Casual Fridays

Mythically Remastered Dominaria

Dominaria Remastered is an interesting set. We’ve ridden the Remastered train before, last year with Time Spiral Remastered. This time, though, we’re not getting an extra sheet in Retro frame, but we’re getting Retro and/or Borderless versions of the rares and mythics in boosters. 

I’ll break down the exact odds next week, but for this week, I want to look at the mythics of the set, because the rares don’t have much value as it is and surely won’t for a while after this printing.

I’m including the EDHREC data because Commander is the format that drives most prices these days, but please remember that EDHREC data is skewed. It’s only the most online people who bother to list their deck, while a whole lot of people take inspiration from those lists but might not make purchases. Cards that were in preconstructed decks are also overrepresented, mainly from people who start with a precon and then do some form of upgrading.

Lyra Dawnbringer ($7 for the cheapest version, up to $30 for the most expensive, listed in 15,000 EDHREC decks as commander and card) – Amazing card, busted in Limited, but honestly Giada is a better Commander for Angels. I fully expect Lyra to be a buck or two for the cheapest, and given the play pattern, I don’t think I’d ever be buying copies.

Serra Avatar (under a dollar up to $80 for the Junior Super Series promo, 5700 decks) – It’s had a couple of strategic reprints, and the JSS has a very unique foiling to it. Bulk all the way, don’t look back.

Test of Endurance ($19 to $55, 4500 decks) – I’ve written before about reprint equity. Some cards are expensive because they have not had a reprint, they are pricey because of low supply, not high demand. Test of Endurance will not recover from this, it’ll get cheap and fall hard. If it was a Pioneer card, there might be a deck, but no, this will be very cheap and I’m never buying in.

Force of Will ($90 to $327, 103,000 decks) – Let’s have a graph and look at what happened to the EMA version when the Double Master reprint came along:

It fell about $50, down to $75, and recovered nicely. It’s already dipping down on news of this reprint, and this is a staple that absolutely can recover. Given the sheer range of premium versions out there (Judge foil, Invocation, Box Topper, Borderless, Retro) I think I’m more inclined to buy up basic versions that get to the $40-$50 range. 

Have another graph, that shows the foil from EMA, and recognize that you either buy the cheap ones low and wait for them to go up, or you go after a premium and cross your fingers:

Time Stretch ($22 to $110, 9100 decks) – This had one reprint since Odyssey, which was Tenth Edition. No new copies since 2007 but has a surprising amount of EDH decks. Most extra turns cards exile themselves now, but not this one, it’s too old for that tech. We’ve got a whole lot of spells-costing-less effects going around too, and so I’m feeling good about this. Keep in mind that this is a casual player’s dream, and a whole lot of opened copies are going to stay in decks. 

I think this price falls pretty hard, but I will be interested in any version that gets sufficiently cheap.

Urza, Lord High Artificer ($45 to $105, 23k total decks) – Yes, Urza LHA is getting a second Retro treatment since his introduction in Modern Horizons 1. It’s a deep dive to find all the cards that have been double-dipped that way, but let’s appreciate that the retro reprint in MH2 barely bumped the original:

This reprinting will dent his price, but that will simply present a buying opportunity. Again, I don’t want to have to pick between premium versions, and I’ll be content buying copies in the $10-$20 range.

No Mercy ($30 to $180, 11k decks) – Pure scarcity reprint, and not a card I’ll buy unless it gets crazy cheap.

Vampiric Tutor ($40 to $110, 195k decks) – The graph here is very relevant:

Put into EMA, the price recovered quickly and then Commander Legends came around, giving us Extended Art of this incredible art. I believe this will dip under $20, and when it hits bottom, I’ll be going after a few copies for the long term. 

Yawgmoth, Thran Physician ($35 to $270, 40k decks) – This is different from Urza, because this retro was in Time Spiral Remastered, and that’s a far lower number of copies going around. The demand is there, from Commander players and from combo players alike, so I’ll be patient for this to hit $10-$15 and then I’ll get in for some copies.

Last Chance ($21 to $40, 2300 decks) – Was in Lil ‘Giri drop from MTGVegas this summer, and dropped a lot since then. The card is one of many that does the same thing, and this will be the first time it’s gotten a significant reprinting. I expect this to drop a long way and very quickly.

Sneak Attack ($16 to $30, 20k decks) – Too many reprintings for this card, even if it’s a Cube staple. Another card where the value will dissipate quickly.

Worldgorger Dragon ($5 to $185, 9100 decks) – Yes, there’s an infinite combo with this card, and that’s been most of its appeal. It’s great in a Torpor Orb meme deck, and should they print a Commander with the Torpor Orb text then this will spike, but really, I’m staying away even though this borderless art is amazing.

Kamahl, Fist of Krosa ($4 to $80, 5k decks) – Sure, infinite mana get you infinite damage here, but Ezuri is 

Nut Collector ($8 to $85, 2700 decks) – Squirrels are a meme tribe, but this is a solid card in token decks. I expect this to be cheap, and when it’s super low in a few months, I’ll want to buy a few copies.

Sylvan Library ($40 to $200, 142k decks) – I think the best plan here is the regular versions when it’s down to $20, because it’ll recover. Too many people want this, because it’s really busted in Commander, and the price will be returning to its plateau.

Hunting Grounds ($14 to $45, 1600 decks) – While a neat card, this has a single printing and I’m expecting the bottom to fall out of this. It’s more work than you think to get seven cards in the yard, and in this color pair. Bulk or close to it.

Gauntlet of Power ($5 to $70 , 18k decks) – Decent card, will be bulk.

Legacy Weapon ($1 to $50, 2000 decks) – Already bulk, and not going to change.

Urza’s Incubator ($45 to $400, 36k decks) – I will be fascinated to see where this goes. Clearly the price is gonna drop off, but how far? Single-creature-type decks are more popular than ever, and this is a breathtaking card, even if it makes the spells cost less for your opponents too. Given that the only sweet version is the original foil, I’ll be hoping that the premium versions in DMR get to a cheap price, but I will be interest in any version once the prices settle in a few months.

Dark Depths ($15 to $200, 18k decks) – I’m staying away from this. It’s a combo card in Cube and Legacy, and has had enough reprints to keep the price stable. This printing should drive it under $5 and probably lower.

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: The Magic Way-Back Machine

Readers!
Occasionally, I like to take a trip back through Magic’s history and look at old sets and see if there is anything we can learn. Released all the way back in December 2022, a set called Jumpstart 2022 came out, and while reviews were positive, the set was quickly abandoned by players and collectors later in the week when Starter Commander was released and the Dominaria Remastered spoiler season kicked off. What went wrong? Was the initial hype unfounded? Why did most people only play one Jumpstart prerelease event or fewer? Today we’re going to take a look at Jumpstart 2022 because no one knows what’s in that set and see if there is anything we can learn for the next time a set comes out (Friday). 

If you remember back to December 2022, Jumpstart had a very popular commander named Kibo, Uktabi Prince. If you can’t remember all the way back 3 sets ago, that’s OK. Not many people remember this, but there were actually 14 total Legendary creatures in Jumpstart – a sane and rational amount of Legendary creatures. It was a risky gamble and WotC, to their credit, learned their lesson and haven’t had a set with fewer than 50 Legendary creatures come out since. With only 14 Legendary creatures, did such a small (lol there are like 900 cards in this set and Ben Bleiweiss tweeted about it today but I deactivated my account so you’ll have to take my word for it) set impact the format?

As it would turn out, the impact of the set never truly materialized in the window between its release and the release of the next set and no commander got even 400 decks built around them in that period. The likelihood that builders would return to the set after this many products have come out in the interim seems unlikely, leaving me to believe that Kibo will remain the most popular commander. I think, however, there is some merit to discussing some of the other commanders because it’s very likely commanders with identical abilities will be printed in the next year due to the law of averages and we can apply these lessons to that product.

Get it? He’s a rabbit and his name is presto and he’s a magician and he pulls stuff out of his hat! That might not sound that funny to you, but when you realize that they only had a few weeks to work on this 819 (literally) card set, it’s amazing that anything this flavorful made it into the set.

First up, we have the new cards which people who built Preston when it first came out might not have had access to. These cards are all solid in a Preston deck, but I don’t see anything financially relevant. If these cards haven’t popped after this much time has passed, it’s unlikely they will because of Preston.

I fully realize that Teleporation Circle is NOT Conjurer’s Closet and never will be. But, like…

Closet really likes to be $10 despite multiple printings. I think with one printing, Circle can be $10 and I am betting on it.

I really hope it’s not obvious to you why this card never got there because it isn’t to me. This card is bonkers and it’s from a terrible set no one wanted to buy. And yet…

One nudge can get this from 15 pennies to 15 dimes, 15 quarters is not out of the question imo. I’ll take that. This card isn’t great and instant speed versions of this with upside like Otherworldly Journey exist but if you build this deck, you play every Flicker and that includes Flicker.

I’m personally building this as Bant landfall and relying on my lands to give me all of the triggers I need, but a lot of people insist on playing a bunch of dumb snow cards and I only like one or two of them.

Don’t even love this as a spec as much as I like it as a card and I’m marveling at how cheap every snow card from Kaldheim is. They tried to make snow a thing and Isu isn’t going to be enough. MH1 gave us good Snow stuff, but also made the boxes so irresitable there is too much of all of it.

Second spikes are great, but look at this graph to see what third and 4th spikes do. If you’re worried about the Mystery Booster printings, there is always the foil that costs… something.

CK does indeed have a $45 NM copy and 3 MP copies for 20ish but I am not convinced this is a $100 NM foil. CK has one if you think it is, though. There are a lot of MP copies on TCG player closer to $50 than $100 and this isn’t unreprintable, but the foil did get a little help from not being on The List.

Most of you will recall what a wild year 2022 was and though several products have been released since early December 2022, we’ll always fondly remember the two days we were thinking about Jumpstart before we started Dominaria Remastered spoiler season in earnest. Could we have had something special with Jumpstart like we did with Emiel and Tinybones and Allosaurus Shepherd, plus great reprints like Craterhoof? Maybe, but it doesn’t do us any good to look that far back and wonder “what if?” That does it for me this week, folks. Thanks for reading my words and brooking my tone. Until next time!

Casual Fridays

The 30th Countdown vs. The 30th Anniversary

Wizards of the Coast has had two big products get ordered recently, and this is before we get into any new Superdrops. The 30th Anniversary Countdown (hereafter known as the Countdown) set was 30 known cards, each packaged singly, with a 30% chance of being foil. The 30th Anniversary packs (which I’m gonna call the Anniversary set) was basically a reprint of Beta packs, with a little bit of editing, twice the dual lands, and a retro frame slot.

The Countdown was sold for $150 each, where you knew the floor was 30 specific nonfoils. The Anniversary packs, where you could open a Lifelace and a retro Chaoslace or perhaps Mox Sapphire and retro Black Lotus, were sold for $1,000 as a set of four packs.

One of these sets sold out in an hour, and the other was pulled after 39 minutes of apparently very lackluster sales. The question is why, and it’s worth thinking about in the context of future purchases and special sets.

It’s a touch simplistic to presume that guaranteed value is the only reason that the Countdown sold out, but that is where we need to start this discussion. Anniversary packs at $250 are easily the most expensive packs ever sold by Wizards, even the VIP from the first Double Masters was under $100 at the time. People expect a lot of their packs these days, after years of Booster Fun treatments. 

More to the point, though, it’s a contrast between an expensive and potentially profitable lottery ticket and buying $7 for $5 worth of pennies. We knew from the outset what the cards were in the Countdown, including the art and frame variations. We could easily establish a baseline based on current prices, including the most expensive card, Chrome Mox. 

These copies from Eternal Masters were $90 around the time of the announcement, and have fallen to around $70, close to the price for the Countdown. We are at max supply for that copy, and while you can crack for singles and make around $30 all told, I’m being patient with my copies.

Chrome Mox was just the most expensive card in the Countdown set, but it gave us a floor. When the entire set was revealed, we could do the math and see how singles were a bit over $200 at the time, and figured it would drop some once it came out, which it has. 

Even better, because any card is 30% to be foil, the value has nowhere to go but up! There’s a decent chance that the average Countdown kit is worth *more* than its cost, even accounting for the race to the bottom. TCGPlayer is bearing this out, with sealed sets selling for $200. After taxes, fees, and shipping that’s not a lot of profit, so I’m being patient, as I said, but this is when supply is maxed. 

Contrast this with the Anniversary packs, and the enormous gap between what might get opened. I spoke of opening two Laces, or two Lotuses, and that’s a delta measured in several thousands of dollars. We clearly love gambling, as Magic players we’ve been conditioned to rip open packs and look for that sweet sweet value. 

We’ve always had the chance that packs will contain cards which will be worth a lot less, even plenty of Foil Extended Art mythics aren’t worth the cost of a Collector Booster. However, that’s opening a $25 pack, or opening a dozen from a $200 box of those. Wizards is asking those players to fork over a grand for the chance to open a piece of Power or a dual land, when those duals can be had in NM for a lot less than $1000!

Also, none of these are ‘real’. We’ve had this discussion all over the place, especially in the context of gold border cards being ‘legal’ for Commander play. As game pieces, these are too expensive for what they are doing.

However, in those 700 words, I didn’t mention the collectors at all. These duals, these new Power cards, they aren’t going to be mistaken as actual A/B/U cards. Instead, these are new collectibles, rare as hell. That’s a different animal entirely, and that’s what you have to look at for Wizards’ thinking behind ‘wtf did they think would happen’?

A majority of Magic players are collectors too. We want to collect sweet versions of cards and then play with them too. The value of the card, its collectibility, is validating to us, giving us a rush of dopamine when we gaze upon that backwards-printed Viscera Seer and realize that I have only one of a hundred of these in the entire world. 

Not only do we get that feeling of joy, of satisfaction, but we also get to show it off in some way, most likely in a Commander deck or a sweet Cube. We get to experience the unique sensation of displaying a rare and valuable collectible, and the recognition of others who know how rare a card that is. 

This is why the serialized cards are performing so well: We love this stuff, and sports card manufacturers have been blazing this trail for a long time. We’re going to see more super-expensive packs, but we aren’t going to see this enormous gulf in the $250 packs. We’ll see one-of Unlimited Lotus Replica in foil with a rainbow Richard Garfield signature, packaged with a sleeve and slabbed case. 

The Anniversary packs were apparently pulled after 39 minutes of underwhelming sales. The lows were too low on these packs for Magic collectors, but don’t forget that Magic collectors have had 30 years to get their actual Power and dual lands. There is value in having these collectibles, but the whales who would be the market here weren’t going after anything better, just different. 

Fundamentally, I think that was the error here. Wizards thought there was a market for expensive packs, and there is, but the ratios were off. I won’t be surprised when there’s an announced run of 200 packs, with a selection of limited cards, and the packs are $1000 each.

This run at higher-end collectibles missed, but having this happen in the midst of the very successful serialized cards demonstrates that the market is there. Get ready for more.

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: The Main Monkey Business

Readers!

My goal of not writing about the same product 2 months in a row for all of 2022 is going nicely. This week I’ll be reviewing Jumpstart because why not? Jumpstart always sells a ton of packs but, also, the more linear type of Commander creatures favored by a straightforward product like Jumpstart can really move prices.

Member diss? You can argue that it wasn’t just Tinybones that did this, but this spike had come and gone before anyone had even heard the name “Tergrid.” This is a graph of the buylist price, not retail, mind you. I don’t know if anything from this Jumpstart will be this robust at lightning fires under the asses of some of the more lethargic prices of EDH-playables. Will anything from this Jumpstart be Tinybones two k twenty-two? I don’t know, but it’s my job to tell you if I see anything that might do some work. Let’s look at Jumpstart.

If this looks really preliminary, it’s because it is. The thing is, as much as I think Isu is a fun deck to run as just a crazy landfall deck that they don’t realize is landfall until you KO them for 20 unblockable, we can’t ignore the sick meme action that is Kibo, Uktabi Prince.

If Kibo is going to do some monkey business, I want to be the business man who gets in on the action. There will be banana tokens in these packs, too, and since Kibo is a mythic, the tokens will be at mythic rarity as well, so try not to toss them in the trash when you bust a billion packs of this stupid set. Kibo is legit actually probably really fun to play, so let’s get into it.

OK, so I have been looking at 10 card snapshots like this for a long time. Rather than go into like 10 different commanders, I’m going to do more of my work out loud in case you’re interested in my thought process. It’s been a few years since I have done this, so if you’re new, maybe more of my methodology will make sense to you soon.

You have to play Monkeys in a Kibo deck if you want to get full value out of his abilities, and monkeys and apes with very good abilities make up the bulk of this top 10. For those very new, “High Synergy” means the cards appear in a large number of Kibo decks but not many other decks. The higher the synergy score, the more specific the cards are to that deck. Seeing 9 strong apes here didn’t surprise me, but the 10th card being Viridian Revel is noteworthy.

If you don’t play EDH, and I don’t expect you to, you might not know Viridian Revel was touted tech for dealing with the deluge of Treasure Counter decks like Prosper. It was discussed on a few popular podcasts and inventory was impacted as they say.

This is a price graph I am way into because it tells me a few things despite not looking great at first glance. First of all, it spiked very hard and precipitously which means there was a low inventory situation and the market was shocked by a sudden spike in demand. The card has returned to halfway between what it was at first and where it spiked to, which we see a lot, but the buylist price went down. That means dealers aren’t aggressively restocking because they have a lot of the copies. When dealers have all of the copies of a card and it spikes, no copies are in binders or boxes for people to ferret out and the price will spike harder and faster the second time around. Viridian Revel is due for, if not a shock and a spike, at the very least a correction. I think it’s very reprintable, but those risks are the nature of our reality, now.

After high synergy, I look at top cards. Those are just cards played in a lot of the Kibo decks whether or not lots of decks play them or not. A lot of these cards will be monkey cards, too, but you’ll see a few format staples here sometimes.

Whenever a card as old as Monkey Cage, an ancient card from a set that came out when I was… in High School. Jesus, my skeleton suddenly feels like it has weight. Whenever I see a card from basically last century, I see if it’s a weird meme card that someone collects or if there are basically 900 $0.25 copies of the card on TCG Player.

As funny as it would be to spend a couple hundred bucks to signal to the market that there was a run on Monkey Cage, I saw something else in my researching the stock levels on this card.

Turns out Jumpstart may be the wrong place to try and find Monkey-adjacent cards to spec on until the full set is spoiled, I guess.

Once we’re past High Synergy and Top Cards, you may feel overwhelmed at the gigantic list of cards. It takes a while to remember which kinds of cards end up first on the list and which ones are undervalues and to get a knack for remembering cards that show up a lot. But usually when I write an article like this, I will think about cards that work BEST with Kibo. Sure, Kibo needs monkeys, but Kibo basically gives them an artifact to crack. They get benefit from it so there isn’t much point in not cracking it, which means you can hurt them from doing it to shut off your commander’s drawback, but you can also punish them for cracking their treasure tokens or having artifacts when you wipe their board. Vandalblast isn’t as good a spec as Viridian Revel in the medium term imo, but Vandalblast tells us people will want to wipe their opponents’ Artifacts and hurt them for it. That helps us narrow down the cards to look at and ignore format staples.

I quickly tune out the cards that I know are not tied to Kibo’s fate and look at the rest.

Did you know this was a million dollars? I noticed it came back down, but I also noticed that there is a little uptick. Going in to a bunch of Urza Mishra artifact sets means cards like this are only getting better. Maybe it’s worth pulling those Saga Uncommons out of bulk.

If we’re doing a “give them an artifact and then hurt them for having an artifact” thing, which cards HAVE to be in that deck?

If a graph tells me absolutely no information like this one does, it pays to see if we can check stock levels.

Looks bad to me, but that number can stampede quickly. The problem is, most of the sets listed are 4 at a time, so dealers backstock copies rather than listing them all and having them be subject to a buyout. The wall is low but it’s long and long is bad, too.

This card is far more… dare I say… tempting?

This took a bit to get from $2 to $3 but what about stock levels?

Welp.

For me, this is a good way to glance through a page and be reminded that cards I thought would pop that haven’t, like Ancient Runes, are getting another shot at it, potentially in a very populat deck. Cards like Powerllech are stupid and very funny in this deck and they cost less than a Doubling Season. I see Titania’s Song could be a thing and check to see if it has too many printings. It does. Branching Evolution from last Jumpstart is down to $10? What happened?

It’s down hard over the last few months, but with the +1/+1 counters decks coming out, I love this under $12 right now, especially if CK will be charging $25 for it in a few weeks.

OK, if someone on TCG Player wants $11.50 for a card CK will give me $13 in credit for because they think it will be like $30 next year, I won’t argue.

I hope this glimpse into my thought process was educational, or, more likely, you saw that I mostly do it like you do but you think your way is better. I’m sure you’re right. However, I do excel at paying attention very hard and I hope that means you didn’t have to this week. Thanks for reading, everyone. Until next time!

MAGIC: THE GATHERING FINANCE ARTICLES AND COMMUNITY