AUTHOR’S NOTE: We are really jumping in on the deep end this week. Be ready!

I’m gonna start by stating something that really took me a while to realize that you may or may not have noticed. Magic, just like every other thing involving multiple parts, has a formula. It has since Alpha, and it continues through Shadows over Innistrad. Now, that formula has certainly changed, both in the short and long term sensabilities, and the definitions of what those pieces are have expanded, but that’s just part of organic growth. Before I get too much further, let me show you what I mean:

Every large Magic set needs a Wrath of God (“Destroy all Creatures”) effect.
Every large Magic set wants between 2 and 4 Planeswalkers.
Every large Magic set needs a degree of mana fixing, typically with dual land cycles at more than one rarity.
Every large Magic set needs to have some form of the most basic utility spells (Disenchant, Shatter effects) at Common or Uncommon.

Do you see what I’m trying to get at? Even though Alpha iconics like Wrath of God and Birds of Paradise are no longer themselves part of the formula, their legacy is. Now, this is being written before the rest of the set is dumped on Friday, but we’ve already seen some of the new underclassmen for these staple effects.

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.

ProTrader: Magic doesn’t have to be expensive.

Casual Fridays

Mythic Predictions for Shadows over Innistrad

March 24, 2016 Cliff Daigle 6 Comments

The full spoiler is (probably) going to land today but since I have to write ahead of time, I always feel a little caught.

I want to go over the previewed mythics and make some predictions, not about how much they are now, but where they will be in about a month.

As always, I don’t think you should pre-order anything, as it’s almost always a better plan to wait a little for the hype to die down. (I’m looking straight at you, $15 Thing in the Ice!)

Sorin, Grim Nemesis

I like that he lets you draw and punish all at the same time. It’s pretty awesome to boost yourself up and then push others down. However, he can only deal with one problem at a time, as compared to other good six-mana planeswalkers, like Chandra, Flamecaller or Elspeth, Sun’s Champion. I think he’s got really great potential for top-of-the-library shenanigans, like Worldly Tutor for Draco. At his cost, and with these abilities, I wouldn’t expect him to be much more than $15.

Jace, Unraveler of Secrets

This plus ability is amazingly good. It’s a Scry 1 short of a card too good for Modern! You dig fast and have much more control over getting what you need. This is a pretty mediocre Commander card, until you get to the ultimate, which is the epitome of what every annoying blue deck wants to do. Five mana is not unreasonable, and he does get to come down and bounce a problem away, at which point the control player starts plusing away. I can see this getting some play, though it would be so much better with a four-mana wrath effect to play the turn before playing this. I think his price will bounce between $10 at first and bounce up to $20-$25 when the control deck appears.

Nahiri, the Harbinger

Now we are talking. Four mana and can come down, solve a problem, and then start drawing/enabling Madness effects. Plus, it’s totally reasonable to play Nahiri, exile something, let her get attacked, then play another Nahiri. Multiples can also get discarded away easily with the plus ability. Exiling the target is super-relevant as well. I like Nahiri, though her ultimate is pretty uninspiring. It’s kind of a rough time to be enemy-colored, though, and I think that will keep her around $15-$20.

Arlinn Kord

Oh the flavor. I love the flavor on this card, and I think she’s much stronger than she appears. You have such flexibility on what you can do with her, and that’s key. You can make a creature big, vigilant, and hasty (so it can defend her) or you can make a token and flip. Then it’s time to be offensive or defensive and as long as you can plan a turn or two ahead, she’s going to dominate. Plus, at four mana in the ramp colors, she’s frequently going to be on the board a turn early. I think she’s going to see a lot of play in decks that want to play a lot of creatures, and likely stabilize in the $10-$15 range.

The Gitrog Monster

Conveniently, Groundskeeper is in this set too, and while I love the late game of sacrificing extra lands to draw cards, he’s going to make you jump (hop?) through too many hoops. I don’t think this will stay over $5 for long.

Archangel Avacyn

Flash, Flying, Vigilance is already amazing. Transforming her is going to be all up to you and your deck, though, because your opponent is going to kill her first. If your deck is full of cheap, disposable creatures, they will also die when she flips, and she’s got no protection. I love her flavor, and it’s a great story card, but I don’t see right now what she is besides the front side. Casual appeal will keep her foils high, but she won’t break $10.

Behold the Beyond – Bulk mythic. Just look at how much play Diabolic Revelation gets.

Geralf’s Masterpiece – Being able to bring it back might be relevant, but so few decks will want to pay this cost. Bulk.

Mindwrack Demon – Four mana for a 4/5 flying trample would seems to be worth the risk of four life a turn. It’s a risk, but it has potential as a curve-topper in an aggressive deck. I have a hard time believing this stays at more than a buck or two, though.

Seasons Past – We’ve had other mega-Regrowth effects before, like Praetor’s Counsel, and that was never very expensive. This will likely stay just above $2.

Wolf of Devil’s Breach – As a Madness enabler, this is rather outstanding. You can’t pitch the card at your opponent directly, but there are going to be decks that use this to great effect. The Wolf is Fiery Temper‘s best friend, distributing three damage twice for three mana. I don’t think every deck wants this, but I do think enough will to keep it around $3-$5.

Ulvenwald Hydra – A fixed Primeval Titan? Really?? I’m going to have to think about this for Standard but I can tell you that this is going to be a chase Commander card. Finding one land is unexciting in some decks, and Gaea’s Cradle-broken in others. Nonfoils won’t be more than $5, but I would expect foils to be in the $20 range.

Goldnight Castigator – This is a bad card. This is as all-in as you can get, four hasty power that if you attack, effectively halves your life total. Don’t play this. Ever. Bulk.

Relentless Dead

If you need something to sacrifice for value, here you go. It’s efficient, resilient, and entering a phase of Magic where exile spells are incredibly common. No, really, I mean it. We’ve got more exile effects than I ever can recall at once and this poor guy is going to take the brunt of it. I love the art, recalling Endless Ranks of the Dead, and while I want this to be good…he’s going to be steady at about $3.

Olivia, Mobilized for War

One thing the last round of Madness cards taught us is that you want to have free discard effects, such as Psychatog. Olivia isn’t quite free, as you are playing a creature, but the potential is there. A 3/3 flying for three mana is an excellent starting point too. She will hold at about $5, because extra copies of her just get used as fuel for the next creature you play.

Sigarda, Heron’s Grace – Please don’t play this thinking she has hexproof. She’s got a big target on her, and while I like her ability to play a long game and grow a quick army, I don’t think she will stay at more than a dollar or two.

Descend upon the Sinful – This is a powerful card, but it’s got a high mana cost. The tools are there for a classic control deck, between this and Planar Outburst. Wiping the board and having a creature left behind is pretty amazing, though. I like this a lot as a Commander card too, as it’s a strict upgrade over Final Judgement, a card that doesn’t see enough play. This will not break $5, though.

Startled Awake – How much do we love mill cards! This has its own built-in recursion, but it’s slow and imperfect. Skulk is not unblockability, a 1/1 or any zero-power creature can block it, ruining your nefarious plan. This is going to win a lot of Limited games and not much else, though I can see the foils of this going for a high premium. This will struggle to not be bulk.

Corbin Hosler

Five Shadows over Innistrad cards to get excited for

March 24, 2016 Corbin Hosler 3 Comments

It’s that time again, and it doesn’t feel like it’s been that long since Oath of the Gatewatch, does it? Just yesterday, we were gushing about the new Eldrazi cards and going wild over the broken state they left Modern in, a problem I fully expect to be remedied with a banlist update next week.

Okay, with that in mind maybe Oath of the Gatewatch, while hugely impactful on Magic’s history, wasn’t actually that great.

Luckily, Shadows over Innistrad is.

This set looks poised to deliver in a way that Battle for Zendikar and to a lesser extent Oath of the Gatewatch did not. While the BFZ draft format was fun (and got much better with Oath), the block itself didn’t blow everyone away in the traditional sense.

Still, the introduction of the “sixth color,” or in reality colorless mana, was a touchstone moment in Magic’s history, and we’re going to see the repercussions of it for years to come. Whether it’s with a return of Eldrazi or something else, or maybe just making colorless evergreen, Oath will forever change the future of Magic thanks to that step.

Which brings us to Shadows over Innistrad, which must follow up on that set. And while it’s not going to be hard to break Modern “less” than Oath did, the truth is Shadows isn’t just living up to the shadow of Eldrazi – it has to live up to the storied history Innistrad brought to the game.

Namely, that means an incredible Limited format — certainly one of my personal top three since I started in 2009, and for many a top three overall — as well as a pretty diverse Standard meta that despite the crazy powerful cards in Liliana of the Veil and Delver of Secrets was actually fairly diverse with some fun interactions.

All that said, is there any way Shadows over Innistrad can live up to the hype?

I’m optimistic. Here’s why.

Arlinn Kord

Werewolves are back, baby!

I know a lot of people didn’t love what Werewolves did to a draft. And having watched the Top 4 of a Team Limited event have to deal with a double-faced card (Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh), I can understand the trepidation. They give away colors, show power picks and generally just kind of mess up a draft environment.

That said, the mechanic works great once you actually sit down to play. The tension between flipping and re-flipping cards in Limited leads to really interesting games, not to mention how it oozes flavor.

Arlinn Kord is one of those. Our first Werewolf planeswalker, this is the most fun you can having flipping walkers since Garruk Relentless. And the power level might even be higher than that format staple version of Garruk. Arlinn hits the battlefield ready to pump a member of your team to really get in there, or comes down after a board wipe to refill your board and create a blocker to protect herself for the flipside.

And the flipside is nuts. Keeping with the aggressive theme, she can get your entire team in there, or play the quintessential midrange game, gunning down an opponent’s creature and then flipping back to make more wolves. This is about everything a midrange deck could want in a planeswalker, and it happens to come with an ultimate that can end the game when needed.

Olivia, Mobilized for War

Speaking of attacking, very few cards enable that as well as our new, slimmed-down Olivia Voldaren. Whereas the original Olivia was a powerful late-game card that took over by itself, new Olivia brings her friends to the party and makes sure they’re ready to rumble.

Not only does she turn excess lands into haste and pumps — a pretty great way to mitigate flood in aggressive decks — but the real benefit comes from this being an incredible Madness enabler. While some of the other Madness enablers we’ve seen require a mana cost to use, Olivia simply asks that you cast a creature anywhere on your curve. This means you can tailor the cards you’re casting to the cards you’re pitching to Madness, and that means the value is undeniable. Whether it’s a sweet creature like Asylum Visitor or “just” a removal spell like Fiery Temper (and let’s be honest, it’s gonna be Fiery Temper), Olivia does exactly what you want a 3-drop to do.

And, hey, Vampires.

Relentless Dead

One of my favorite things about the original Innistrad was the tribal theme. I’m really glad they kept that around for our return to the plane, because the fact that there was just enough payoff in Draft to go mono-spirits or werewolves added a lot of fun to that format. After all, linear decks are usually fun to build and play — not to mention they are a great guidepost for newer players — but when they’re simply another deck rather than all the decks like in Lorwyn block, it adds a nice touch to Limited.

In Constructed, I certainly had fun playing Werewolves tribal because Full Moon’s Rise was awesome and Immerwolf was absurd, but the rest of the tribes had more success than my FNM deck. Namely, Spirits and Zombies did well, and Zombies in particular was a great deck to have in Standard because it was just so flavorful.

I know not everyone cards about flavor, but I think Magic is in a great place if the think the Zombie deck does is exactly what the average person would answer if you asked them what a Zombie deck should do. Diregraf Captain was a boss, and with Gravecrawler and Geralf’s Messenger the zombies just never stayed dead.

Relentless Dead is the perfect continuation of that. Not only does it reference the art of Endless Ranks of the Dead in an awesome throwback, but it’s a great card on its own. It’s a good 2-drop that’s hard to block and keeps the pressure coming, but it’s also an incredible insurance plan against board wipes or, you know, combat in general. This time around, the dead aren’t just endless — they’re relentless as well.

Drownyard Temple and Warped Landscape

These aren’t the most flashy cards in the set, but I truly believe they’re some of the better designed ones. It shows that even after nearly 25 years of making lands, Wizards can still deliver new designs that make for fun gameplay.

The beauty is in the simplicity. Look at Landscape; it seems incredibly similar to lands we’ve had in the past (Panoramas), and the design is so simple it seems almost surprising it hasn’t existed before. But somehow here we are, with a new land that will not only be an important Limited pick and a great card for new players to fix their mana inexpensively, but something that takes on a whole new light in the wake of Oath of the Gatewatch. All that wrapped in a simple package we’ll be taking for granted in two months’ time.

Temple is more exciting on its surface, and I’m looking forward to digging deeper. Again, it’s a novel effect we’ve only even come close to with Dakmor Salvage, but Temple’s simple design opens up all kinds of room. Will the Modern Life from the Loam deck want it? What ways can we make use of sacrificing lands? Is there a better feeling than sacrificing this to Titania or Dust Bowl? While those last two may only feel good for one side of the interaction, the fact this card has me asking these questions for the first time 20+ years into Magic’s existence has me excited for the possibilities.

Triskaidekaphobia

First thing I thought when I looked at this card: “What the hell?”

Second thing I thought looking at this card: “What the hell, why not?”

It almost seems like a card that should exist in the next Un-set. But instead here it is in its 13 fully bloody shades of glory. It’s true “gimmick” cards like this can cause the community to divide sharply. But truth is these are incredibly exciting to a portion of our community. I figure people who don’t like it can ignore it and move on. At least, they should live with it, because it’s just so darn fun.

It’s probably not even “good” in the traditional sense of Standard power level. With painlands in the format, not to mention the duality of its effect – this won’t be winning any Grand Prix or PT Top 8s anytime soon. But you better believe someone is going to die to it at FNM. And you better believe the wielder of 13 will remember that story forever.

More than that, this card exemplifies all that’s right with top-down design. It’s fun, incredibly flavorful, and every single piece of this card just works. Thirteen bricks, 13 blood stains, 13 words in the lines, 13 logs, etc.

Hell, there’s even 13 words in each sentence preceding this in this section. Spooky.

It goes on and on, and this is sure to be a fan favorite for years to come. And while Triskaidekaphobia will undoubtedly take the title of both “most flavorful” and “most unpronounceable,” it’s just the tip of the 13-sided iceberg when it comes to flavorful cards in Shadows over Innistrad. From Thing in the Ice to Startled Awake to Relentless Dead to Shard of Broken Glass to Sinister Concoction, to the Escape Rooms at the Triple-Grand Prix weekend, to the Avacyn reveal in Detroit with the wonderful Christine Sprankle cosplaying, the ties between flavor and gameplay have never been stronger.

We’re slowing unraveling the pages of this mystery as we investigate further. It’s going to culminate with the reveal of who the Shadow is on Innistrad (Emrakul? Marit Lage?) and then we’re going to fully immerse ourselves in the twisted world of Innistrad.

I can’t wait.

Thanks for reading,

Corbin Hosler

@Chosler88 on Twitter/Twitch/YouTube

Conjured Currency, Douglas Johnson

Advances in TCGplayer

March 23, 2016 Douglas Johnson 6 Comments

First things first;

Jason Alt and I have been slaving away at spoiler coverage. Thankfully, we have it all in one convenient place that’s only one click away. Allow my excitement about how 90% of the set will be flavorful bulk rares flow through your mind. Now that that’s out of the way, we can focus on the best card in Shadows Over Innistrad.

The Best Card in Shadows Over Innistrad

Have you seen this freaking frog? Don’t worry, I’m going to avoid all of the overused Futurama hypnotoad references.

I know that I’m mainly supposed to write about finance and prices and all that jazz, but sweet miss Mary; this card is the bee’s knees in my Child of Alara Lands deck. Every set I always cross my fingers and think “Maybe there will be just one card that I can throw into a certain Commander list”, and this thing is it. Trade Routes, , Seismic Assault, Life from the Loam, fetchlands… the possibilities are endless. Oh, you want me to talk about Standard play? Meh, he’s probably a bulk mythic, so I’ll just wait two months to pick up a foil one for my Commander deck at like $1-2.

The Meat of the Article

Oh, right. I actually have to write about something this week. Well, let’s start with an announcement made by TCGplayer.com last week that will have an impact on the way we buylist cards;

DIRECT IS NOW EVEN BETTER.

Las Vegas, NV, March 16, 2016 – Today TCGplayer.com^® announced a dramatic expansion of the TCGplayer Direct service, the only fulfillment shipping program in the World for the multi-billion dollar collectible gaming industry.

TCGplayer’s first of three announcements was a global expansion of TCGplayer Direct. With a brand new international fulfillment program for the collectibles industry, customers worldwide will be able to order from multiple collectible sellers and receive the orders in one package, for one shipping fee and verified by the professional graders at TCGplayer.

This revolutionary offering by TCGplayer allows its sellers to fulfill international customer orders at domestic U.S. shipping rates through TCGplayer Direct. TCGplayer Direct International will be the most efficient, affordable and safe way for sellers to sell collectible products worldwide.

The company also announced an expansion of its current TCGplayer Direct program, which will now fulfill orders of any size without a minimum order size. This change allows buyers to make smaller purchases from multiple Sellers for quick, spontaneous purchases of lower priced collectibles. This means significant sales growth for sellers while improving their profit margins on inexpensive but labor intensive orders, returning valuable hours for seller investment elsewhere.

Finally, the company’s biggest announcement was the launch of a brand new marketplace called the TCGplayer Buylist, a revolutionary, first-of-its-kind program that empowers customers to easily find and receive the greatest prices available for everything in their collection without breaking it apart. Just as TCGplayer Direct combines the best prices for cards from hundreds of sellers, the TCGplayer Buylist provides the highest value for customers to sell their collection to all of the country’s largest brick and mortar sellers through one convenient transaction.

For sellers, the TCGplayer Buylist will help them keep up with the accelerated sales that TCGplayer’s new programs will drive. The TCGplayer Buylist provides sellers unparalleled inventory access from the World’s customers, freeing them from the limitations of acquiring inventory from their local markets. Cards sold to sellers through the TCGplayer Buylist program are received and processed entirely by TCGplayer, delivering more incredible labor and logistics savings for them.

“The TCGplayer Buylist is the first marketplace designed to help brick and mortar stores acquire more inventory for the explosive collectible gaming market.” said Chedy Hampson, founder and CEO of TCGplayer.com. “We’re now able to provide our buyers and sellers with incredible logistic efficiencies that benefit everyone. The ability to instantly find and sell collectibles at one time for the best prices possible online will delight customers. And our sellers receive new solutions that grow their online sales while solving their inventory dilemma as they expand beyond their local town or city into the global ecommerce market.”

Rollout of TCGplayer Direct International begins next week, with the order size expansion of TCGplayer Direct to follow at the end of the month. The TCGplayer Direct Buylist is underway for a summer 2016 launch.

Okay, there were a lot of words there. I know you kids love your TL;DRs, so I’ll do my best to give you a summarized version of what we care about in this announcement.

People from around the world will be able to order cards via TCGplayer Direct. More importantly (at least, I assume that most of my reader base is ‘Murican), that means it’ll be a hell of a lot cheaper for us to sell cards to the international market if you’re a TCGplayer Direct seller. Want to become a Direct seller? Honestly, it’s not that difficult. If you have an average of four sales a day and you have over 99.5% feedback rating, you can apply right now.
There will no longer be a minimum order amount when buying cards through TCGplayer Direct. Currently there’s a $25 minimum when placing an order with Direct, I assume so they don’t get destroyed on shipping costs. This removal makes it a lot easier for those budget players who want to pick up an entire deck of bulk rares/commons for $20 can do so while only receiving a single package in the mail. Again, much better for those who want to hop into the Direct program but unaffecting you if you’re a small time seller.
Their last announcement is by far the one that will have the largest impact on the market for everyone, regardless if you’re part of the Direct program or if you’re even a TCGplayer seller. They’re coming out with the TCGplayer Buylist, allowing an individual person to ship their entire collection to TCGplayer and get the best buylist prices among those who sign up for the program. While there aren’t a whole lot of details, it could be an attractive option for those players who want to dump a Commander deck or their entire collection without pricing out a billion different stores.

We don’t have the exact details of everything about these new practices yet, but I’d still like to give my initial thoughts to quell some of the questions that I’ve been receiving. One of the biggest responses I’ve gotten to this post is as follows, paraphrased slightly:

“But DJ! How am I going to be able to act as my local buylist if TCGplayer is going to become one of the most prominent locations to sell cards to other brick and mortar stores? People will see their prices, and I’ll have to up my buy prices on collections to compete with Channelfireball, Cardkingdom, etc.”

Well, I’m not exactly worried about this encroaching on me being a local buylist. These same buylists existed before TCGplayer’s Direct buylist, and very few players in my local area made the choice to ship their cards over selling to me or other local players. The biggest advantage you have as a local buylist over TCGplayer that won’t change is that you have cash in your hand now. While CFB/CK/ABU might offer $600 on Person X’s collection, you can still offer $500 on his/her pile of cards because immediate cash dollars have an inherent value when compared against “We’ll send you a check/Paypal you in a few weeks after receiving/grading/verifying.”

You’re also removing a large chunk of the work from their side of the equation. Oh, you have six semi-foiled Commander decks that you need to get rid of to pay for X expense? Well, you’ll have to set sort and alphabetize within sets for every card, and that takes a non-zero amount of time. Then there’s figuring out how you’re going to ship it safely, taking the time to go to the post office and mail it…. Remember the magic words; “I have cash and can be at your place in X amount of time.” Unless you live in an area where there’s already a significant amount of competing buylists for high dollar staples, I don’t think you’ll have to worry about the Direct Buylist encroaching on your ability to buy collections or lots from local players.

That’s actually a good segue into the next thing I was going to write about. Guess how many stores are going to have a Direct buy price for Scalding Tarn. There’s going to be a lot, right? Okay, how about the number of stores who can afford to put a deep enough buylist for cards like Lightning Helix, Manamorphose, and Rancor? There will probably be some stores who can port their buylist directly (ChannelFireball, Cardkingdom, etc), but it should weed out a lot of the smaller minnows who are trying to play with the big boys.

Okay, final question. How many Direct buyers do you expect to see put up a non-foil Immerwolf or Savage Lands? Exactly. I’m going to predict that 99% of the stores who want to take part in the Direct buylist will not care in the slightest about paying pennies for the buylistable commons and uncommons that I have grown to love and enjoy. Go ahead and let the big cats fight over whether they’re paying $55 or $60 for a Scalding Tarn, while you’re happily buying bulk commons and uncommons by the tens of thousands and burning through Season 2 of Daredevil while you pick out the $.25 and $.50 cards.

The TCGplayer Direct buylist will allow the big name vendors to fight over paying top dollar for the hot staples in competitive formats. I think the best way to compete with this new market is to avoid it entirely by focusing on what has always been the best way to make money in Magic: bulk and bulk accessories. I’d rather have 23,000 bulk common/uncommon over a single Scalding Tarn any day of the week, and only one of those is going to give you an anxiety attack in the coming months about whether or not its’ going to be reprinted.

Advertisement: OzGuild makes organizing your Magic card collection simple… Scan your cards into a digital catalogue using your smartphone, it’s fun, fast and easy. Scan in your first deck for free!

MTGPrice Blog

PROTRADER: More Recalibrating or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Goldnight Castigator

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.

Mythic Predictions for Shadows over Innistrad

Five Shadows over Innistrad cards to get excited for

Advances in TCGplayer

DIRECT IS NOW EVEN BETTER.

MAGIC: THE GATHERING FINANCE ARTICLES AND COMMUNITY