Eternal Weekend created a great deal of buzz throughout last weekend. And while most Twitch viewers were tuning into SCG’s Modern event, the Twitterverse was alight with Legacy tweets.
Coincidentally, my family was punctuating the end of a weeklong summer vacation with a seven-hour drive home. In the passenger’s seat, I was able to catch some of the coverage on Saturday. Believe it or not there were a couple of noteworthy tidbits worth some focus. This week I’ll highlight some important observations from the weekend. And while everyone is suddenly a Legacy fan all over again, I’ll reiterate some ideas and cautions with Legacy speculation
Legacy is Dead…Long Live Legacy
The first tweet that caught my eye was Dr. Jeebus’ sarcastic one, which highlighted the terrific turnout at the Legacy Championship:
Clearly Legacy offers an allure that is unmet by other formats. One Twitter member suggested that the shortage of major Legacy events, combined with Legacy players’ willingness to travel, will lead to larger Legacy events going forward. That really does make sense – there’s a pent-up demand for Legacy tournaments. So when a Legacy event does pop up, all those players with Legacy withdrawal are likely to attend if at all possible.
So with this data in hand, we need to rush out and speculate like mad on Legacy staples right? With so many cards on the Reserve List combined with the age of some of the format’s staples, there is an obvious chance to invest and reap dramatic rewards as Legacy continues to age? Right?
Not necessarily.
PROTRADER: Fantasy
Okay, I’m going to be real with you right now. Yes, you. I have been staring at a blank document screen for way too long. I kept trying to think of the best way to start this article off, because I’m really excited about getting to the actual meaty content of it—the part with actual substance—but I could not get more than one sentence in without deleting it all and starting from scratch. I considered doing some sort of flowery prose about how Fall brings the changing of leaves, weather, all that fartsy Robert Frost crap, but the idea made me sick. I didn’t want to get too jokesy with it either, because even though I’m going to be relating a very relevant topic to something some of you may know nothing about, I don’t want you to get the impression that it isn’t worth reading. So instead I’m busting down the fourth-wall and telling you what’s up, “High Fidelity” style, and damn the consequences. Today we are going to be talking about fundamentals of card evaluation (teaching someone how to fish1), and it’s going to be framed with the other big talent evaluation that is happening right now, fantasy football. Even if you don’t like football, it’s worth reading since I won’t get too off-topic. And I promise right now that this won’t be anything like my Fate Reforged set review. I promise to never do that again. Finally- moving on!
So, very quickly, for those of you who don’t know what fantasy football is (I think they call the fútbol version “League Manager” or something?): it is a means of predicting individual player performance over the course of a season. You select players, and everyone in your “league” of eight or more participants drafts players that they expect to have quality seasons relative to when they were taken in the draft. It takes American Football, the most kick-ass, high-octane, freedom-lovingest sport in the world, and makes it even better. I love it.
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The Fall of Origins
By: Cliff Daigle
I know that we’re drooling over the trickle of information regarding Battle for Zendikar, but this is the time to look at Magic Origins and see how prices have changed.
The first thing I want to look at is if boosters are worth it now. They usually aren’t, but I always like to make sure. You never know…
There are 71 rares and mythics in the set, and only eighteen of them are worth more than the $4 cost of a pack. That’s only a 25% chance of making your money back, and I leave it up to you if you’re comfortable at that level of risk.
In case it hasn’t been made clear, unless you’re getting boxes for about $75, which comes out to about $2 per pack, don’t open packs for value. It’s just not there. Go buy a playset of whatever you need, if it’s Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy or if it’s Demonic Pact. You’ll spend less on the singles and still get your value directly.
I also want to look at the trajectory of some cards, since we don’t have that much longer. Once Origins is no longer opened, the prices will mostly stay where they are, except for the ones that spike due to new interactions with new cards.
Jace has gone up more than $10 so far and he might not be done. It’s been a long time since there was a cheap, playable looter in Standard and there are a lot of interactions that aren’t fully utilized yet. For instance, Jace is pretty amazing in a Jeskai Ascendancy deck, though those decks haven’t broken out yet.
Snapcaster Mage has taught us the value of adding flashback at no cost, and Jace has popped up in a couple of Legacy events already. At $25, I feel this is a nice stable price, but it woin’t take much for that price to bump higher, especially if Jace demonstrates he’s worthy in eternal formats or combo decks.
Liliana is seeing less play than Jace is but her price hasn’t really come down to reflect that. She’s not in high-finishing decks, and she’s not played as a four-of. Her price is too high and I expect it to travel downward.
The only decks that shouldn’t play this are the ones that are trying to play an aggressive strategy. This is phenomenal when trying to grind card advantage, or even when deployed on turn two to be a 1/1 and then a 1/1 again, purely for blocking and delay purposes. If given the chance it’ll simply take over the game.
It’s at $18 right now after solid growth and I think that it’s probably hit its height. This is a great candidate for Event Decks or a Clash Pack, something to push more copies out there because the casual demand is also quite high.
A rare sorcery-speed burn spell is nearly $10?!? I’d be selling these hard and fast. It is flexible, yes, but it’s only getting played in aggro red decks and it’s at the post-PT high point. When it gets back to $4-$5 then I’d like to pick them up again.
Another card that’s heavy on the post-PT hype, notice that the card isn’t seeing play outside of one archetype so far. It hasn’t been added to Legacy or Modern yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised. Until that happens, though, I don’t like speculating on a card with this high a price. I’m a seller at $9-$10.
So this was one of the biggest preorder prices of the set and the card has been falling since. It’s still $10 despite seeing almost no play. It has showed up in a couple of Legacy decks, mainly as a three-mana ‘draw 7’ effect which isn’t really breaking it. Price memory is keeping this where it is. Get out for the best price you can.
This card is pretty amazing, especially with Darksteel Citadel in the format. Once that’s gone, and the ‘free’ artifact isn’t an option, I expect there to be a lot less decks playing this enchantment. Sell all the ones you don’t need, right now.
I think this card is intriguing. Right now, it’s mainly searching up something like Courser of Kruphix, Invasive Species, or my favorite use, Reclamation Sage. What I’m thinking about is that every nonlegendary green creature printed in the next year makes this card better. I’m also looking hard at the foils, because Commander loves this card so very much! I’m hoping the foils trickle down to the $10 range.
Don’t lose sight of the uncommons, specifically Sphinx’s Tutelage and Whirler Rogue, because we only have five weeks until the Prerelease. Orgins is a little blah to draft, so I imagine that there will be almost no stores choosing to open Origins at Friday Night Magic once Battle for Zendikar is out.
PROTRADER: The Meta Report – Don’t Break Your Bank for This Weekend’s WMCQ
By: Guo Heng
It’s that time of the year again: the first of the three World Magic Cup Qualifiers kicks off this weekend all around the world. The format is Standard. If you are competing this weekend like I am, chances are that you will want to play the best deck in the format to give yourself the best shot at winning one of your country’s World Magic Cup spots. However, if like me, you do not own a playset of Hangarback Walker and are unwilling to make a $76 splurge purchase to get them for this weekend (or you are more than willing but, alas, the supply of Hangarbacks at your local stores has dried up), playing the best deck may be a problem.
The first wave of WMCQs this weekend is in an inconvenient spot as far as MTG finance is concerned. Redemption for Magic Origins goes live after downtime next Wednesday (August 26) and within a week or two ,we would start to see a large dip in the Magic Origins index as redeemed singles begin to hit the market. Now is literally the worst time to buy into chase staples from the set.
Today’s The Meta Report is going to take a look at the options available for this weekend that do not require you to spend a hefty sum on Hangarback Walker, Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy, or other Magic Origins chase staples.
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