Going Mad – A Magical Year, 2015

December 30, 2015 Derek Madlem 5 Comments

By: Derek Madlem

No matter how you look at it, 2015 has been a big year for Magic. From a personal standpoint, 2015 has brought about the biggest changes for my personal connection to Magic in all of the years of playing. Seeing as it’s the end of the year and I’m not really interested in forcing an article about the rares featured in the Oath of the Gatewatch intro packs, how about a year in review? Glad you’re as excited as I am.

Khans of Tarkir

Yeah, technically this was released in 2014, but who are we kidding? Khans of Tarkir rang in the new year as the second coming of Christ and that momentum is carrying through to this day. From an #mtgfinance standpoint, Khans was very important lesson in aggregate pricing in modern Magic releases. When a single cycle of cards soaks up so much of the expected value from a box, the price of everything else collapses. Even Siege Rhino, one of the most powerful and most played creatures of all time, couldn’t maintain a price above $5 thanks to the fetch lands soaking up so much of the set’s value.

Fate Reforged

Fate Reforged was ultimately a gimmick set. It was a small set that was meant as a pivot point to be drafted with two separate large sets and is likely to be the first and last time we ever see that gimmick play out. The overall reception for Fate Reforged was not incredible despite having a decent concentration of powerful and expensive cards including Ugin, the Spirit Dragon, Tasigur, the Golden Fang, and Monastery Mentor. Even the bonus inclusion of a fetchland in every box wasn’t enough to keep this set from falling to the wayside in short order.

Vending

It wasn’t long after the release of Fate Reforged that I got my first shot working as an MTG buyer. Two Headed Games needed help for the SCG Regionals in Columbus and gave me a shot at helping out. Buying seemed to come naturally to me as I understood both the player and the business side of the transaction. I knew which cards players wanted and I knew how much the store had to buy them for to run a profitable business. At first I was meant to just be an extra set of hands, but a smoke break combined with a rush of players looking to sell cards put me in the buyer’s chair and my foray into MTG buying had begun.

MTGPrice and Dragons of Tarkir

Going back and looking for my first article published on MTGPrice, it seems fitting that my words first graced this website on April Fool’s Day…a coincidence that explains why nobody takes me seriously to this day. When the opportunity to write for MTGPrice presented itself, I was already writing for Quiet Speculation but was excited about the prospect of reaching a larger audience so I asked that none of my articles ever appear behind a paywall.

Meanwhile Dragons of Tarkir had just been released and I made some predictions that turned out to be mostly bad. You can go back and take a look here if you need fodder for mocking. Dragons of Tarkir did something that previously hadn’t been accomplished in quite some time – made the spring set relevant to constructed. Dragons of Tarkir managed to strike a chord with the casual crowd while still giving the constructed format a good shakeup and in general did better than previous spring sets according to a number of retailers that I talked to at the time.

The Big Stage

In May I began working as a buyer for Aether Games and my big debut was at Grand Prix Atlantic City. I learned a very valuable lesson on this trip: traveling for Magic is a lot less glamorous when the destination is a complete dump. Atlantic City is a place that everyone should visit at least once, if only to learn that such a terrible place exists in the world.

The event itself was alright, nothing too exciting or too terrible outside of a fire alarm going off mere minutes before the doors were set to open. I can attest that the last thing you want to hear after carefully placing cards in a display case is “scoop them up, we have to leave”.

Modern Masters 2015

As spoilers for this set came to completion, it became clear that this set was stuffed to the brim with Modern’s most expensive cards and featured a number of rares that suffered extreme prices based mostly on casual demand and small print runs. With larger print runs (and higher MSRP) making this set available to everyone, we were able to see the effect of aggregate pricing in action; a number of rares that were previously worth $10+ were suddenly available under $2…call it the Creakwood Liege effect.

Ultimately anything that wasn’t reprinted saw a surge in price thanks in part to the #mtgfinance hive mind and the realization that a flood of cheap Mox Opals hitting the market meant that more people would need Inkmoth Nexus and Arcbound Ravager. While much of this felt like market manipulation, much of it was more likely do to cards being frozen in price leading up to a potential reprint…after all, no vendor wanted to be buying cards for more than they would be able to sell them for in just a few short weeks. Either way, we won’t be making that mistake again…right?

Grand Prix Vegas

Grand Prix Vegas was billed as the biggest Magic event of all time and it definitely delivered. I had attended the previous Modern Masters Grand Prix in Las Vegas, thanks to my wife using it as bait to get me to agree to a Vegas vacation, so I thought I had a decent idea of what to expect going into this event, but it exceeded all expectations and set the bar pretty high going forward.

This was my second event working with Aether Games and I had front row seats to one of the greatest lessons of all time in #mtgfinance. Aether decided they were going to pay extremely well on a few cards when the rest of the room had intended to capitalize on the perception that everything was going to be worth much less. One vendor making an informed stand slowed the plummeting prices of cards like Dark Confidant, Vendilion Clique, and Tarmogoyf. While these cards eventually dipped in price, it was much more gradual and a lot less brutal.

Magic Origins

“The best core set since Magic 2010” – everyone
“I’ll take a pack of Khans” – everyone

Magic Origins and Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy reminded us of an age old #mtgfinance proverb: if a card is printed in a set and nobody buys it, shouldn’t it be $80? We were reminded again by Magic Origins that good cards in unpopular sets will climb in price. We saw a similar thing happen with Nissa, Worldwaker and Chandra, Pyromaster in the previous core sets. The last core set–good riddance.

The Ending of Vending

It wasn’t too long after Magic Origins that I realized vending probably wasn’t for me. After trying my hand with a few different vendors I realized it’s really a young man’s game. While I’m far from old man status, the prospect of sharing beds, sleeping on floors, hours and hours crammed in cars, the time away from home, and eating nothing but garbage for every meal just wasn’t worth the pay. Overall it was a good experience and I learned a lot in a very short amount of time; some of which you can (re)read here, easily one of the most (only) useful articles I’ve ever written.

SCG, PTQ, & Grand Prix Changes

This year also brought us a number of changes to PTQs and Grand Prix level events. PTQs as we knew them are wiped off the face of the Earth and with them so is low level vending. Grand Prixs are more expensive than ever for both players and vendors. Oh yeah, don’t forget that Star City Games killed Legacy–again. The sheer number of tournament changes this year has left the player base a little dizzy and many are still trying to figure out what the best path going forward is.

Battle for Zendikar

We learned with much certainty that lightning doesn’t strike twice in the same place. Battle for Zendikar is just the latest installment of increasingly worse “return to ______” expansions that somehow continue to get worse and worse with each iteration. The set would have probably been a total loss if not for the inclusion of randomly inserted 2/3rd art promo versions of the shock and fetch lands. The mediocre feel of Battle for Zendikar does little to make us excited for a return to Innistrad this spring, but there’s still hope…right?

Ultimately the roll out of BFZ was pretty rough, it did little to shake up Standard, more or less causing the format to go into hibernation at the local level while players patiently pray that Oath of the Gatewatch will bring us the change we need to make Standard fresh again.

The expeditions were enough to break me as a collector of Magic. For the first time I had to look at a set of new cards and acknowledge that they were simply unattainable for me, something that really took the wind out of my sails going forward.

The Rise of Massdrop

I don’t know if you’ve heard this yet, but massdrop.com is the place to buy older boxes of Magic at ridiculously low prices. With boxes of sets like Return to Ravnica and Gatecrash selling for as low as $80, it’s pretty much a fool’s errand to speculate on sealed booster boxes going forward. While this is great news for drafters, it’s terrible news for the couple dozen sealed booster boxes I have tucked away in my vault.

But really this isn’t just about Massdrop, it’s the internetification of all things. Amazon is especially guilty of this, but we’re seeing it more and more – volume without margins. Why sell ten of something for $20 profit each when you can sell a hundred at $2 profit each? This race to the bottom has grown more and more prevalent across the singles market just as much as it has the sealed product market. We now live in a world where the price of things goes down drastically if you’re just willing to wait a couple weeks.

Spoilers

If you listened to Wizards’ employees, this was a goddamn Greek tragedy. Somebody somewhere leaked photos of some damaged Expeditions and spoiled the big surprise that wasn’t much of a surprise to anyone that had given the topic much thought. We were given a heavy handed guilt trip about the leak ruining their marketing plan and blah blah blah, but that wasn’t enough. Wizards took it a step further when they suspended a number of judges simply for failing to report that said leak existed. This scandal is far from over, but it really became the cherry on top of the turd sundae we’ve been munching on all year.

A New Job

The end of the year took an interesting twist in my personal life as well. I was offered a job managing a local game store seemingly out of no where. It’s an awesome opportunity to test my mettle at something I am passionate about. But the drawback is that I’m forced to test the words that I’ve been told time and time again: once you start running a game store, you lose all interest in playing. Time’s going to tell on this one.

May your 2016 be filled with Expeditions in your packs, power in your bulk, and no lands in your opponents’ starting hands.

Jim Casale

Grinder Finance – A New Frontier

December 29, 2015 Jim Casale 4 Comments

Last week we looked into the year that was. This week I want to take a look at the year that may be. This year will be uncharted territory for the Magic community and especially for MTG Finance. There have been golden rules related to the time of year. There was one rotation per year in September and the summer before ushered in a huge sell off in the oldest Standard cards. Now we have two rotations, once in September and one in April. How will that affect the normal trends of card prices? There is also another elephant in the room. There isn’t significant growth in the size of the player base. For the past year it has been pretty clear to me that Wizards is trying to sell more product to the same number of people. This may have some impacts on otherwise “safe” picks from the past year’s standard.

We learned about the new rotation over a year ago. Let’s revisit it to refresh everyone’s mind.

Source http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mm/metamorphosis

This is the old rotation. Blocks were 3 sets and then a core set was released and then the following set caused a rotation. This meant that fall sets had 2 years in standard and that amount of time decreased until the core set (which spent the least amount of time in standard).

The new Standard has a rotation every other set. Every beginning of a block causes two sets to rotate out and one set to rotate in. This means there will be an increased significance of the spring and summer set (as they stay in Standard just as long as the fall and winter sets). The real question for us is when do people begin to sell off their cards?

Let’s take a look a card who’s price was entirely impacted by Standard. If you wanted to get rid of your Revelations before they made their final descent, you needed to sell them in March of 2014. That card did not rotate out of Standard until September, meaning people began selling off a full 6 months before rotation.

Khans of Tarkir cards rotate with the release of Shadows Over Innistrad in April. If cards followed that same trajectory then I’d have to assume we’re already almost two months too late.

I’m inclined to believe the boat is missed. While these cards are almost bulk rares at this point, I don’t advocate holding onto anything that has value left from Khans of Tarkir and Fate Reforged. There is almost no upside in the release of Oath of the Gatewatch.

Look at Abrupt Decay. It rotated at around $13. Right now you can find copies at retail for $11.50 (Strike Zone). While there was a period in between you could have got out at a profit, it’s clear that dealer confidence is low and buylists reflect that. There was also never a point where the best buylist was above the retail cost at rotation. Now there is the possibility this is just part of the end of year slump and we see $20 Abrupt Decays July.

This is the year of the Thoughtseize. What happens to it? Buy price is plummeting, now out of even double digits. Are there just too many Thoughtseizes? Is its rotation out of Standard actually detrimental to it’s long-term price? It’s hard to tell but it’s something to watch. We might see a lot more seasonal ebbs and flows with Modern legal cards printed in Return to Ravnica and newer sets. So much sealed product of those sets was available that it’s impossible for cards to retain their pre-rotation value even if they are eternal playable if there are just too many of them. It’s possible the card will never recover to it’s $25 height-of-Standard price tag.

Legacy

I haven’t done anything but eyeball it, but fellow MTG Finance writer Saffron Olive says Legacy staples are down (for the first time ever) 0.4% year over year (Source). I’m not expecting that to change. With the increase support of Modern and the decreased support of Legacy at a local and global level it’s hard for people to justify thousands of dollars in decks they can play maybe three times per year. Wizards has only announced one Legacy GP and Star City Games has announced one Legacy open in the first third of the year. Assuming there are two more opens in 2016, that gives North America only four major Legacy events in the year compared to six Opens and one Grand Prix last year. This doesn’t count international Grands Prix (which were not on the same date as they are this year) and the Invitational or Player’s Championship. I foresee drops to continue as long as support for the format drops nationally. While it may be thriving in your local area, it is so hard to start grass roots support for such an expensive format. I don’t really want to elaborate anymore on my feelings but I think we will see another year of Modern replacing Legacy as the non-rotating format of choice for a lot of players.

The Future of Making Money

With the print runs of recent sets, it’s hard to find a reason these days to invest in a Standard legal pack. When you look at the difference between sealed boxes of Return to Ravnicai versus sealed boxes of Innistrad it’s easy to see where things changed. Conventional wisdom of sitting on any kind of sealed product is no longer true. I would by proxy say holding most singles from those sets is also a poor idea. My interests now are in limited print run products. Modern Masters sets, From the Vaults and promotions like Zendikar Expeditions are the safest places to hold money because we don’t know what the future will hold. If you really want to trade Standard cards into other Standard cards I would suggest looking into foils. Those are similar to limited print run products in terms of scope. The buy and sell prices of Foil Thoughtseizes have been basically flat since July which is a start contrast to the rise and fall of non-foil Thoughtseizes that may just never recover.

Into the Unknown

I don’t think anyone could factually back up any claims on the future. I am suggesting we consider our options and look to the past for some theories. I don’t know how players will enjoy or dislike the new rotation but it will definitely be a defining part of the 2016 Magic landscape.

Sigmund Ausfresser

PROTRADER: A 2015 Year-End Review

December 28, 2015 Sigmund Ausfresser 4 Comments

Many will look back at 2015 with shaded glasses, unwilling to think critically about the data that now lies behind us. Money can no longer be made in 2015, so it’s easy to strictly focus on what’s ahead, ignoring valuable lessons from behind. It is certainly easy to do so – humans are creatures of habit, and our conscious mind is inherently lazy. That’s all right, don’t feel bad, my mind is lazy too.

But this morning, as I ponder the most important trends to me throughout 2015, I force myself to think critically about where I am today and where I want to focus next year. So at the risk of giving you yet another cliché “year in review” article, I think it’s important I share some really impactful observations throughout 2015. These five trends will be based solely in data, and require heightened scrutiny next year as I continue to strive towards my MTG financial goals – a full tuition for my son’s college education.

One day at a time.

Observation # 1 – The Impact of Fetches and the Super Mythic Rare

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Casual Fridays

Read These Again

December 25, 2015 Cliff Daigle

By: Cliff Daigle

This being the end of the year, I wanted to share with you all the pieces I am most pleased with, in chronological order.

Next week, it’s time to review how some New Year’s resolutions went!

2/6 – The Vendors’ Views

Normally at a GP between rounds, I’m searching for trades or looking for an EDH game. This time, I was chasing down vendors and trying to find out everything I could. What I found out was a lot more than what’s hot or not, and this was one of the first indicators of how 93/94 is really affecting the market for older cards. I’d hardly heard of the format at this point!

4/10 – We All Lose At Pack Wars

Every once in a while, I like to go back and review a basic concept of Magic finance. In this case, it’s the terrible value of a single pack. It is something I don’t always succeed at, especially when there’s foreign packs dripping with potential value.

For example, there was a card shop in New York I went to once, they had Japanese Shadowmoor packs. Only five of them left, and I bought them all to find the foil rare of…Stenchskipper. Yeah. Be envious.

5/15 – Watching the Sideboards

The philosophy here is valid, and comes with its own built-in proof: When I wrote this, the card Kolaghan’s Command was at $2/$6 for a foil, and if you’d bought in then (I picked up a few foils) then you’re up to $14/$30.

Not everything on that list has the same growth potential, but foil Rending Volley is still a great pickup right now, especially as anti-Twin tech in Modern. Kills Deceiver Exarch, Pestermite, even Restoration Angel if that variation is around. Can’t be countered and Spellskite is useless against it.

6/19 – Being an MTG Dad

By far, my favorite piece ever. I’m going to struggle with a lot of these questions over my daughters’ entire lives.

How much of my enjoyment of the game comes from being the accepted gender and race? Will I want to play less when I notice how many men spend less time casting spells and more time ogling them?

It is also the least financially relevant piece I’ve written for this site, as there’s no buy or sell advice within.

8/7 – Are you a Terrible Trader?

This piece spawned an interesting set of thoughts and comments on Reddit, and it has a lively set of examples in the comments.

One thing I want to make clear about my use of Hero’s Downfall as an example: if someone wants a card that will be rotating, trade it away at its current value. But when someone tries to push that card onto you, especially if it is not what you’re asking for, that’s when you should be leery.

10/2 – Awesome! Expedition! Now What?

The premise is simple: what to do if you open an Expeditions in Battle for Zendikar? How do you treat it? Keep it? Sell it? There’s a lot of potential options and all of them have advantages.

The new set of Expeditions, if the spoilers are to be believed, will have the most fascinating mix of very expensive and very cheap promo editions. It’ll be interesting to watch.

10/9 – The Lessons Origins Taught Us

Finally, this is a piece that I thought a lot about. How were so many of us so wrong? What lessons are here that we can learn from, in order to be ready for the next time a standard card approaches $80?

A lot of predictions were very right about the set. But the one we missed most on, Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy, offered the greatest financial windfall and that’s what I looked at.

I hope you enjoyed my year of writing, as well as this selection of highlights!

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