The Eldrazi have returned. So too have the allies. The world of Zendikar is still under assault, and the denizens have rallied to try and fend off their otherworldly invaders. It’s an epic struggle that will almost certainly end in drama, tragedy, and possibly heroics.
Also, we’ve got some cool cards.
It’s the latter I’ll talk about today. Battle for Zendikar has a lot of things going for it (and spoiler season isn’t even over!), and I want to touch on some of the major ones today.
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We’re back with more of a Finance 101-style topic this week, so don’t expect anything too revolutionary or mind-blowing. Just a lone 20-year old rambling about certain Magic: The Gathering cards that I believe will go up, down, or remain stagnant as bulk rares for the rest of their miserable existences. Well, I guess that’s not entirely true. I do kind of have a theme here. I want to wedge in a little bit of discussion about the best ways to out your prerelease bananas.
Tasigur the Golden Fang by Chris Rahn
Bananas?
You know how bananas only last like three hours at a maximum before they turn black and gross and banana-bread material? That’s pretty much what 95 percent of the rares and mythics in Battle for Zendikar are going to end up doing, too. You might look them up on your phone or tablet when you open them at your local prerelease and exclaim with pure joy: “Oh, golly me! My Undergrowth Champion is selling for a whole $10 American dollars on eBay! I ‘made’ money by adding up the value of all of the mythics, rares, and uncommons in my pool!”
We all know what happens next. I’m very guilty of it myself. We go home, let that Champion sit in our binder for the next two FNMs, but nobody points it out as a trade target. Suddenly the card is only worth $3, and we buylist it for $1 because we’re sick of looking at it, and you know it will never see Constructed play. You only got like one slice of that delicious banana bread out of that deal, when you could have been fast enough to trade off that ripe banana for some apples or carrots. Those don’t go bad quickly, right? I don’t know. I’m not Gordon Ramsay over here.
That Zada, Hedron Grinder (which is one of the more stupid names that I’ve heard for a card in a while) is pre-selling for $2 now, but you and I both know that it’ll be a bulk rares in about two weeks. If you didn’t know that the legendary hedron grinder (ugh) will be a bulk rare, then consider it something you’ve learned from this article.
So how do you get rid of stuff like that? Ob Nixilis Reignited is preselling for $15 on eBay (which is one of the lowest prices we’ve seen for a planeswalker preorder in a long time), but you won’t be able to set him free on TCGplayer until the set’s official release date. Selling on eBay yourself is an option, but the fees are too high for my personal tastes, and the customer service is weighted heavily against you as a seller. There will also be a large number of people at your FNM who read articles like mine, telling them to stay away from your precious Ob Nixilis like it’s the plague, until it’s a paltry $7. If you really want to move that demon buddy now, then I’ve got a couple of suggestions that you may want to pocket.
Like Dis If U Sell Evertim
Facebook is one of the best way to move new cards. Actually, I’m coming to a realization that I mention this in pretty much every damn article I write. And you know what? I haven’t been convinced that I’m wrong yet, so I’ll keep saying it. I wrote in detail here about selling a picked-through collection via Facebook, but I want to emphasize this here: most non-competitive players don’t go to your LGS. They’re not sitting across from you at FNM, or scanning through the spoilers every single day like we are. They don’t have eighteen different sources of price-tracking info coming into their brains, but most of them will have a Facebook page.
Most of those non-competitive-but-on-social-media players most will have liked a Magic: The Gathering page at some point in time of their social-media lives. If that page allows the buying, selling, and trading of cards, this is where you want to be. You want to ride just under the prices they’re seeing on eBay and TCGplayer, because these are the impulse buyers of Magic. They want their sweet new cards, and they want them as soon as possible. Timmy Incarnate behind his computer screen has been waiting to add that Desolation Twin to his Eldrazi deck for weeks now, and you’re going to help make it happen. How much is it going to cost Timmy? $2? That’s it? Bam. Easy. And it saved you from sullenly sliding that Twin into your bulk rare box a month from now. Everyone’s happy. Sell those $12 copies of Ob Nixilis, $13 Kioras, and ride that prerelease hype wave as far as you can surf, until those 8/8 octopuses turn all of your hard-pulled cards into gross little bulk rares.
Alternatively, you can test how fast your fingers can click and try your hand at PucaTrading those new treasures away. Trader be wary though: everyone is going to be looking at the same target here. If you thought Standard cards were difficult to move on PucaTrade as just an average Joe user, you’ll be disappointed to learn that cards straight out of the new set are on another level. Everyone wants to get that sweet, uncut value.
Traps in Battle for Zendikar
I mean, there aren’t any actual trap cards, like Archive Trap and whatnot, but I do believe there are a couple of other trap cards from Origins that I believe I’m in minority of rallying against. Everyone is up in arms about these two tricks of Nissa’s being near-guaranteed landfall spec targets, but I’m not seeing it.
Both of these cards are hovering around the $3 point right now, and they’ve each crept up to that point relatively recently. I don’t think you want to pay four total mana to play and equip Sword of the Animist just to get a landfall trigger every turn, especially when your guy could just get bolted in response. If we’re equipping a creature and attacking with it, I want to win the game very soon after. I just don’t feel like Sword of the Animist has the power level to do that. Even if it does see play in a Standard list, how many do you play? Probably two at most—I can’t see you wanting three copies. You’ll draw too many at that point. So do you expect this to go to $6 or $7 in a set where there’s already a $20 non-mythic holding up a substantial portion of the set’s value? I’m just not buying it. Literally. I’m not buying this card, unless I get it at buylist prices.
As for Animist’s Awakening, I feel like it’s way too much of a gamble to be investing that much mana into crossing your fingers and hoping for more ramp. If you’re trying to abuse this with Omnath, you should be able to end the game off of two or three more landfall triggers, fueled by fetch lands and maybe a single ramp spell, not casting this for seven or eight mana and hoping that you have 50 power on board. While I play it (and absolutely love it) in my Child of AlaraEDH deck, that’s a completely different environment, and I can’t see this being run as a four-of in any particular landfall deck. It sees $3 off of two things: hype for the new set and mechanic, and people like me who jam it in EDH. If you’re holding onto either of these cards at $3 and hoping they jump, my recommendation is to sell off now into that hype.
End Step
Did you know Hardened Scalesis a $2 Magic card? I mean, I knew it was pretty good in EDH, but I didn’t think it would be more expensive than a Prophet of Kruphix. I’m pretty sure I have several copies of Scales in my bulk-rare boxes right now; or at least, I’m pretty sure I used to. Some smart reader out there probably realized that the card was worth more than I was selling it for, and pulled it out to make money off of me. Good for you, if you did that.
Dragon Whisperer is the same price as Hardened Scales. Now, that can’t be right. I know my friend Travis has written about this card extensively, and put his money where his mouth is. I can’t say I blame him, and I’m tempted to dump a reasonable chunk of change to follow suit. There are a lot of abilities on this card, and it fits perfectly into the curve of the mono-red deck that we all know will exist post-rotation. Writing this paragraph and looking at this price graph is slowly convincing me, so you’ll probably see me in What We’re Buying and Selling This Week on Saturday with my pile of Whisperers that I bought for two freaking dollars each.
Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for this week. I got a little bit side-tracked, but that’s alright. I didn’t have too solid of a topic anyway. Let’s talk about Magic cards in the comments below. You’re probably more likely to get a quick response if you use Twitter or Facebook, though. Fair warning. Have a great weekend, everyone!
One of the most common misconceptions about folks involved in MTGFinance is that we are constantly manipulating the market and feeding players misinformation to help fuel achievement of our personal goals.
It has occurred to us at MTGPrice that though we dole out a good deal of advice, most of you ultimately have very little insight into when and why our writing team actually puts our money where our collective mouths are pointing. As such running this weekly series breaking down what we’ve been buying and selling each week and why. These lists are meant to be both complete and transparent, leaving off only cards we bought for personal use without hope of profit. We’ll also try to provide some insight into our thinking behind the specs, and whether we are aiming for a short (<1 month), mid (1-12 month), or long (1 year+) term flip. Here’s what we we’ve been up to this week:
Buying Period: Sep 1st – 7th, 2015
Note: All cards NM unless otherwise noted. All sell prices are net of fees unless noted.
Monastery Mentor is a Legacy and Vintage playable card with an absurd power level that hasn’t quite found it’s deck in Modern. Once it does, I fully expect the card to top $30 as a small set mythic that was supplanted by Dragons of Tarkir on shelves only 6 weeks after it debuted. I’ll be acquiring more copies under $16 accordingly.
See the Unwritten was already seeing play in versions of Green/Red dragons in Standard when it spiked off late summer Battle for Zendikar Eldrazi hype. I’ve been selling through a variety of channels, and the price has been sliding but I’m still coming out up over $10/set on average, with additional upside on my remaining 20+ copies if the card finds a deck in the new standard or an obvious search target appears.
15x Spawnsire of Ulamog via Pucatrade at 329 points each
SOLD
3x Shaman of Forgotten Ways at $6/per
Douglas says:
“At only $3, I really like Spawnsire of Ulamog as a pickup. It has dodged being reprinted so far, it makes a lot of mana dorks, and the last activated ability is perfect for both Timmys and Johnnys to get excited about. The annihilator 1 is pretty irrelevant, but who cares? We’re casting every Eldrazi ever. Spawnsire gets a whole lot of new tools with this set, and I don’t think he needs to see competitive or EDH play to get up to $6 or $7 on casual demand alone. SCG is out of stock on NM copies at the moment, but has plenty of SP/MP. eBay is practically dried up of non-foil copies, and there are still quite a few on TCGplayer. Maybe this doesn’t pick up until casual players start cracking packs and building decks, but this is a card I’m very bullish on. You don’t see me pick out spec targets very often, but this is one of them.”
So there you have it. Now what were you guys buying and selling this week and why?
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.
Last week, I began my article by discussing the PAX spoiler show that had happened over the weekend, hosted by Wil Wheaton and Ashly Burch. I used descriptive language, partly because my goal was to be evocative in describing the broadcast, and partly because my finance content doesn’t typically allow for that style of writing. The result was a divisive article for sure, with more comments than any other article I’ve published here at MTGPrice. I’ve read all your feedback both here and on Twitter, and I thank everyone who took the time to tell me how they felt, whether you told me that you hated it or loved it. Even among those who disliked what I wrote, there was a remarkably low volume of personal attacks, an event akin to February 29th.
I would like to take this opportunity to remind my readers that at no point have I ever called myself a journalist. Neither myself or any of the other writers here can be considered journalists when writing for this website. Journalists gather and share news, typically with little analysis or value judgments. Here at MTGPrice, that is the opposite of our goal. Yes, we gather and share news, but the reason people pay for a subscription here is exactly because of the analysis and judgment we provide regarding that news. Each of us is an individual person provided with a platform to share our perspectives on a topic. We are bound together through a URL, not by editorial control or a unified message. That’s why this is the MTGPrice Blog, not the MTGPrice News Blotter or the Fox News MTG Finance Zone.
Dry recitation of data with colorless analysis may get the point across, but it doesn’t endear readers to authors. Each week, my goal is to put myself into the work. As you read my weekly article, my hope is that you hear my voice in the words and recognize my style as distinct from others. This personal touch is why readers come to enjoy specific writers. When you read Jonathan Medina’s articles on SCG years ago, you could definitely hear his voice in the words. Jason Alt carries that same heavy fingerprint today. You would be hard pressed to read one of Jason’s articles and not recognize it as his work, a quality I admire and respect. Sharing my personal experiences and opinions on events we all partake in together is my way of sharing myself with each of you every week. Even if you don’t necessarily agree with my perspective on an issue, you come to recognize me as a person within those words.
What I wrote last week was an addendum to my already full-length article. The free side was my impression of a performance; the paid content was all about the lands that were spoiled. If you are not a ProTrader member, please recognize that what you read was not a fair representation of the Magic content contained within. There were another 2,000 words regarding the news of the weekend. If you’re a ProTrader member, please recognize that I provided you with a content-packed article, and that my preface did not in any way subtract from the volume of words you expect. I hope that everyone recognizes that each half of my article last week was just that: a half, distinct from the other.
Thank you all for reading. I appreciate all the feedback. What’s say we get on with the Magic now, shall we?
Sitting down to write this, it’s the middle of round 15 at the SCG Modern Open, and there’s some definite spice in this weekend’s brew. A Slivers deck is in 14th place after having apparently taken a game loss in round one due to tardiness and having ended up short a Sedge Sliver. That a slivers deck is doing that well, even saddled with an early loss, is remarkable. Long have many of us wondered about four- and five-color tribal decks in Modern. After Mana Confluence showed up, Sam Black (and many others) spent some time brainstorming a Modern humans list. Not much came of it, but it was clear that the archetype was close. Not quite there, but close. Around the same time, there were some efforts to brew a sliver deck as well, though that ended up in the same graveyard as the humans list.
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