If you’re the type of individual that checks in weekly to read some words written by some guy about how much children’s playing cards cost, you may have noticed I was absent last week. I was off at the Finger Lakes, enjoying copious amounts of wine and lounging about on inner tubes. You could have read Jason’s article about boats or whatever it is he writes about these days instead, I guess.
I started a new job this Monday—the first adult job I’ve had in over two years (I’ve been goofing off as a research assistant while earning my master’s degree since). As I begrudgingly head back into the 9-to-5 world, at least for the time being, my engagement with Magic finance is going to change. With a real job comes an increase in liquid funds and a decrease in time available to monkey around with big volume and small prices. One of the downsides to our hobby is that Magic doesn’t scale especially well when compared to something like the actual factual stock market. Buying 100,000 shares at $0.01 each and then selling them for $0.10 is just as easy and profitable as buying and selling a single giant share. Buying and selling 100,000 Magic cards, though, is a task best left to the folks at SCG, CFB, and the like. That means that as funds and time head off in different directions, so too does one’s methodology need to evolve.
With a new stream of income and the calendar halfway through August, now is the time to make big plays. It’s well-understood by now that this is the time of the year when cards are generally at their lowest price point they will ever be, especially those that will be surviving the coming rotation. That positions a large slew of Standard cards to be potentially valuable buys. As you browse lists of Khans of Tarkir, Fate Reforged, and Dragons of Tarkir, know that at least a handful of the card names you read will triple or quadruple in value, and several cards of currently reasonable value will find themselves with double digit price tags. Typically, we’re left trying to find the omens and figure out which flips could buy us a new Legacy deck, but my goal today is to mostly sidestep that process.
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Welcome back to another installment of Playmat Finance. Part one proposed a framework for evaluating the value of Grand Prix playmats. Part two dealt with Game Day playmats and the special playmats created by attending artist(s) at Grands Prix.
Today, we are not going to evaluate the value of any playmats, but rather discuss a topic that could potentially impact the value of collectible Magic playmats.
Note: I mentioned in the conclusion of part two that I would be discussing playmat TLC in this article, which I initially planned to alongside the topic I plan to discuss in this piece. The topic I am discussing in this article blossomed into, well, a whole article itself. I decided to delegate playmat TLC to the next part, rather than try to cram it in as a sort of afterthought.
Counterfeit Playmats
An interesting point raised by a few commenters on the first part of this series was the issue of counterfeit playmats. There is a concern that, as with Magic cards, counterfeit playmats could pose a risk to the value of collectible playmats. The fact that there are a multitude of websites offering custom playmat printing services to print your own mat does little to allay this concern.
Most popular playmat printing services explicitly state on their websites that they would not print custom mats with copyrighted artwork. Undoubtedly, though, there are some who are less scrupulous regarding this issue.
A couple of commentators mentioned that the ease of being able to counterfeit could negatively impact the prices of sought-after playmats. While counterfeiting and the ability to print your own copy of an existing sought-after mat pose a risk to the value of collectible playmats, there is a big caveat:
Replicating a copyrighted playmat is only possible if there is an image of the particular art floating around on the internet in a sufficiently high resolution.
While there are avenues for you to print any image you fancy on a custom-made playmat regardless of copyright permission, having access to a copy of the image with the minimum-required resolution for playmat art is essential for the plan to work.
I would get Johannes to sign mine. If I had one…
Take for example: if I want to print my own copy of the Johannes Voss Sakura Angel playmat above (which I missed out on at Grand Prix Chiba because I didn’t line up at 6:00 a.m.), I would need to find a copy of the image that fits the minimum size requirement to appear unpixelated on a playmat (note that this is a hypothetical scenario used as an illustration. I am not going to do this myself. I am vehemently against counterfeiting collectibles).
Thankfully, the largest image of Voss’s Sakura Angel available is well below the minimum image file size requirement required by playmat printing services, both legitimate and dogdy ones. So those of you who own a Johannes Voss Sakura Angel playmat, rest assured that your playmat’s value will not be destroyed by a hypothetical horde of counterfeited copies. For those who intend to buy one, there is a peace of mind knowing that you are unlikely to encounter a fake one. And if you do, you will most likely be able to tell that it is fake because the art will look like its rendered on a crappy integrated graphics card.
Speaking of buying playmats, here are a few pointers to help you avoid potential counterfeits.
Circle of Protection: Counterfeit Playmats
First of all, scour the web to check if there are any high-resolution copies of the playmat’s art floating out there. Most custom playmat printers require an image with a minimum pixel resolution of 1746×1026, with the recommended resolution for the best quality print being 3675×2175. The chances of you stumbling upon a counterfeit copy of the playmat you’re planning to buy should be drastically low if there are not copies of the playmat’s art available on the internet in a sufficiently high resolution. In this case, it would be easy tell counterfeit copies apart from the original ones.
Which brings us to the second point: buy only from reliable sellers, or over channels where you as as buyer would be covered if the item turns out to be counterfeit. If you are buying it directly from a person, it may be prudent to inspect the mat in real life before you confirm the purchase.
As always, if a playmat looks too cheap to be true, it’s probably best to steer away.
The Impact of Counterfeit Mats
Do counterfeit playmats threaten the value of sought-after mats? Let’s use an easily counterfeitable mat as an example to study the potential impact of counterfeiting on the value of a rare and collectible playmat.
Image by Maximilian Schroeder from kccompetition.wordpress.com.
A City of Brass playmat was given out exclusively to judges at Grand Prix Las Vegas 2013, which makes it a collectible playmat due to its scarcity. Unfortunately, this playmat is susceptible to counterfeiting, as a high-resolution file of Jung Park’s City of Brass art is available online (no, I’m not telling you where!). The relevant logos could be added on using a image manipulation program like GIMP, and voila, you’ve got yourself an image that you could send to unscrupolous playmat manufacturers to get it printed.
With this information, we would expect the City of Brass playmat to be worth a pittance.
But the playmat was actually going for a decent price, especially for one featuring artwork from a card that is not exactly the epitome of iconic (in the first article of this series, we established that the bulk of a playmat’s value is tied to how iconic the card from which the art originated from is). Presumably the bulk of the playmat’s price stems from its rarity, having only been distributed to judges at a single event. The number of bids for the mats above show a decent amount of demand, too. Even buy-it-now listings are going for a good price:
The Grand Prix Vegas 2013 City of Brass playmat is a prime case study for the impact of counterfeiting on a collectible mat’s value It’s rare mat that’s in demand with high-resolution art available online and plenty of recent sales on eBay. While a single example is by no means conclusive evidence, it provides a bit of reassurance that counterfeiting will not obliterate the value of collectible mats.
Incentives to Counterfeit Playmats
A barrier to counterfeiting playmats for profit is the cost of printing a playmat. Most services charge anywhere between $25 to $30 per custom mat, and that’s before shipping. The majority of sought-after Grand Prix playmats sell for between $40 and $60 on eBay. Using the judge City of Brass playmat as an example again, while you could fetch a number in the high $40s for it, you could also end up selling it for as low $20, as per the two most recent sales. The standard deviation of playmat sale prices on eBay is a lot larger than that of Magic cards, and coupled with the increased cost of acquiring counterfeit playmats, I suspect the incentive to counterfeit mats for profit is significantly low.
This leaves one more issue: if high-resolution art of a particular sought-after mat is available online, would that not translate into less people buying it for personal use (because they could just make their own copy) and a lower average sale price on eBay? This in turn dictates the value of the playmat, as eBay prices are the best benchmark we currently have to pin a price on these products.
I am sure there would be a few potential buyers who end up making their own replica of the playmat for slightly less money, but I don’t think the number of people doing so would be high enough to impact the final price of a sought-after playmat. The activation cost of producing your own replica is moderately high.
While you would only require basic image manipulation skills to create an accurate replica of the judge City of Brass playmat, it would require a considerable amount of time to do so. You’d need to hunt down the logos on the top left, bottom left, and bottom right corners of the playmat. If you couldn’t find a logo image with a clear background, you’d likely have to lift the logo off another image and manually clear the background. You would also need to reproduce the text found on the bottom right corner alongside the Wizards of the Coast logo. Not to mention all the logos would have to be positioned correctly. You can always just print the playmat with just the City of Brass image, but that would render it the same level as every other custom mat for personal use (zero collectibility and zero cool factor), albeit of questionable legality.
Getting your hands on your own replica playmat is much more time-consuming than trying to acquire counterfeit cards. All you need to do to acquire counterfeit cards is to purchase them from a counterfeiter’s website or drop an email to the supplier (if you can find them). On the other hand, creating a replica of a playmat requires you to hunt down the relevant images and spend a considerable amount of time putting them together on an image manipulation program before sending it off for printing. I am not sure if the trouble is worth it just to save $20 or so compared to buying one off eBay.
I hope this article answers concerns about counterfeit playmats. Counterfeits are always a controversial issue, so do share your thoughts on the topic in the comments section below or catch me on Twitter at @theguoheng.
I think this is an article that’s been written before, but I doubt everyone has read it, so I’m going to write one. An important part of Magic financial fitness is keeping a liquid collection. What does that mean?
Well, a Magic collection is a lot like a plant. If you give it plenty of sun and water it you’ll a pile of soggy unplayable cards, so not in that way. But it’s similar in the fact that with a minimal amount of maintenance it will grow. I assume many of the people that read my articles are not urban gardeners like myself, but there are a few things you can do to grow much fuller herbs. If you give the herb sun and water it, it will grow just fine. If you periodically fertilize and prune the plant it will grow fuller and faster. Pruning a plant promotes new growth and a heartier plant. Your collection acts the same way.
It’s pretty much impossible to grow a collection without adding more money into it, but it is possible to re-appropriate that value to help it grow. It’s important to notice trends and to fertilize properly and prune properly. Maybe I’m talking too much in abstract so let’s use some real world examples from my collection.
I’ve been pruning my collection of Magic Origins cards that have been popular in Standard. The last few weeks have seen many different decks winning top-tier tournaments and have been affecting prices. I play a lot of Magic so obviously I’m not looking to sell pieces of the deck I play but there are cards outside of that I own that I don’t need. In the last month I’ve sold Demonic Pacts, Woodland Bellower, Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy, Ghostfire Blade, Thopter Spynetwork, and Ensoul Artifact.
I’ve also been “fertilizing” my collection with cards that haven’t become a “thing” yet. I got Ghostfire Blades and Abbot of Keral Keep right before they became super popular. Right now I’ve been getting cards that are cheap because cheap cards can become expensive easily but expensive cards don’t get more expensive very easily. Especially with how much Magic Origins product is being opened.
Dromoka’s Command by James Ryman
As this is now the weekend after a five-Abzan Top 8, I would recommend watching the movement of the staples for this deck. It’s going to be probably the last chance you have to trade away Fleecemane Lion for literal anything. It’s fair trade value is about $2 and if you can flip it into any of the painlands from MagicOrigins it is really hard to go wrong. Dromoka’s Command is another card that is surging despite its recent reprinting in the Magic Origins clash pack. Fellow MTGPrice writer Derek Madlem suggested last week that Dromoka’s Command was a criminally underpriced card. Given its play last weekend, I’d say he was right. Dromoka’s Command will also survive an extra rotation as Dragons of Tarkir will not rotate with the rest of the block.
Mantis Rider by Johann Bodin
But do you know what I really like doing now? Grabbing all of your Khans of Tarkir staples. There really isn’t a better time to buy Rattleclaw Mystic, Mantis Rider, Savage Knuckleblade, Siege Rhino, or Sorin, Solemn Visitor. We’ve already seen an uptick of Sorin in response to the abundant UR Thopters decks and Monored decks. Any card that gives your whole team lifelink and is on the same team as Siege Rhino can be good against aggressive decks. Mantis Rider’s price tag of $1 is a pretty safe bet. After Battle For Zendikar enters the fray we will be losing our only two-mana spell that can kill Mantis Rider. Surprisingly, Mantis Rider is pretty durable when your options for removal are Ultimate Price, Swift Reckoning, Valorous Stance, and Roast. He can still die to Draconic Roar and Foul-Tongue Invocation but that’s a pretty small subset of available spells.
What else do we prune? Card of the week syndrome can hit hard and fast.
Pucatrade has a resource that includes the most popular trades of the last day, week, month, year. Things that get popular quick and fall off are the best choices for a quick pruning. You know what we don’t need to hold with impeding Eldrazi? $2 Sphinx’s Tutelages. No matter how good the deck is now it is unlikely two colorless cards will “share a color.”
Next on our list? Keep an eye on new saplings waiting to be planted. Some cards that pre-ordered at the beginning for a lot are coming down to more reasonable price ranges.
While there is nothing I’m advocating as a buy today, there are a few cards I would keep a sharp eye on.
Sword of the Animist by Daniel Ljunggren
Sword of the Animist is card that preordered for $5 after being touted by StarCity Games’ Ben Bleisweiss as one of the best cards in the set but now is down to half of that number. Casual appeal should keep this from ever hitting true bulk but with the confirmation of Landfall as a returning mechanic in Battle for Zendikar, this has some legs. It may have some more room to drop but as soon as it turns the corner is the time to buy in.
Harbinger of the Tides by Svetlin Velinov
Harbinger of the Tides was another hyped card. If we are expecting Eldrazi that are large and in charge in the next set I don’t see how this guy doesn’t fit into the resistance. He’s a reasonable body attached to a powerful effect versus cards that might have been cheating into play with See the Unwritten. He also still does a decent job of unsummoning all of the Dragonlords except Dromoka at instant speed. He also may have some space to drop but when we approach $1 there is no real risk in buying in.
Surrak the Huntcaller by Wesley Burt
What does Surrak, the Huntcaller do? A ton really. He trades with Siege Rhino, he triggers ferocious for See the Unwritten and gives haste to whatever huge fatty you put into play with it. The art of this card may be more telling of his future with Dragonlord Atarka emerging from his shadow to fly in for a kill.
In conclusion, water your collection and leave it out in the sun if you think it’s a plant. Otherwise keep an eye on trends and make sure to move parts of your collection you aren’t using to free up money to invest in parts you will need later down the line.
We’re just a couple months from Battle for Zendikar, and we’re about to see some major spikes coming on cards we’d all but forgotten about. This fact is indisputable—it’s which cards that are going to see an increase that can (and should) be argued.
Khans of Tarkir is an interesting spot with its prices. With a cycle of fetch lands in the set, the price of everything else is depressed. However, the number of drafts of Khans (and thus boxes opened) is about to sharply decrease. Since last fall, Khans singles have been priced roughly to balance the MSRP of a booster box—if singles go too high, vendors will just open boxes themselves; if singles go too low, nobody buys boxes. Once Battle for Zendikar hits, though, Khans singles will fall more in line with the reality of Standard demand (among other formats), and cards that we previously took for granted are going to get pricey.
Today, we’ll be taking a close look at the 15 mythics from Khans of Tarkir. These have remarkably depressed prices, as illustrated by the most expensive one being Sorin, Solemn Visitor—which has a Fair Trade Price of only $7.85. There’s opportunity here. Let’s find it.
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