ahead of time. If you know you’re going to be cracking a lot of product, you can safely put up one or two rare foils. 

An aspect of this that gets less press and more stress is for those who presell a product, the margins can be very lucrative. Here’s the TCG graph for DMU Collector Booster Boxes, a set that officially released on September 9: 

If you were a seller on TCG who could list preorder product in late July, something like 8-10 weeks before street release, you could sell boxes for $80 more than they are currently selling for. That’s a pretty crazy margin, especially if you’re buying at a distributor price and reselling at this inflated retail price.

Only a certain percentage of sellers are allowed to presell, though, and you have to be a certified Hobby Shop. Still, you could sell product on the day of release, when it is still higher, and recoup a tidy markup.

Singles are, of course, the best thing to sell right away as everything is at its maximum price. So flipping quickly is an art form if you don’t have presales going on; your best bet might be local sales that take place offline.

There is one other aspect to buying at the right price: Selling at the right price. 

I presume that 15% of my sale price on TCG or Ebay is going to get eaten up by fees and shipping and taxes. The precise amount can vary, of course, but that’s the rough estimate I keep in my head. 

An example of money that could be made is in the Secret Lairs that have appreciated. For instance, the ‘Foil Compleat Edition’ of five Praetors in Phyrexian language sold for $40 when initially offered. Right now on TCG, they can be had for just under $80. Presuming I sell at $80, that’s $40 + $12 in costs, an estimated profit of $28 per copy sold at that price. 

Totally fair to make that profit, but I confess that I’m holding out for more. I’ve got two copies listed for just under $100 with shipping, and a few more sets ready to sell once those have been sold. 

It’s not a quick flip, I just want more profit, and that’s an estimation we all have to make. It doesn’t cost me much besides storage to keep holding on, watching the price go up. There’s plenty of Secret Lairs that have gone up in value, and as long as Wizards keeps to their policy of not reprinting specific Secret Lairs, they can go nowhere but up…even if they are ascending at a snail’s pace.

Cliff (@WordOfCommander) 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 official substitute teacher 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, ProTrader

Unlocked Pro Trader: How to Make 40k Decks

Readers!
It’s that time again, the time where we have Warhammer 40K data but it doesn’t matter because they have announced Unfinity, Brother’s War, 5 new secret lairs and a $250 booster pack that very much violates the spirit of the Reserved List. We’d better look at 40k stuff now – it’s about to be pushed off of the “recent sets list” on EDHREC and it hasn’t even come out yet. 

Last week we didn’t have enough data but we seem to be all set this week, so let’s do that thing I always do but also always feel the need to introduce like you don’t already know what it is from me always doing it. That thing. Let’s do that.

Abbadon is still in the lead by quite a bit, still, which was to be expected. He’s been spoiled the longest and he was the only one we had data on for a while. Nothing has really changed with Abbadon, but let’s take a quick look at High Synergy cards.

Still suspend stuff and pingers. Pingers are also going to be useful for the next commander, too.

I talked about Abbadon and Starnzy 2 weeks ago, and if you didn’t read that article, I go into a bit more depth about why I like older foils. Ophidian Eye, for example, has 0 reprints and a $10 foil that’s pretty scarce. I think someone knew about these 40K cards a long time ago based on how all of the ping foils disappeared like 2 years after they printed Torbran. I like a lot of stuff that deals exactly 1 damage but at the rate they release new commanders, no one can really agree on a deck because by the time you get cards, they have announced 3 new sets. I prefer more stable stonks since Magic seems determined to jump the shark and I don’t know if I’ll have a job in a year.

Exhibit A

Every Demon is like $4 right now, similar to Dragons. If a good Demon tribal commander is printed, they all go up, even the OK ones and with 70 new Legendary creatures in every set, they’re going to have to resort to demon tribal sooner or later.

I have long been bullish on both versions of this, and it seems the markets are finally in accord. The fact that I said to buy it before it went up would suggest I sometimes know what the market will do, or every card goes up eventually. Either way, I urged people to pay $2 for the showcase version in the past and now Card Kingdom is asking $5. This card is profoundly good and people are finally noticing, though it may have taken a Demon that cares about Demons to get there.

That pic looks weird, it’s because it’s an NFC and I’m kind of in the zone typing right now so I’m not going to fix it, you’re just going to have to be OK with my miscut pic.

Too late to get these for $8 but you can get them before they’re $20. It’s on “The List” so that has helped, but not enough. I’m serious about paying $12-$15 for these if you’re quick.

This held fairly steady at $15 before it was reprinted. I’m perfectly OK snatching some $4 copies of this and watching the reverse J turn into a U like we like.

CK is just straight up getting $40 for this card and TCG is like $6 more than I paid. I am hodling on for dear life on these and I’d rather they see more play than not if I want to recoup on these. I bought at basically buylist at the time but that doesn’t help me much. I really expected these to go lower, but The List doesn’t add as many copies as you think it will.

This is kind of a boring deck if I’m being honest – it’s being built as Esper goodstuff control for the most part which means another Thoracle deck. Fun.

Kind of a steep drop with the number of decks, but the Stormlord is built 3 times as much as the Swarmlord, which no one saw coming. Not that anyone has touched this product yet.

Another problem with the product being obsolete is that people don’t have physical cards in their hands, so they don’t construct the decks with the physical cards they have, they construct using the precon list as a guide. This almost always results in them adding way more cards from the precon to their decklists than they’ll actually add when they build the deck for real, but by then no one is going to look at the EDHREC page for 20 sets ago. Stuff comes out too fast to go back for anything.

This could go up even more with people building Zur as a Saga deck, but honestly, if someone hasn’t built Zur yet, they’re not going to. Dominaria United feels forgotten already. This pace of products is entirely unsustainable and I think it will make or break Magic as a game and Magic as a career, but maybe I’m an old man yelling at clouds. We’ll find out sooner or later. Until next time.

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