Stitch Together

November 12, 2015 Douglas Johnson 12 Comments

Alright. So… I have no topic for this week. I tried, I really did. I sat in front of my screen for two hours trying to think of something that

1) I genuinely cared about

2) I could relate to Magic finance

Unfortunately, I don’t really care about the Commander 2015 spoilers, except for the fact that Necrotic Ooze dodged yet another reprint opportunity. I love both of the new Golgari commanders, because they give me an overabundance of options for my favorite queen of life and death. Honestly, I’m surprised that she didn’t make it into the deck herself.

Now you see, this is the kind of thing I was trying to avoid. You don’t give a damn about me talking about Commander 2015; that’s Jason’s job. I can’t talk about Standard, because I don’t care enough about the format to pay attention. Grinder finance is Jim’s area of expertise. My niche in our arsenal of writers is collection buying, and I think there’s only so much I can say before I start to repeat myself to death. Whatever. I’ll just wing it this week, and see what comes out. There’s got to be at least some relevant info in here for someone.

Pucadvice

I do enjoy Pucatrade, I really do. However, I just have too much stuff constantly moving in and out of my collection to keep my haves list current. I think it would literally take me days just to piece together my current inventory as a have list, so I rarely (read: never) really send cards nowadays. Instead, I’ve taken up the practice of buying points for $.70 on the dollar from Facebook groups and Twitter acquaintances.

Due to the fact that I have a large Commander/non-competitive customer base in my area, every now and again, I get requests for certain cards that I don’t happen to have in my inventory. For whatever reason, some of these customers prefer to avoid buying cards online themselves. I appreciate that they would prefer to support a local business, because it works out well for me when they request to have me order cards for them.

So, let’s say that I buy 2000 Puca Points for $14 from someone in a Facebook group focused on the buying and selling of Puca Points and other MTG currency. Then, local customer Jimmy texts me and asks, “Hey DJ, do you have any Wurmcoil Engines?” If I don’t happen to have any Wurmcoils, I’ll usually reply with something like this: “No, but I can order one for you using the trade credit I have on a website, and it would cost you $18. Is that okay?” I’m usually met with an affirmative answer of some kind, because who doesn’t like the convenience of someone else ordering your cards for you? I then put the Wurmcoil on my want list, have it shipped to me at the cost of 1800 pucapoints, and get to turn those points into cash back at a 100-percent conversion rate.

Now, your results will vary with this when it comes to more obscure cards. If someone asks me for a foil version of an older common or uncommon, or something that I know will take Puca forever to send me, then I’ll kindly let them down and tell them that I don’t think I’ll be able to get it with trade credit, but that I can order it off of TCGplayer or eBay for them, as long as I’m still making a couple dollars for my trouble.

If you’re someone who doesn’t have the time to grind the Puca system by constantly sending out small cards and churning them into big cards, you might just be able to use it as a bridge to turn your 70 cents into a dollar, if you’re willing to wait and have a potential customer base waiting in the wings.

Tools of the Trade

I’m literally just looking around my desk/workstation and looking for things to write about at this point. Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever brought up how useful having your own business cards can be, even if you don’t decide to turn Magic into a full-time trade. While I would never advocate whipping them out while in an LGS, they’re a cheap and professional way to maintain a customer base through Craigslist, word of mouth, and good, old social-media outlets.

I personally use Vistaprint to make my cards. They were cheap (I paid $31 for 500 double-sided cards and used an existing logo/design, so they were only about six cents a piece), and the ordering process was very easy. The below pictures are the second version of business cards I’ve ordered, and you can get them even cheaper than that if you opt for a blank backside and take advantage of sales. The first time I ever ordered cards from Vistaprint, I took advantage of a “250 free sample cards” option and used a stock background, and they only charged me the $6 shipping. They still worked well enough to land me several collections back in the day, which made it all worthwhile.

20151110_224708 — Shoutout to Tim Ano, a former classmate of mine who designed the awesome logo and background.

I’ve found several ways to make sure that my lotus logo gets spread throughout the community. I tend to give them out after each Craigslist meetup, leave them in my display case for the store employees to distribute to anyone who asks about the cards in the case, and I personally like to include them in the envelope whenever I ship out cards to someone who’s semi-local on TCGplayer. I’ve actually gotten a text from someone who I once sold cards to through TCGplayer, and I ended up buying their collection because they only lived two hours from me.

Here’s another tool that I use constantly, whenever I buy collections, or trade for other cards at less than retail. If you’ve ever been to a Grand Prix or dealt with someone who does what I do, this picture looks familiar. It makes buying lots of cards at buylist a simple breeze, and the mat is simple enough to make with only a sharpie and ruler. The same rules apply here as with the business cards: please do not bring this type of mat to the LGS without prior consent. If you can work out a deal with your shop owner so that you can buy cards for them or in their place, that’s great! Just be sure to make sure they get something out of the deal for sharing their space and customers.

I’m actually in talks with my graphic designer friend Tim to try and get a customized design for a custom mat, which I will then order from InkedGaming.com. It will definitely look a lot more professional than the dirty and used mat above (to be fair, that’s my travel mat; I have a matching, yet cleaner one at the store). Would you rather sit down across someone with a mat like mine, or the one below?

If you’d rather not spend a lot of money on a mat just to look fancy, though, that’s perfectly understandable. That’s money that could be spend buying cards at buylist prices! You can find brand new blank playmats on eBay for less than $8, and then take a sharpie and a ruler to it for free.

Useful Gift Boxes

Apparently there’s been some pretty funny controversy on how the Battle for Zendikar gift box is still sub-par quality compared to the Theros and Khans of Tarkir gift boxes. I really don’t care because my fiancee knows not to buy me Magic-related product for presents, but I would like to let everyone know that the Return to Ravnica boxes are actually of very good quality in my experience. I use them reguarly to hold sleeves, toploaders, and other shipping supplies that I keep at my workstation.

I’m not sure if they intentionally cut corners on these boxes or if it was just negligence, but if you’re someone who does like the style and size of the boxes to hold their collection, I recommend the RTR one. I mean, they can’t be that expensive….

Wait, what the hell? Someone bought a sealed RTR gift box for $90 over the summer? And ABU has sold them for $40? Uhh… I was going to suggest that you grab them for cheap from other players and save them if you pick up collections in them while you throw the THS and KTK ones to the curb, but damn. I didn’t think they’d be this expensive on eBay. I mean, does anyone actually have any of these things still sealed? Props to you, I guess. I got like three or four RTR gift boxes as a combination of birthday and Christmas presents three years ago, and I cracked them all for those sweet Dreg Manglers because I’m a Golgari member ’til death and beyond. If anyone reading this actually owns the sealed ones, throw them up on eBay and see who bites.

Actually, this brings me to a good point on sealed product. If you’re eyeing the BFZ gift box and thinking “Man, I should totally buy this for $25 and then sit on it for three years, I’ll make a ton of money selling it later,” then let me correct you. Don’t do that. I’m assuming that the RTR one is selling at a premium due to a combination of being the only one study enough to stack on top of itself, plus the lack of print run from being the first of its kind. New generations of sealed product have always held a premium when they’re the first of their kind, just look at the original Commander, Planechase, and Duel Deck. Wizards doesn’t know how to anticipate what the demand will be, so they suddenly become scarce three years later.

Anyway the point is not to buy the BFZ gift box if you’re looking for long-term profit. Hell, the Tolarian Community College professor suggests not to buy it at all if you’re looking for up-to-par box quality and good EV.

End Step

Kabira Evangel is part of the reason I love bulk rares. Oh, I picked these up for a dime a piece two years ago? Now I can sell them for ten to twenty times that. There’s still time to do similar things with cards like Crucible of Fire, Heartless Summoning, and all of the new bulk rares from the new Commander set. You literally have nothing to lose.

Eye of Ugin has managed to creep up by around 25 percent since Battle for Zendikar’s release, so there’s definitely real demand for the “old” Eldrazi cards. It’s up to you whether you sell at $4 or wait for a couple more dollars, but I’m always happy to find a buyer at full retail.

City of Traders, ProTrader

PROTRADER: The Whimper. The Nail. The Knell.

November 11, 2015 Travis Allen 4 Comments

By: Travis Allen

Last week, Star City Games made an impactful announcement early in the week; too early for me to put together a cohesive article by Wednesday. The announcement was regarding the SCG Open Series, now known as the SCG Tour.

While many changes were made, the way the rebranded Open series treats Legacy is the component that had Twitter aflutter. The total number of SCG events has been reduced, there are now three seasons a year instead of four, SCG won’t support many events on the west coast, and Legacy is gone from the invitational. Also, Legacy prizes are no longer cash, but event wall tickets. Also, there’s only one Legacy Open in the first third of next year.

That sound you hear is the rending of garments.

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Going Mad

Going Mad – Upsetting the Ecosystem

November 11, 2015 Derek Madlem 11 Comments

By: Derek Madlem

At the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Australia, we’re seeing coral reefs that took decades to develop dying off en mass because of slight changes in the acidity and temperature of ocean water. As these reefs die off, the plethora of life that sprung up in and around them are disappearing as well and their absence ripples out affecting creatures that rely on them to survive, causing imbalances in the entire ecosystem…all from a small change in the acidity of ocean waters.

What do Magic and the Great Barrier Reef have in common? Well not a lot other than the occasional turtle and the fact that changes in the ecosystem are going to have long term impacts on their existence.

What the hell am I talking about? Over the last year and some change, Magic has gone through a huge number of seemingly minute and innocuous changes that going forward are going to have an impact on the value of cards, how these changes ripple out is only beginning to come to light. We’re still learning what all of these changes mean for the game over time, but let’s start by taking a look at what I’m talking about:

Rotation Schedule

Rotation schedules have been changed. In the past we saw a large set released in October followed up by two expansions for that set being released in February / April, then a Core Set some time in July. The schedule of ancillary products slotted in around these releases, with Duel Decks featuring a late summer release that heralded the fall expansion and a late winter release that gave us a couple planeswalkers. Wizards was tying too much of it’s yearly success to the fall release and decided to try to make that April set matter as much as the October set, thus the new rotation was born.

Every six months we’re going to see two sets leaving Standard. Before a set like Khans of Tarkir would stay viable for 24 months after release, now it’s only going to be legal for 18 months. With the old rotation schedule we had a pretty easy time predicting when the peaks and valleys for card prices were going to be and we made easy money picking up cards like Elspeth, Sun’s Champion at $15 and getting rid of them at $30 when we knew the price would peak. We also knew that it was all down hill for cards rotating within the next 9-12 months.

I wrote an ill-received article about how this change could affect the annual price spikes we learned to count on and was basically laughed off the metaphorical stage with rotten vegetables and expletives peppering my psyche…but then here we are with very little movement in Khans of Tarkir & Fate Reforged (outside fetch lands) cards during rotation. I’m not ready to jump up and down proclaiming my victory on this idea quite yet as some cards did move, but overall this rotation is one of the calmest that I can remember.

Going forward we’ll have to see how Dragons of Tarkir and Magic Origins fare this April, my guess is that these sets will behave in a relatively similar manner. With only two sets appearing per block, we’re going to see many of the archetypes that rely on synergy unable to reach critical mass so it will become clearer which cards are powerful early in their lifespans.

Volunteering Abolished

For basically forever, judges at high level events have been compensated using the morally ambiguous Judge Foil program. It was fairly simple, you showed up to “volunteer” at a Grand Prix and you were rewarded with packs of sweet premium cards that you could immediately sell to vendors for a sizeable chunk of cash, or keep for your own treasure trove.

Some guy complained and the community at large joined in and reveled at the outrage, now judges need to be compensated by tournament organizers rather than by Wizards of the Coast and that cost is being passed on to the consumers. We now have the pleasure looking at $70 constructed format Grand Prixs, which is a significant increase from the the $40 we saw in the past.

How is this affecting us? Well for starters, many of us simply aren’t going to participate in these events any longer. Before I could look at the Grand Prix promo and playmat as a substantial subsidization of my entry fee, knocking an easy $20-25 off the cost, leaving me at $15-20 out of pocket, now I’m out $50. At a $50 entry fee, I have to evaluate whether or not I’m actually a contender in a tournament; at $15, I can throw my money in the pot without second thought.

But players aren’t the only ones feeling the pinch, vendors are soaking up additional costs to vend these events as well. In the past we’d see more vendors (and more competition) because the table fees were so much lower. Tournament organizers have almost universally instituted a bid system (and a cap to the number of vendors able to participate) to determine who gets to occupy a reduced number of tables. This increased overhead is slowly bleeding many vendors out of the game completely. Now, one bad Grand Prix is enough to knock many of the smaller vendors out of the game completely.

The RPTQ

We’ve also now seen a year of the new PTQ system in action. Local PTQs used to be “free roll” events for many vendors and a good fallback to lick their wounds after experiencing a couple Grand Prix events. Being one of only a couple vendors at semi-local events meant that you could promote your brand and make decent money without shelling out a fortune. While it’s true that there was such a thing as a “bad PTQ”, it usually only took one “decent” buy to cover your entire cost for the event and everything beyond that was just gravy.

PTQs were also a good starting point for vendors trying to ramp up to doing Grand Prix events or running a significant online operation, now that the startup capital to break into the Grand Prix scene is almost insurmountable. It’s been said by many vendors that if you aren’t already in the game, it might be too late.

The other issue the RPTQ scene has brought to the forefront is the cannibalization of event participants. Previously, if your dream was to make it to the Pro Tour, you played a half dozen or fewer PTQs in your region spread out over a number of months. Now we’re barraged with multiple PPTQs available to us within a reasonable driving distance every single weekend.

These events are competing directly with each other and large regional events like SCG Opens or Grand Prixs for participants. Players are now being forced to choose between sneaking into an under attended PPTQ or attending a larger event.

While these numbers seem inconsequential, it’s easy for a handful of these tournaments to be occurring within a 3-4 hour radius of an SCG Open with each of them siphoning off a couple dozen players that would have otherwise probably attended the larger event. In a world with $50 entry fees, this can quickly add up to multiple thousands of dollars coming right off the bottom line.

The Omni-Vendor

The ride of TCGPlayer over the past couple of years has ensured the general public a constant supply of low-cost cards. TCGPlayer used to be a great tool for vendors to take their Grand Prix buys to market and reap handsome rewards, but now the flood gates have opened and there’s no turning back. With TCGPlayer becoming the storefront of every guy with a backpack and a few cards, traditional brick and mortar stores and GP Vendors are competing with guys that have essentially $0 in overhead costs. The race to the bottom is real and there are few real winners.

For example, I just searched for Blood Crypt and was returned 386 vendors. THREE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY SIX! How far down that list do you think I scrolled? If you aren’t in the five cheapest results, you’re likely not selling a Blood Crypt today.

This marketplace has created a new priesthood within the Magic community. Their places of power are Craigslist ads where you can usually find numerous ads all boasting the best prices paid for your cards and the hundreds of Facebook buy/sell/trade groups, many of which are created and moderated by people looking to skim any value out of the collections being offered before they even reach other readers.

While the race to the bottom benefits us as greatly as consumers, it puts pressure on the GP vendors and LGS owners that essentially subsidized every tournament table we’ve ever played on.

MTGO Changes

Paper Magic isn’t the only place we’ve seen massive changes in the past couple of years. We’ve seen significant changes to both set redemption and the way prizes are given out on MTGO. Personally I stay away from MTGO because I know it’s a rabbit hole that I would not fare well in, but as these conversations bubble up on the Twitterverse, I’m paying attention.

In the past you could pick up packs for as low as half of the retail price shortly after release as drafters found it easier to go infinite flipping packs than opening them, with the changes in prize payout this has changed and second hand packs are only a tiny fraction below the retail cost.

Set redemption also saw a hefty charge placed on it’s use. I’m not familiar with the exact procedure before and after the changes, but my understanding is that the redemption fee changed from $5 to $25 per set. When you’re in the business of grinding set redemptions, that additional $20 puts a significant barrier to profitability in the way. The increased fees has no doubt reduced the amount of sets redeemed to paper, which in turn decreases the overall supply of cards in circulation.

Large retailers were conscious of the redemption math, and before that tied paper and digital card prices in a sort of symbiotic relationship; if a set was worth significantly more on paper than digitally, you could easily spend the $7.99 to convert digital sets to paper in large quantities and the prices would normalize; but now you’re looking at $27.99 a pop for redemptions, a number that requires much larger discrepancies to be profitable.

Uncertainty

The hardest thing to know going forward is what all these changes mean for us going forward. Were Khans of Tarkir & Fate Reforged prices dampened by the changes in the rotation schedule or key reprints occurring in event decks and clash packs? Will increased entry fees to Grand Prix level events cause players to stop going or will we literally pay any price? How will Grand Prix vendors survive with increased competition from competitors with relatively no overhead while simultaneously paying more and more to set up at events?

One of the things that made #mtgfinance so appealing in the past was the ability to capitalize on predictable patterns, but so much has changed in the last couple of years that many of those tried and true strategies are proving obsolete. One thing is for certain, the impact of these changes has not gone unnoticed at the highest levels; both Star City Games and Wizards of the Coast have recently acknowledged that significant growing pains are being felt and they’re dialing things back to better understand how to proceed.

While none of these changes have “sky is falling” impact on the game, there is a change in the waters and it might take a few bleached reefs before we begin to understand the impact on the ecosystem as a whole.

Jim Casale

Grinder Finance – Future Proofing

November 10, 2015 Jim Casale 23 Comments

With the wrap up of Grand Prix Seattle / Tacoma (which is really just Tacoma, I don’t understand why Seattle is even mentioned), many people got another taste of the eternal format, Legacy. Many players look at the huge turn out and wonder “why aren’t there more Legacy Grands Prix? Look at how many people went to this one!” While I understand these sentiments from the very vocal Legacy community, I don’t think it’s a good place to invest your future in Magic.

With the announcements from StarCity Games (here), the number of large Magic events is being cut in 2016. StarCity games often had an open every weekend (including some holiday weekends) but has announced at least 5 weekends off in their first of 3 seasons this year (ending April 10th). While I won’t analyze the effect of less organized play opportunities as a whole on Magic, I will point out the breakdown of the 9 events. There are 5 Standard events, 3 Modern events, and only 1 Legacy offering in these 4 months. This cut back on Legacy in favor of Modern is indicative of a larger trend away from player’s non-rotating format of choice from Legacy to Modern. There are a lot of reasons why, but it’s been in the numbers for a while.

How the mighty have fallen, right? Legacy cards have been heralded like blue chip stocks. They have nowhere to go but up, right? Wasteland is technically an uncommon and not part of the reserve list so it could be reprinted at any time. Consumer confidence isn’t high on this card and it’s lack of Legacy play that is causing it to fall.

Even Revised Volcanic Island (arguably the most important land in the format) has seen a downward trend. Although it is nowhere the pre-spike value of a mere $150, I can’t see this card rebounding nearly as fast as Modern investments.

Unlimited edition Volcanic Islands have faired a little bit better because they’re legal in that niche 93/94 format. Given the fact that Volcanic Island was accidentally left off the Alpha print sheet (seriously, go ask a vendor if they have an Alpha Volcanic Island), there are far fewer choices for this dual land in this format. If you want to invest in a dual, this is probably the best one (with scarcity being the only thing that continues to drive it’s price up).

But what about Modern cards? They’re just like Wasteland and can be reprinted. What is happening to their price tags? Well let’s take a look at some cards from Modern Masters that were greatly affected by the reprint.

If you spent that $300 you could have spent to buy 1 Volcanic Island on Glimmervoid or Arcbound Ravager (cards that were not reprinted in Modern Masters 2015) in June, then you could have doubled your money in October. The constant cycle of reprints is pushing the oldest cards to the front of the top gainers page each year.

The ease of turning Standard cards into Modern cards has never been higher with each set adding a few important cards to a Modern deck. In fact, if you own the Standard Atarka Red deck right now you also own a minimum of 16 cards for a Modern burn deck. It’s much easier to make the transition to Modern than Legacy and it’s more easy to support Modern at the LGS level because of sustainable reprints.

That being said, I’m not trying to take a shot at Legacy as a format. I’m just voicing my concerns for continuing to hold cards that are highly influenced by their play in Legacy. I think there are a number of ways Legacy can evolve as a format to allow for better game play and increased interest but I don’t think this is the place to explain that.

Upgrading your Trade Binder

What can we learn from Modern Masters to apply to our portfolio at the end of this year?

This is my go-to target for an easy double up. As long as big mana decks like Tron and Amulet Bloom continue to see play, this will have a home. All it takes is one weekend where Bloom or Tron win to cause a rush to buy Fulminator Mages. The Shadowmoor Fulminator Mage hit highs of $60 before being reprinted, I can’t fathom a world where this doesn’t get back to $40 again before a reprint.

In continuing my trend of picking Modern Masters 2015 creatures, I think Noble Hierarch is another all-star that needs to be looked at. True multi-deck staples will be the quickest to recover. Noble Hierarch also gets some points for being the mainstay of a relatively inexpensive tier 1 deck, Infect.

You know what’s more of a horror than Spellskite’s creature type? It’s one of few cards that has actually increased in price since it was reprinted. It eats Kolaghan’s Command like a champ, protects anyone from Lightning Bolts to the dome, gives Tarmogoyf +2/+2, and prevents Twin and Infect from winning pretty much on the spot. Spellskite is like the perfect passive aggressive significant other that just sits in play protecting you at the potential cost of 2 life. Anyone that doesn’t have multiple of these will be scrambling for them when Modern events kick into high gear again.

Not everything is gold, however. I would avoid any cards that got reprinted in both Modern Masters and Modern Masters 2015. It wouldn’t surprise me to see the trio of Tarmogoyf, Dark Confidant, and Vendilion Clique show up as marquee cards in Modern Masters 2017 (or whenever the next Modern Masters set is). Some cards that got reprinted as a mythic but are a little more niche are also probably fine pickups. Mox Opal will be in for a price correction if Ravager and Glimmervoid get printed again. Karn will likely see a jump if Grove of the Burnwillows is in our near future.

You know what’s a real odd one?

Kor Spiritdancer is probably a pretty decent investment for the near future. This card has been on an upward trend since the $30+ Daybreak Coronets got reprinted. Boggles decks are largely a collection of draft commons and Horizon Canopy so they are a perfect budget option for a lot of players. At some point, something in the deck has to be worth something and this is probably it. It’s hard to reprint since the Kor are native to Zendikar and there isn’t an enchantment theme going on like during Rise of the Eldrazi.

Final Thoughts

I really don’t want to hold onto Sensei’s Divining Tops right now. If Legacy is ever going to evolve into a format that is enjoyable to the general player base, that card will need to be banned. It sits on the Modern banned list for similar reasons as to why it will probably eventually get banned.
In my opinion, Wizards needs to figure out a way to print creatures that cost more than one and less than eight that provide exciting game play for Legacy to experience any growth.
Khans of Tarkir and Fate Reforged cards are at the highest they will be for the next 2 years. I do not expect any kind of jump in January when Oath of the Gatewatch is released. Sell accordingly.
Expect a shake-up on the Modern ban list prior to the Pro-Tour in January. Given the heath of the format, an unban seems more likely than a ban.
I expect a new Kozilek to be in Oath of the Gatewatch. If he is as game ending as Ulamog, expect a green Eldrazi ramp deck to be good.
I don’t expect the Commander 2015 decks to be a total bust. If you can pick up Sword of Selves or Command Beacon in trades they should mature well.
Next week I will bring you some information from the vendors and artists at GP Atlanta

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