Digging for Dollars: Battle for Zendikar

September 30, 2015 James Chillcott 13 Comments

By: James Chillcott (@MTGCritic)

Battle for Zendikar is a weird set from a historical perspective, and quite likely a heavy piece of foreshadowing for how WOTC intends to market Magic: The Gathering for the foreseeable future. By inserting a truly lottery ticket-like upside to opening packs in the form of Zendikar Expeditions, Wizards of the Coast boosts set sales while keeping the cost of playing Standard lower. If it works out, and all signs point to the fact that it will, we can expect generally cheaper Standard decks paid for by our willingness to roll the dice on fancy foil goodies.

So what does this mean for those of us looking to make some money on BFZ?

Firstly, if you managed to get your hands on a case of BFZ at a reasonable cost, and you have both the time and outlets to crack it and move it while demand still exceeds supply (before mid-October, ideally), you have a decent shot at making most of your money back on the back of a couple of Expeditions lands and a double fistful of key mythics. This could potentially leave you with hundreds of cards to support your Standard and EDH decks at the cost of your valuable time.

Now, if instead you were hoping to find some tasty speculative buys that others are missing, your window of opportunity may have already passed. Many of the best cards in Battle for Zendikar (e.g., Undergrowth Champion) have already been identified, and it’s possible that too many are already priced for success for us to expect much in the way of short-term hidden gems. Remember, however, that you’re really going to see the greatest returns if you skip the armchair theorizing and buckle down to test the decks ahead of the curve. The combination of battle lands and fetch lands means that four- and five-color decks are very real options this fall, and as such, several cards are still being evaluated in an outdated context.

Here, presented in order of likely upside, are my picks for the cards in Battle for Zendikar most likely to reward timely speculation, with all target prices assumed to be possible during 2015 unless otherwise noted:

1. Drana, Liberator of Malakir

When I started writing this article 36 hours ago, this was far and away my best pick for a BFZ mythic about to take off like a rocket ship. Initially, Drana was available on pre-order for around $10, but as more people have started brewing and testing with this flying war machine, the price has started to push up, especially in the last 24 hours or so. The risk is consequently rising, and I believe that Drana needs to make the top eight at Pro Tour Battle for Zendikar to hold a price over $15.

That being said, this could easily turn out to be the Dragonlord Ojutai of BFZ, a powerhouse, must-answer four-of in Abzan Aggro, a Hardened Scales variant, or something entirely new. If it looks like the premier card in a tier-one Standard deck for the next few months, Drana could spike above $25, and make a playset or two a solid way to pay for dinner. On the other hand, if Drana fails to prove herself early on, look for her to drop below $10 with the rest of the unplayed mythics and open up a more attractive entry point for potential greatness in a different metagame sometime before spring 2017. If you’re looking to get in now, however, move fast. Even as I type these words, copies are drying up and pushing the few remaining copies closer to $20, with not much meat left on the bone.

Now: $15
Target: $30+

2. Oblivion Sower

When a mythic is this far up the power curve and gets better in environments with fetch lands and delve cards, it’s worth at least considering getting in on the action. Oblivion Sower was one of the earliest mythics revealed from the set and a promising financial prospect. Then it became clear that the card was included in the associated Duel Deck for the set and we all backed off. The thing is, Polukranos was also a powerful midrange creature with a sweet ability included in a Duel Deck, and he experienced two spikes over $15 despite that fact. There also might be an Eldrazi or dragon (or both!) ramp deck that wants this guy to play mid-game defense and search up the lands to get the really big guys like Atarka and Ulamog onto the playing field. Again, this pretty much needs to be a three- or four-of in a major deck to have a chance at a spike, but you won’t find me surprised if it does.

Now: $5.50
Target: $10+

3. Retreat to Coralhelm (Foil)

In case you missed it, this card might be the next big thing in Modern, alongside the dashing Knight of the Reliquary. Ari Lax wrote an article about it yesterday, and essentially what it says is that both of these in play means having as much land and as big a knight as you want. It also allows for all sorts of toolbox shenanigans, including finding unique lands and making cards like Hangarback Walker and Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy even more powerful. Knight of the Reliquary has already jumped on the hype, moving from $5 to over $10 in the last couple of weeks. Foils of Retreat to Coralhelm are sold out on Star City Games at $8, and my guess is they will restock above $12. This doesn’t leave much to gain in the short term, but a few years of success could see this card above $20 like foils of Deceiver Exarch.

Now: $10-12
Target: $20 (long term hold)

4. Woodland Wanderer

If I had to point at the rare creature from BFZ that most benefits from a Standard format that can support four-color decks with ease, this would be it. Easy to cast as a 6/6 with pseudo-evasion that plays excellent defense, this guy makes Siege Rhino stay home and shrugs off burn spells. My testing in both Bring to Light and four-color Hardened Scales brews says he’s an unremarkable but always welcome role player that multiple decks may run as a four-of. That means he’s got a shot to be one of the few rares in the set to gain value rather than lose it.

Now: $4
Target: $8+

5. Emeria Sheppard (+foils)

You might need to hold onto these for a while to yield a decent return, but I’m finding it very hard to believe that a card this busted should be $1 in a world where I can use reanimation spells to put it into play and fetch lands to abuse it. First we need a reanimation spell worth casting, but still. At the very least, foils are solid long-term holds for Commander, especially if peak supply knocks them down into the $5 range. For now, I’m picking up 20 of these for $20 and adding them to the spec closet.

Now: $1 ($8 foil)
Target: $3-4 ($15+ foil)

6. Painful Truths

If we end up in a Standard format full of three- to five-color decks that all want to cast Siege Rhino, then I have a feeling this card will end up in high demand. Anytime you can cast it for full value and aren’t facing aggro pressure, you’ll be happy to have it, but it goes without saying that aggro often dominates this early in the season, so you may be able to snag a few copies around $1 before it finds a time to shine. Dig Through Time, Treasure Cruise, and Abzan Charm all rotate this spring, which would leave this card sitting pretty for a modest spike.

Now: $1.50
Target: $5

7. Bring to Light (foils)

There is in fact little doubt in my mind that a Bring to Light deck will make top eight of a major tournament this fall. The card is at minimum a way to play up to eight Siege Rhino, which is insane, and a deep toolbox besides. Still, Siege Rhino is arguably the best fall rare in Standard, has been all year, and still has trouble holding $4. As such, what I’m really wondering is whether Bring to Light is going to end up in Modern in some sort of value or combo deck. My gut says yes, and I’m looking to snag some copies under $15 at peak supply to follow through.

Side note: Siege Rhino foils, up as high as $20 on Modern play last winter, are now back around $8. This is a definite buy, folks, though you could risk waiting until rotation to get an even better deal.

Now: $16?
Target: $30+

Honorable Mentions:

Felidar Sovereign dropped from $10 to $1 on the reprint, but should easily recover to $3 or $4 in a few years. Seems like safe fuel for a future buylist order if you don’t have anywhere better to stash some cash.
Blight Herder isn’t a $1 card either. It’s seven power and eight toughness for five mana in any situation where your opponents are using delve, and the three little guys give you the option to ramp to eight mana the next turn or cast something for three right away, effectively making the 4/5 body cost two. That’s also four bodies to sacrifice to a Nantuko Husk, Bone Splinter fuel, and all sorts of things to be doing in EDH or Cube. If it finds a Standard home, it goes to $3 or $4 right away, and otherwise, it finds the same price point within a few years.
Part the Waterveil is a Time Walk variant and a mythic. Sometimes it makes a hasty creature you can attack with twice in its wake. It’s currently $2.50 and will almost certainly top $5 to $6 by 2018.
Crumble to Dust foils clearly have Modern applications and are currently around $7, with a solid shot of falling toward $5. It’s only an uncommon, but this could be a future $10 to $15 sideboard card in foil.
Bad puns aside, Void Winnower shuts down Siege Rhino, Dragonlord Dromoka, Dig Through Time, Treasure Cruise, Gideon, Jace, and well, half the format. It also has at least half of an evasion ability and can’t be blocked by tokens. What it doesn’t have is a graveyard recursion spell to help it make a splash. After all, if you’re going to nine mana, you might as well go to ten and cast Ulamog. As such, I suspect you are going to get a chance to nab this card below $4 pretty soon, and that might be a decent long-term hold if someone figures out how to put him to work.

Cards You Should Be Selling

Expedition Lands

Be honest with yourself. You’re not going to be getting full playsets of these. They’re too expensive to play with, and the market has already fully priced these out to a level that is unlikely to be sustainable heading into peak supply in late October. In the long term, returns on the fetch lands especially may be reasonable, but cards this expensive are far less liquid than regular staples and you may find some sweet deals around the holiday season when folks are dumping them to pay for Christmas gifts. There’s also the fact that their rarity may be more like two per case rather than one per case, which if true, means they are twice as common as we thought. Sell into the hype and buy yourself something nice.

2. The Planeswalkers

Kiora is underwhelming in testing so far and Ob Nixilis is looking like a one- or two-of in a few decks, so I expect both of these cards to drop from current levels down towards $10 to $12. A reprint in the spring Clash Pack could further maul their value. Gideon, Ally of Zendikar looks like the real deal, but seeing as how he’s already closing in on $40, I’m happy to be unloading my prerelease copy into the hype looking to snag him later under $25 as necessary. Of course, if you’re planning on playing a full set next week, you might as well hang on to him, since he may win you enough games to pay for the difference.

3. Ruinous Path

It’s worth noting that Hero’s Downfall spiked to over $10 at one point, but the lack of instant speed really hurts in a format that is already missing good instant-speed removal on the early part of the curve. Even still, I’m betting against this holding $8 and recommend you trade out for better targets before the price starts to tumble.

4. Undergrowth Champion

This guy is looking pretty solid in my testing, but he’s not going to be a multi-deck role player. Get out immediately, and nab a playset once peak supply knocks this back closer to $10.

Magic Origins Update

In Digging for Dollars: Magic Origins, I called out the following specs as undervalued cards with some chance of financial success (shown with original and current pricing):

Nissa, Vastwood Seer: $26 to $20 (-25%)
Erebos’s Titan: $8.40 to $2 (-76%)
Abbot of Keral Keep (Foil): $13 to $20 (+53%)
Evolutionary Leap (Foil): $15 to $8 (-53%)
Harbinger of the Tides (Foil): $18 to $8 (-56%)
Demonic Pact: $3.75 to $3 (-20%)
Animist’s Awakening: $10 to $6 (-40%)

So far, the only solid win from the list is Abbot of Keral Keep foils. I correctly identified that the card was Modern-playable and likely to rise on demonstrative play. As it turns out, the card is seeing play in both Grixis and Temur decks in Modern, including the innovative Temur Prowess deck recently played to a solid finish by Patrick Chapin. That being said, the card is still readily available around $18, which is a bit higher than my earlier entry point of $12 to $15, but still a very solid pickup. I’d recommend moving in on the card at this price if you haven’t already, as I still predict a future price over $30 on further Modern play.

Nissa is seeing play, but rarely as a four-of, and Jace has stolen a lot of her value, so she’s shaved a few dollars off instead of spiking. Of the other potential Standard winners, Erebos’s Titan and Demonic Pact have found fresh lows, and so far don’t seem to be showing up in any lists for this fall. That being said, they still have one more rotation cycle to come to the forefront, so lay your chips where your heart leads you. Erebos’s Titan especially works well with ingest and delve, so maybe there’s something there to be found.

The good news, however, is that Evolutionary Leap has yet to find a steady home in Modern and foils are down to $8, which is an entry point I find compelling. The card is too rich of a value engine with tokens and toolbox creatures to stay low forever, so I’m moving in on some more copies. Likewise, I’m a bit mystified as to how Harbinger of the Tides foils are down to $8 with it being a three- or four-of in Modern Merfolk, especially with that deck doing so well lately. Regardless, I’m down for a few more sets at that price.

The results of DFD: Origins, then, provide further proof that buying a full portfolio of long-shot lists like this is nearly always a bad strategy. Cards like Demonic Pact and Erebo’s Titan too often hinge on the emergence of a specific linear deck, whereas flexible and powerful cards like Snapcaster Mage and Abrupt Decay offer up multi-format appeal that can be tucked into a myriad of decks.

Huge Miss of the Last Set

Along with the rest of the MTG finance community, I completely missed the power inherent in a Merfolk Looter with a flexible upside when first exposed. Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy has since emerged as a viable player in both Modern and Legacy, as well as one of the top five cards in Standard. I recently called Jace foils out as a top buy, and indeed they have spiked to over $80 since then, earning me some solid profits on the copies I managed to nab before the spike.

So there you have it. Anything I missed that you’re on top of? Logic to kill one of the specs? Have at it. I’m not sensitive.

James Chillcott is the CEO of ShelfLife.net, The Future of Collecting, Senior Partner at Advoca, a designer, adventurer, toy fanatic and an avid Magic player and collector since 1994.

Danny Brown

UNLOCKED: How to Start Your Own Cube Without Breaking the Bank

September 29, 2015 Danny Brown 5 Comments

If you don’t have a player in your playgroup with a cube, you are missing out on what many feel is the absolute best format in Magic. Even if you’re not going to jump on the hype train of calling it the best, Cube is one of the most varied and customizable formats out there, allowing cube owners to design their own draft environments based on any criteria they want.

If you’re unaware, Cube basically breaks down to this: one players brings a pile of several hundred cards (the “cube”) and a group of players draft those cards, build decks, and play games. Most often, there is no more than one copy of each card, but some cube owners do break this rule from time to time. Cube is a simple concept, but by switching up the draft styles, card inclusions, and house rules with each draft, a playgroup can get a ton of varied play from a cube.

Putting together a cube is also a hell of a lot of fun. You’re reading an article on MTGPrice, so chances are that you enjoy trading, bargain, hunting, and buying cards at floor prices. Looking at some lists, it might be easy to get discouraged and think that you’ll need to spend thousands of dollars to get a cube into playable shape. On the contrary, you probably have enough cards in your collection right now to build a rudimentary cube and start playing straight away. The fun comes as you start looking through trade binders and bargain bins with an eye specifically targeted toward upgrades for your list.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s talk about getting started from scratch.

Getting Started from Scratch

I’ve built a cube from scratch twice in my life, and both times I used a 360-count binder so that I could visualize each section quickly. This is by no means necessary, but I found it helpful in the initial building stages to keep track of exactly how many more playable cards I needed.

A 360-card cube is small (the average size is probably 450 to 600, with the biggest going up to and above 720), but it is exactly enough cards to support eight players, and it can be easily expanded later, so it’s a great starting point.

As a cube builder, this will be your first major decision point: how do you want to break down your sections? The sections your may want to have in your cube include:

White cards
Blue cards
Black cards
Red Cards
Green cards
Two-color cards
Three-color cards
Artifacts and other colorless cards
Non-basic lands

My dream of a mono-blue cube aside, you probably want your sections to be roughly equal in size, if not exactly equal. A starting point might be:

45 cards for each color (225 cards)
4 cards for each two-color pair (40 cards)
55 artifacts or colorless cards, or utility lands (55 cards)
4 dual lands for each two-color pair (40 cards)

These numbers can be adjusted, of course, depending on how much you want to focus on multi- or mono-colored strategies, or push artifacts, or whatever. I’m just giving examples here. Cube is supposed to be about what you want.

If you’ve never played Cube before, you might not know which types of cards to include. In general, Cube is just like other Magic formats, meaning that the best inclusions are just plain, old good cards. However, if you want some more specific guidance, CubeTutor.com (which I will discuss a bit later) has a section called Average Cubes. These lists are generated by choosing the most popular cards from cubes in the Cube Tutor database.

Take a look at the average cube for a 360-card list. Any of these cards currently in your collection can probably go in your binder (unless you don’t want to play with them for whatever reason, which is fine). Be sure and count out the number of cards you have allocated to each section in your binder so that you don’t have to move things around later.

Once your binder is full, you’ve got a workable cube. But the fun has only just started.

Keeping a Record

Okay, the fun comes later. For now, we talk about record keeping. There are several reasons to keep an accurate list of the cards in your cube. These include:

When you want to make an update, having a list allows you to know exactly which cards are in the current build, making replacements easy.
Having an online link you can share with other players in advance will help people get an idea of your specific list.
If a card or two goes missing, you’ll be able to figure out which one(s).
You can easily compare your cube to others, making searching for upgrades easier.

As far as keeping a record, a Google spreadsheet is as good an option as any, but I personally use CubeTutor.com. Cube Tutor allows for easy customization and sharing of one’s cube list, and my favorite feature is the visual spoiler mode, which gives an at-a-glance view of the entire cube. It also tracks every change you make, so you can review the history of your cube’s updates over time. It’s a little more effort to update your list than just changing the text in a spreadsheet cell, but I find the benefits to be well worth it.

From Bad Cards to Awesome Ones

Chances are that you have some pretty bad cards in your initial list. That’s okay. The real joy of Cube is that it scales to the budget you have set aside for it. All-common or common-and-uncommon cubes exist, and starting back in 2013, Andrew Colman did a series for Brainstorm Brewery on building a cube for less than $200.

At the other end of the spectrum, some people choose to build their cubes up into their most valuable possessions, in a very literal sense. Between foils, alters, miscuts, Beta power, and all the other ways one might pimp out a list, there are players with cubes worth more than you or I make in a year.

That’s a fine aspiration if you’re into it. Personally, I get uneasy when other players handle my more valuable cards, and those are worth nowhere near what some top-tier cards are. But the great thing is that there’s no wrong way to do it. If you want to set a tiny budget, you can. If you want to make it your life’s work to build something worth more than your LGS’s entire inventory, that’s cool, too.

A Range of Options

The range of cards one can play in a cube is huge. When I’m building a deck or cube or just about anything in Magic, I like to start with the mana base, so let’s start there to give an example of the spectrum of cards one can choose to play.

There’s a good chance you have a number of these sitting around in draft chaff, and they are fine starting points for getting a cube underway:

If you’re going for a common-and-uncommon-only cube, these cycles are some of your best options. If you’re willing to include rare dual lands, though, there are lots of other choices.

These cycles are all better than the above choices, and relatively inexpensive, too. Once you’re committed to optimizing your cube, though, there are three cycles that basically must be included in full:

Yes, as you might expect, fetch lands, dual lands, and shock lands are the best of the best dual lands for the Cube format. Who would have thought?

It doesn’t stop there if you don’t want it to, though.

Be it insanely rare foils are black-bordered Beta versions, you can continue upgrading your cube long past the point where the cards included are optimized for play purposes. For the MTG financier looking for a place to put accrued card value, a cube is a great option and does wonders for focusing your trading efforts.

Alternate Approaches

Of course, like I said, I get uneasy with people handling my more expensive cards. The problem is that I want to play with the best cards Magic has to offer. What can we do to get less expensive versions of these cards?

The most obvious option to saving a little money is to buy cards in less-than-near-mint condition. Jace, the Mind Sculptor has a Fair Trade Price of $94.12 as of this writing, but there are moderately played copies available as low as $75 on TCGplayer. If you’re not planning to resell these cards, you don’t actually need NM versions, and if somebody damages, loses, or steals a non-NM version of a card, it at least mitigates your losses.

In some cases, gold-bordered cards are the way to go. Rishadan Port and Wasteland are fantastic non-basic lands included in most cubes, but they run around $100 and $70 respectively. Gold-bordered versions of these cards, however, cost me about $4 each on eBay.

In case you didn’t know, gold-bordered cards are ones that were printed in the World Championship deck series for a number of years. They had different card backs and were illegal for tournament play, but allowed players to have access to some of the top Standard decks each year. You can read up on the history of these decks and see the contents of each one here.

Wasteland and Rishadan Port were printed multiple times, which accounts for their relatively cheap gold-bordered versions. Less frequently printed cards from these decks, like Force of Will and Gaea’s Cradle, can run $20 and up. Still, they provide huge discounts on very expensive cards and can somewhat be considered “real” Magic cards.

Finally, we come to proxies. A couple months ago, Travis Allen wrote a great piece about the damage proxies can do to card values. I largely agree with Travis’s assertions (and I don’t proxy any cards in Commander, for example), but when it comes to Cube, proxies are virtually essential.

If I spent time, money, and effort working my way up to a Black Lotus, I’m not sure I would trust anyone to play with it under any circumstances. Everyone will feel differently on this, of course, but in general, I expect most of us would be fairly uncomfortable with a $4000 piece of cardboard floating around a table and being shuffled by someone who may or may not take reasonable care of it. Proxies are the only way I can feel comfortable playing with some of Magic‘s best cards in my cube, and so I have 20 to 30 of them in my list.

Based on how you feel about Travis’s article, your mileage may vary on the use of proxies. If you do use them, though, don’t just write card names on the back of bulk commons. Take the time to make or acquire proxies that actually look good. It will improve your cubing experience immensely.

Them’s the Basics

As a player, I love Cube and would rather play it than any other format. As a collector and trader, building a cube has been one of the most challenging, entertaining, and fun experiences in my MTG career. Chasing down just the right trade or bargain price for a card you’ve long been looking to add to your list feels great, and everyone should have the chance to experience it.

Actually, I take that back. If everyone builds a cube in your playgroup, then that means nobody’s cube is being played very frequently. So keep that fact in mind. If cubes abound in your area and you would be frustrated with the idea of building one but rarely getting the chance to play with it, you should probably not bother. But if nobody has a cube in your playgroup, it’s about time for you to change that.

ProTrader, Sigmund Ausfresser

PROTRADER: Three Trends You Should Know About

September 27, 2015 Sigmund Ausfresser 9 Comments

Now that Battle for Zendikar prerelease weekend is behind us, I’m certain many MTG finance writers will write about the cards to keep on your radar. There will probably be an article or two written on the trajectory of Expeditions, which non-rotating Standard cards are a buy, and perhaps even trends in the Modern metagame. Price trajectories, trade targets, and synergistic strategies will be shared aplenty.

I prefer to go completely off the map this week. Rather than discuss information that is likely to be covered time and again, my intent is to share a couple interesting data points that I bet very few people know much about. And even if you did know them, I want to encourage everyone to think more critically about the information because they may be able to glean profits from them. After all, that’s sort of my job here – to write about topics that will enable readers to make money (or at least spend less money on this hobby).

And while my colleagues do an excellent job sharing the latest and greatest trends in Standard and Commander, I tend to approach this game from a completely different angle. Diversity is a blessing, isn’t it?

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ProTrader: Magic doesn’t have to be expensive.

James Chillcott

Is Magic: Origins the next Innistrad?

September 25, 2015 James Chillcott 19 Comments

By: James Chillcott (@MTGCritic)

This weekend most of you are already in the pocket on pre-release hype and debates surrounding Battle for Zendikar. The initial response to the new set has been tepid to say the least, and many players are debating whether this is a set they want to invest in given the heavy reliance on the Expedition lands to hold up the sets’ EV (Expected Value).

Meanwhile, in the background, our final core set ever is quietly setting up to possibly become the most desirable sealed product in recent memory.

Take it from someone with a lot of sealed product in the closet: sealed is not really where you want to be. For every SDCC set or Modern Masters booster box I’ve made money on, I’ve got a couple of FTV: 20 sets or boxes of Return to Ravnica just hanging out waiting on an increase. Overall, sealed can only be expected to appreciate 5-10% per annum, with Fat Packs and select foreign booster boxes being your best bets for better results.

That being said, every few years or so a set beats expectations, usually on the back of some very good cards that show up in deck after deck in multiple formats. (You can read about my recent survey of Booster Boxes vs Fat Packs over here.)

Sets that have settled at over $200 per box since 2009, include all of the following (with approximate prices and annual returns as of May/15):

Innistrad: $225 (40%/yr)
New Phyrexia: $350 (70%/yr)
Scar of Mirrodin: $200 (26%/yr)
Rise of the Eldrazi: $600 (110%/yr)
Worldwake: $700 (115%/yr)
Zendikar: $550 (85%/yr)

So what do these figures tell us? Well, for one, they suggest that holding boxes of good sets heading into the last major player population explosion in Magic (2010-2013) and the advent of Modern as a dominant new format was a pretty sweet deal. It also highlights that holding core sets was almost never a good idea, with most 4-6 year old core sets still languishing below $150 with the rest of the dregs. It’s also worth noting that since 2011, only Innistrad has been worth stashing away extra boxes of, and even then, they haven’t been super liquid according to the peers I’ve spoken to.

We should also have a look at what factors made the above boxes so valuable. One of the strongest predictors of when a booster box will beat the odds seems to be how many of its’ cards make it into the Top 200 Modern/Legacy playables list as format staples.

Let’s take a look at the sets since 2009 and how many staples they can boast, placed alongside Magic: Origins:

Origins	Innistrad	New Phyrexia	SOM	ROE	Worldwake	Zendikar
Jace, Vrynn's Prodigy	Liliana of the Veil	Karn Liberated	Mox Opal	Emrakul, the Aeons Torn	Jace, the Mind Sculptor	Scalding Tarn
Hangarback Walker	Snapcaster Mage	Spellskite	Wurmcoil Engine	Linvala, Keeper of Silence	Stoneforge Mystic	Misty Rainforest
Liliana, Heretical Healer	Geist of Saint Traft	Batterskull	Blackcleave Cliffs	Vengevine	Creeping Tar Pit	Verdant Catacombs
Abbot of Keral Keep	Olivia Voldaren	Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite	Darkslick Shores	Splinter Twin	Celestial Collonade	Arid Mesa
Day's Undoing	Sulfur Falls	Gitaxian Probe		Inquisition of Kozilek	Raging Ravine	Marsh Flats
Goblin Piledriver	Stony Silence				Amulet of Vigor	Goblin Guide
Evolutionary Leap	Gavony Township				Stirring Wildwood	Iona, Shield of Emeria
Harbinger of the Tides					Death's Shadow	Pyromancer's Ascension
Dark Petition						Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
						Spell Pierce

This table demonstrates that Magic: Origins holds more staples and potential Modern/Legacy staples than almost any high value set other than Zendikar, Worldwake and Innistrad, all sets that must be considered the pinnacle of modern set valuations. Of the cards listed as notable in Origins for the purposes of increasing box value, Jace, Walker, Abbot, Day’s Undoing, Harbinger of Tides and Dark Petition have all already seen relevant play in Modern, Legacy and/or Vintage. Liliana, Piledriver, and Evolutionary Leap still need to find homes, but their power levels are such that I feel confidant that at least two of the three will get there within the next few years as relevant partner cards are printed to drive them.

Clearly, I’m not the only one who sees long term value in Magic: Origins either. Just take a look at the foil premiums (with 2x being average for most cards) being commanded by the cards on my list:

Card Name	Reg Price	Foil Price	Multiplier
Jace, Vrynn's Prodigy	$45	$90	2.0
Hangarback Walker	$18	$40	2.2
Liliana, Heretical Healer	$17	$45	2.6
Abbot of Keral Keep	$7	$24	3.4
Day's Undoing	$5	$27	5.4
Goblin Piledriver	$4	$13	3.3
Evolutionary Leap	$3	$10	3.3
Harbinger of the Tides	$2	$10	5.0
Dark Petition	$1	$7	7.0

Let’s take a deeper look at each of the cards that are mostly likely to drive value for Magic: Origins.

Jace, Vrynn’s Prodigy

Regular Price: $45
Foil Price (Multiplier): $90 (2x)

In my Magic: Origins, Digging for Dollars article, I dismissed the youngest Jace as an overpriced card that needed to find a deck in a hurry to hold its price, but boy did it prove its value! Apparently, a Merfolk Looter with upside that offers sweet synergies with fetch lands, sorcery-speed spells, and graveyard creature recursion is good enough all the way back to Legacy.

Remember, this is an iconic, mythic planeswalker from a summer set with limited sales, often played as a two- to four-of, viable in Standard, Modern, Legacy, and EDH/casual. The non-foils are going for $45+ or so on strong Standard play, and foils have recently spiked from $45 to nearly $90, which still represents just a 2x multiplier. Shortly before it spiked, I called foil Jace to hit $80 to $100 within the year and here we are. I also called it the next foil Liliana of the Veil, a card that still commands about $230 despite the printing of a Pro Tour promo version last year. If Jace finds a permanent home in Modern and Legacy by the time Origins goes out of print, the odds of boxes gaining faster than normal could skyrocket on the back of a potential $150-200 mythic foil.

2. Hangarback Walker

Regular Price: $18
Foil Price (Multiplier): $40 (2.2x)

Here’s another tier-one card that almost everyone missed on the first pass. Hangarback has already demonstrated value as a multi-copy slot in a variety of Standard decks from UR Artifacts to Abzan to Jeskai and is likely to be a staple heading into the fall metagame. More importantly, it showed up in top decks all the way back to Vintage at Eternal Weekend several weeks back, having been featured on camera in an innovative Shops/Robots deck. Sam Black was rocking it this week as part of a Jeskai Trinket Mage deck in Modern. (Not that you care, but I’m also testing it with Bitterblossom, Lingering Souls, Evolutionary Leap, and Siege Rhino in Modern, and I suspect it will find at least a few homes in Modern within the year.)

As a colorless creature with a flexible mana cost, resiliancy to non-exiling kill spells, synergy with +1/+1 counters, artifacts, sacrifice effects, and creature buffs, Hangarback Walker now looks like the very definition of a card set up to be a long-term multi-format staple. And as a rare from a Magic Origins, a low-supply summer set, chances are good that foils can beat average returns and grow in a big way as more and more decks are uncovered that want to use it. Also in it’s favor is the fact that, like Snapcaster Mage, the card is powerful without being utterly broken, making deflation through banning(s) a low-risk scenario. There are very few foil Hangarback Walkers left available online at $30, and supply is dwindling. I fully expect this card (in foil) to hit $50 to $60 within the year.

3. Liliana, Heretical Healer

Regular Price: $17
Foil Price (Multiplier): $45 (2.6x)

Liliana, Heretical Healer was originally though by many to be the strongest of the Origins planeswalkers, but despite the early hype, hasn’t really found a home in Standard, let alone Modern. For her to hold long term value she will need to find a Modern home in something grindy that leverages Collected Company or some other creature engine to immediately flip her for full value. The card isn’t powerful enough to see play in Legacy or Vintage, but the option to run this as an EDH general may prop up the foil multiplier. For now I consider this a long shot to add value to the set overall, but I’m certainly doing my best to make it work in a few different Aristocrats style decks.

4. Abbot of Keral Keep

Regular Price: $7
Foil Price (Multiplier): $24 (3.4x)

Here we have another underestimated card, now headed straight to stardom. Patrick Chapin has been championing the card as a 4-of auto-include in both Temur Prowess and Grixis Control in Modern, and in any deck where the casting cost is low enough to take advantage, the ability to nab an extra card once with Abbot and again with Snapcaster Mage is looking tempting indeed. Abbot of Keral Keep has also been doing reasonably well as a Red Deck Wins staple in Standard, but it’s the Modern play that has pushed its’ foil up to the $24 price point it currently occupies, just a month after I was telling everyone to nab them near $10.

5. Harbinger of the Tides

Regular Price: $2
Foil Price (Multiplier): $10 (5.0x)

This is a four-of in Modern Merfolk, a deck that recently won a Modern GP. As yet another Magic Origins rare that will see Modern play and has some degree of casual appeal, this has a decent shot of doubling up within the next couple of years so long as Merfolk stays viable as a Tier 1 deck. At $2, regular copies are almost impossible to go wrong with right now as the water tribe has plenty of casual appeal as well.

6.Day’s Undoing

Regular Price: $4
Foil Price (Multiplier): $27 (5.4x)

So here we have a “fixed” version of the Power 9 stalwart Timetwister. The fix supposedly resides in the fact that you don’t get to do anything with this the turn it goes off, putting your opponent squarely in the driver’s seat. For it to be broken, it needs to find a home in either a) a deck so aggressive it could care less about blowing a turn to fill up it’s hand or b) a combo deck that intends to ignore whatever the opponent does with all their extra cards. Due to the low casting cost I have some faith that this card will get there, but so far, despite rumblings about use in Modern Affinity decks, the foil multiplier seems to be running well ahead of performance. That being said if this one ever goes off, it can only help the cause for Origins.

7. Evolutionary Leap

Regular Price: $3
Foil Price (Multiplier): $10 (3.3x)

Evolutionary Leap is one of the more unproven picks on this list, but I see a card whose true potential is still under the radar. The low casting cost, easy splash-ability, and the ability to contribute to both combo and grindy value strategies seems to balance well against its lack of immediate board impact. At the GP Charlotte Modern tournament last month, Chris VanMeter started off 6-0 with his G/B Elves combo deck before fading from contention. The deck was running four copies of Leap and amply demonstrated the ability for this card to lead to big plays. (As I mentioned above, I’m currently testing the card as a way to trade tokens for reliably powerful creatures like Siege Rhino in Modern, but I have confidence that a better player will find even more exciting reasons to be running this subtle enchantment as new partner cards appear on the horizon. At present copies are available online around $10 or $11, so the entry point on foils is attractive if you agree that this is a future pillar in at least one good Modern or Legacy deck. I’m targeting a six to eighteen month window for foils to top $20 (longer than the last time I discussed it).

8. Goblin Piledriver

Regular Price: $4
Foil Price (Multiplier): $13 (3.3x)

If you’ve never been on the other end of a beating from this gibbering red weapon, let me set your head straight. Goblins are one of the most printed tribes in the history of the game and sooner or later a Goblins deck will break back into Tier 1 status in Modern and the price of this card ablaze. It can’t be hit by Electrolyze or blocked by Snapcaster Mage and it can do seven damage out of nowhere. Prior to the reprint the card was holding a higher price tier, so don’t be surprised when it slides back up while you aren’t looking.

9. Dark Petition

Regular Price: $1
Foil Price (Multiplier): $7 (7.0x)

Never underestimate a card that can be cast as Dark Ritual and Demonic Tutor (both broken) at the same time, in any deck that can afford to cast it. Already ANT, Storm and Battle of Wits decks are putting the card to use, and it won’t be that long before it wins something big and jumps. $1 for regular copies is simply scandalous and even $7 foils are a joke if the play pattern expands. I’d get in on some of these now as a long shot spec.

Tempering Expectations

So will Magic: Origins booster boxes, currently available for around $88, end up over $400 by 2018? In short, I doubt it. Despite the plethora of playable Modern and Eternal cards in the set, and the lower print run as a summer core set it would be tough to reach such heights. I am however targeting $200 in the same timeframe, and perhaps $80+ on Fat Packs.

The reality is that a big part of the gains on the 2009-2011 sets probably came from the confluence of impacts from player growth in the early part of the decade and the advent of Modern as a new format that suddenly demanded cards from the older sets.

It’s very telling that no set since Innistrad is worth more than $150 by the box, as it’s a strong sign that real supply has outpaced demand for the last few years. The shortening of the Standard play cycle from 24 months to 18 months may also represent that WoTC is trying to squeeze more money out of the existing players in the face of weakening player growth, which is not a great environment for sealed growth. All of this could create some very real drag against the set.

That being said, Magic: Origins has at least twice as many long term rare or mythic playables vs. sets like Theros and Return to Ravnica, and the foil multipliers are already running well ahead of the averages. With so many great cards in a summer set that’s still being underestimated, if you’re considering a box of Battle for Zendikar this week, you may want to consider stashing away some cheap boxes or Fat Packs of Origins instead. If you can get your hands on Russian, Korean or Japanese boxes at good prices instead, all the better to leverage the future value of insane foil multipliers. Either way, I’m willing to bet that Origins beats BFZ down the road.

(Full disclosure: I am holding copies of at least some of the cards on this list. I am not in on booster boxes yet, but intend to be before the end of the year.)