Accumulated Knowledge, ProTrader, Unlocked ProTrader

UNLOCKED PROTRADER: Commons and Planeswalkers

June 26, 2015 Ross Lennon 3 Comments

We are going to jump around a little bit this week, but not too much. There is a lot of ground I want to cover, so let’s dive in.

The Tragedy of the Commons/Uncommons

Don’t worry, this section of the article is not going to focus on feudalism or agrarian economics in any way, I just really loved the title. I want to hit first and foremost on something that seems pretty weird, and that is the spiking of commons and uncommons in Modern.

When a rare or mythic spikes, it isn’t terribly surprising, since they are usually either out of older, underprinted sets (Blood Moon) or are multi-format staples that have just left print (Abrupt Decay). When demand exceeds supply, the cost has to go up to compensate.

You can even understand it in certain situations with uncommons—Kitchen Finks was north of $10 once, and it looks like it will be again soon. Kitchen Finks only exists in Modern Masters (underprinted compared to demand), Shadowmoor (underprinted versus current small set printings), and FNM promos (given out before at least a few of you were even playing Magic).

Terminate, though? Terminate is a common in Planeshift and Alara Reborn (both small sets prior to the Zendikar Boom), has had two promotional printings (Magic Player Rewards and FNM), and has been featured in three different supplemental printings (one of the original Commander decks, one of the Archenemy decks, and the Sorin vs Tibalt Duel Deck). I can understand the promos increasing, especially the MPR version—those have been very popular in the last year or so, and I am almost entirely out of mine (even the bad cards!). The supplemental copies make some sense too, since the first Commander run was kind of small, and I don’t know anybody who purchased Archenemy or Sorin vs Tibalt.

All that being said, I’ve found about ten copies of Alara Reborn Terminates lying around my house since I started typing this sentence. Am I just rich, or is this price unrealistic?

The problem with commons is that their base price is essentially free. The price you typically pay for commons in a store is the fee that is involved with actually going through the inventory to find it for you. Commons also have a much lower ceiling than any other rarity due to as-fan: I may only get one mythic in eight packs, but I’ll get eighty different commons. Khans and Dragons of Tarkir each had 101 commons, while Fate Reforged had 70. if I opened eight packs, it’s possible that I’ve gotten the vast majority of KTK/DTK commons, and every single FRF common (with repeats!). By contrast, Planeshift, featuring the first (and superior) version of Terminate, only had 55 commons in the set. Alara Reborn had 60.

Playability can drive the price of a common, but in general, the rarity is limited in power level due to its prevalence. A draft will feature 240 commons, and by making commons too powerful, you warp Limited.

So what do you do when a common card spikes? Well, the first thing you do is make sure that you have a neat and organized system for finding cards (or you swear to change your ways during the next available long weekend).

The next thing is you look for the best buylist price. Since Terminate has “spiked,” I have not been able to move any at the new price (be it through sales or PucaTrade). I was able to move one foil Alara Reborn copy, but it was on PucaTrade and at a discount. Currently, the best buylist price on the non-foil Alara Reborn Terminates is $1.78 from Strike Zone, which feels like an absolute steal. If you find you have a stack, then out them to a guaranteed source and let it absorb the risk.

If you have a regular game store that you shop or play at, I’d let them know of any that you come across, but I wouldn’t buy them for pennies with hope of a quick flip—you aren’t going to make very much, but there is potential to damage your relationship with the owner/operators. Typically, stores that don’t have all of their inventory electronically categorized can be places to find lots of unpicked longboxes, but you are likely to get more out of going through them as a helper than as a hunter. My LGS is staffed only by the owner, and he has more longboxes than he has time. I pull out things that I come across in his boxes when I’m bored and looking for something to occupy my ADD, but I get more in karma than I do in value.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention some of the true corner case scenarios, like Serum Visions. In the case of certain cards, the avenues for a reprint are limited. Serum Visions, Daze, Brainstorm, and Preordain are the kinds of cards that can grow reprint equity at common (they are also all blue), but can’t be reprinted in a Standard expansion. Fortunately, WOTC is doing more supplemental products than ever before, so there are means to see more copies printed, but I think you have to be realistic about which ones offer the best possibilities. This is all speculation, but Wizards put reprints in products where they best fit (things like Flusterstorm aside). Serum Visions is a pretty lousy card in Commander, so I wouldn’t expect it in one of those types of products as opposed to Modern Masters 3 or a Modern Event Deck (are we still doing those?). I’d expect Rhystic Study to appear in a Commander set instead, even if it isn’t a better card for people wanting new copies of particular blue commons.

Moral of the story: Don’t bother chasing the vast majority of these spikes. There isn’t enough action to be hard, and the margins are probably too small. If you find that you have a pile of them, enjoy your trade-in credit.

Planeswalkers and Design Philosophy

My academic background, if I haven’t mentioned it before, is in history. One of the most important things you can learn with regards to history is that events are always influenced by their causes, and so you have to take the context of those causes into account whenever you are analyzing a given event. The new planeswalkers in Magic Origins, most specifically Jace, are being looked at the wrong way, and I think it is because WOTC is trying to change the way planeswalkers are used. I’m going to use the history of planeswalkers (both as a card type and as a, uh… fantasy… thing?) to make my point.

I’m not a very good Vorthos, but here is the history of planeswalkers in a nutshell. In the beginning, WOTC’s creative team made planeswalkers into basically indestructible, omnipotent gods who could make and destroy entire worlds at whim. This, surprisingly, is a terrible character type to try and build meaningful storytelling around. WOTC realized that planeswalkers were too powerful to be compelling (note that this is around the time that WOTC started looking into a potential movie deal), so the story was steered toward the Mending, where planeswalkers sacrificed much of their power to heal the fracturing of Dominaria or something.

The Mending, which occurred during Time Spiral block, meant that moving forward, planeswalkers wouldn’t make Emrakul, Aeons Torn look like a plant token and that they could be more realistically represented on cards! It is no coincidence that the first planeswalker cards appeared the following year (after being pushed out of Future Sight because of development concerns—the empty green card slot became Tarmogoyf!). The first five planeswalkers (known sometimes as the Lorwyn Five) were hugely resonant successes, and they all saw various amounts of constructed play (Chandra the least, Garruk and Jace the most).

For the first few years, however, planeswalker cards were somewhat lacking in terms of broader developmental context. A lot of the appeal was “shiny new things!” and without as much concern to whether they were good or not. I think for a little while WOTC was just glad they seemed to be working, but eventually R&D moved forward into new design space. Few colors had more than one planeswalker, so the good ones (think Elspeth, Knight-Errant) were played and the much less good ones (think Liliana Vess) mostly just weren’t. In a way, Jace, the Mind Sculptor represented what planeswalkers were like before the Mending: he went into every deck that played blue, and encouraged you to play blue if you weren’t already. JTMS wasn’t a nuanced, situational chess piece—he was a nuclear bomb. You either played Jace, or had to have a really compelling reason not to.

Designing planeswalkers is difficult for WOTC, since there are only a few printed during each given year. This low amount over time means that it takes longer for changes in design philosophy to manifest. Since Worldwake, there has been a push for planeswalkers to be more situational, rather than a pass/fail test of quality.

For example, is Ashiok good? Ashiok isn’t played as a four-of in the main deck of every list that could run it, but the card is also crucial in control mirrors. And the new Jace is very similar to Ashiok in that way. Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy comes down before most countermagic comes online in the control mirrors, and unlike Ashiok, it creates a difficult sideboarding decision for your control opponent: how much creature removal can they sideboard out and not be worse against an early Jace? Historically, looters have certainly been playable in control decks. Jace is a looter with high upside, including being a potential finisher for no additional mana investment. There are a lot of matches, however, where a 0/2 looter for two is going to be nothing more than eventual Shock fodder. The downside to being a situational star is that not all situations are favorable.

The finance lesson here is that planeswalkers are likely to be more specialized moving forward. This means that on the whole, they will be more consistently playable, although there will likely be much less crossover. Even though they are popular, WOTC doesn’t want a lot of Elspeth, Knight-Errants or Jace, the Mind Sculptors, because they narrow the range of the card type in general.

And just to take it a step further, this push isn’t unique to planeswalkers. Take a look at what Sam Stoddard had to say about Languish:

This really seems to be WOTC’s design and development philosophy moving forward, and I think it probably means a stronger, more active market for Standard. I’d much rather be trading and selling in a format with lots of “sometimes really good” cards than just a bunch of “good” or “not good” ones. If future formats can be as good as the one we have now, I think this means a lot of potential for the future. Make sure you have a diverse standard stock moving forward!

Moral of the story: planeswalkers, and Standard as a whole, are being developed in a way that is conducive to a wider format. I expect most of the future formats to be like Ravnica/Time Spiral in the sense that there are several good decks, but no overtly oppressive ones. These wider formats have more good cards, but fewer staples. If that’s the case, you can expect prices to be a little bit more even, as opposed to boom or bust. Tip: in these types of formats, the safest bets, as they always are, are the lands.

That’s all for today. I’d love to hear your thoughts on these topics, especially the second one. It was kind of a hard concept to put to paper, but I’d be more than happy to flesh it out in the comments. See you next week!

Casual Fridays

Planeswalker Transformation

June 26, 2015 Cliff Daigle 8 Comments

By: Cliff Daigle

First of all, thank you to everyone who responded well to last week’s Father’s Day piece. It meant a lot to me to read all the positive feedback.

So here we are, the last Core Set until the next time that Wizards rearranges things. It’s hard to believe, but it was 2009 that we were given Magic 2010, which was aligned with Zendikar, widely considered the one-two punch that brought Magic its current ridiculous and so far sustained growth.

In a way, I’m sad. Core sets became a fun combination of the old and the new. Mechanics could be expanded on without needing a whole block (bloodthirst!) and certain cards could be proven as amazing in a variety of strategies, perhaps most notably Tormented Soul as an enabler for exalted decks one year and bloodthirst the next.

We also missed out on being able to call a set “M16” and that’s just a missed opportunity for unamusing mixups with people who have no idea what’s being discussed.

This week, though, I want to focus on the five origin-story planeswalkers, and see where they will end up.

Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy // Jace, Telepath Unbound

First of all, Tibalt set a very low bar for two-mana planeswalkers. Jace, as a looter, is already better than Tibalt and pretty good as looters go. It’s only two mana, which cannot be overstated. It’s cheap and easy at 1U.

The synergy of his abilities, and his loyalty, is what’s impressive. I do not find it hard to believe that Jace can be flipped on his first activation, what with cards like Thought Scour, fetchlands, and Satyr Wayfinder around. His loyalty is also an impressive five to start, but if you’re only filling your graveyard with Jace’s effect, five loyalty on turn seven is a lot less noteworthy.

I also really like how planeswalkers are getting “Until your next turn…” abilities as opposed to “Until end of turn…” because it highlights the difference in power of planeswalkers vs. creatures. Saltfield Recluse is a surprisingly hard card to play around in combat, and Jace’s plus ability is on a par with that, even with the lack of instant-speed interaction.

I see this sixth version of Jace as an easy fit into most Cubes, and lots of EDH decks. I would be surprised if he was more than a niche player in Standard, but I wouldn’t rule out free re-use of spells in the graveyard in Eternal. Unlikely, yes, but I can see him as a ‘fun-of’ in some Delver decks. His price will probably not go below $10.

Kytheon, Hero of Akros // Gideon, Battle-Forged

Oh, Savannah Lions. You were once a rare, and no upside was needed. Now, there’s no shortage of 2/1 creatures with abilities for one mana, and your time has passed.

KG here is going to go right into every Cube with an aggressive white deck. He’s surprisingly tricky to flip, as he needs the right combination of attackers into blockers or open mana for his activated ability. Once flipped, though, he plays merry hell with your opponent’s plans.

He’s got two plus abilities, the first of which unfondly reminds me of the first time he was printed. Also, here’s our second “Until your next turn…” ability and it’s a bit tricky. Using this before combat doesn’t grant vigilance, using it afterwards means you have a creature that can live through combat…so you’re likely winning anyway.

KG (I hope this nickname sticks!) is going into Cubes, as I said. His +1 is going to be sneaky-relevant in Commander too, and there will be no shortage of him at kitchen tables everywhere. I think his price matches that of Jace.

Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh // Chandra, Roaring Flame

This is a stunning, stunning design. I think Chandra is easily the most Constructed-playable of these five and she is a must-kill threat in Standard. I would be a little surprised to see her in Modern or Legacy burn, but the potential is there.

It is not hard, at all, to imagine her played on three and flipping on turn four. When she’s flipped, she will have dealt three and add two more if you desire. Any red spell triggers her, not just instants or sorceries.

Cards like Gelectrode, Cinder Pyromancer, or Lobber Crew have always had potential to add damage to spells, but Chandra V is a level beyond that. She also jumps right into Cubes as a worthy addition to Burn archetypes and while her first two abilities aren’t going to be relevant in Commander, her ultimate hits everyone hard and must be respected.

I do not see Chandra at less than $20 for her lifespan in Standard. If she starts seeing Legacy or Modern play, she could be twice that.

Liliana, Heretical Healer // Liliana, Defiant Necromancer

This fourth iteration of Liliana is not as overtly powerful as any of her previous versions. Notably, she’s missing any way of killing creatures, though her transformation gives you an immediate blocker.

She could flip the turn she enters play, and that’s powerful in and of itself. I can’t find a creature right now that sacrifices for value, like Cartel Aristocrat, but the potential is there. Her abilities are nicely synergistic, but that emblem is amazing and a half. The emblem is going to be what decks are striving for in casual settings, and rightfully so.

She’s preordering for around $20, and that’s likely a bit high. Her flip condition is easy to meet and her abilities are worth protecting, so I’d expect to see her around $15.

Nissa, Vastwood Seer // Nissa, Sage Animist

I love this version of Nissa, but that’s not the same as saying she’s very good. This is the flip planeswalker that seems expressly designed for Commander, because she’s only good with lots of land. It’s very easy to generate seven mana, but having seven land is not what Constructed decks are designed to do.

Let’s be clear: Coiling Oracle every turn is not among the most broken things to do in Commander. It’s a good thing to be doing, but the emblem and the legendary token are much less exciting. I am going to enjoy playing with Nissa, but Elemental Bond is going to draw players far more cards than Nissa will.

I believe that this will be the cheapest of the five, and not see much play outside of Commander. She’s not overtly powerful enough for most Cubes, as a 2/2 that finds you basic Forest is very meh. Remember, the land goes to your hand, not into play. Basics only, and not even directly into play.

Her price will reflect her lack of power: She’ll be under $10 by Halloween, and I suspect she’ll be nearly $5 by her rotation time.

Some other thoughts:

I’m treating the two unofficially spoiled ones (Jace and Nissa) as the truth, and if they aren’t the real deal, I accept the mistake.

Also, if these five are indeed the SDCC promos, that puts a larger number of them out there for the collectors and the magpies who need special shiny versions of cards for Cubes and EDH. (I’m one of them!) Don’t overlook the value of having the SDCC versions out there, putting a cap on the individual foil prices.

Corbin Hosler

The End of the Spikes?

June 25, 2015 Corbin Hosler 20 Comments

Another week, another crazy round of Modern price hikes. It seems like everywhere you look, you see another ca…

Wait, what is this? I’m sorry, I need to interrupt this article quickly for a pretty important update.

MERFOLK WON GRAND PRIX COPENHAGEN!!!

If you didn’t know, I’m the world’s biggest Fish fan. I just finished my set of Champs Mutavaults and I’m the proud owner of this custom playmat. My entire Modern Merfolk deck is foiled out, and acquiring every card in it through trading is one of my proudest Magic accomplishments.

So to see Merfolk put two decks into the top eight of a Grand Prix and then win the entire thing is a huge moment for me. I’ve been telling people for years it’s the best deck in the format, and while that’s mostly been a joke, suddenly it doesn’t seem quite like it anymore. Basically, this is awesome.

Anyway, back to your regularly-scheduled article.

It’s All About the Climb

Let’s be honest: it wasn’t exactly hard to see this explosion in Modern popularity coming. We’ve seen steady growth on a bunch of format staples over the past two years, and despite all the complaints about Modern Masters 2015, the fact is more people have cards to play Modern, and (go figure) that means more people are playing Modern.

That’s one large piece of the puzzle. The other is the return of “seasons.” Some of you may not have been around four or five years ago, but banking on Extended season used to be the easiest money there was. People didn’t care about Extended until the Extended PTQ season came around, at which point everyone suddenly needed cards. You could pick up staples for absurdly cheap in the spring and cash them out at double in the fall every year, like clockwork.

Then, Extended died. Modern, a non-rotating format, took its place. This lessened the impact of the PTQ season, but it didn’t eliminate it.

Until, that is, Wizards of the Coast decided to nuke seasons entirely. The PPTQ system and leaving the option up to the stores running tournaments meant basically everything was Standard, all the time. While Modern still existed as a popular format, there wasn’t really any urgency to picking up particular cards.

This year brought back the return of seasons, and the fact lost in all of the Modern Masters 2015 hoopla is that we’re actually right in the middle of Modern season right now. It’s not just Grand Prix Charlotte and Copenhagen leading people to pick up Modern cards, it’s the fact that they need them for that PPTQ next week.

Of course, this doesn’t account for all of the spikes we’ve seen. Nourishing Shoal and Lantern of Insight were clearly buyouts, and that’s just kind of what it is. But when it comes to the real cards, like Snapcaster Mage and Liliana of the Veil and even smaller stuff like Terminate or Raging Ravine, I believe it’s real demand that’s pushed these cards. Snapcaster hasn’t just risen steadily—it’s held its price every step of the way, as has Liliana after spiking earlier this year. That doesn’t happen unless it’s real demand from people biting the bullet and pulling the trigger on buying in. And they’re doing that because of Modern season.

Those two factors account for most of the gains we’ve seen this year. Truthfully, now is not a bad time to cash out of many specs. After all, a lot of the stuff that’s risen has been stuff we’ve been talking about for at least six months here, so in all likelihood you got into some of these specs on the cheap. There’s nothing wrong with locking in some profits, especially given what I’m going to posit next.

…Until It’s About the Fall

Travis Allen and Sigmund Ausfresser, both great writers here and whose opinions I respect, have voiced similar concerns to mine. Travis, in particular, knocked it out of the park with his comparison of Snapcaster Mage this year and Scalding Tarn last year. While there are certainly some factors that make them different (namely, people anticipating a Tarn reprint in MM2 and then in Battle for Zendikar) the point is very well taken: further growth is not a given.

In fact, there’s historical evidence to suggest that prices may not continue to grow. Even if we discount Scalding Tarn, the fact remains that the most growth—as an overall index—that non-Standard cards experience comes in the first six months of the year. Go look at the price charts of staples over the past few years (dual lands spring to mind): you see price hikes in the first half of the year, with small dips in the second half before rising again come the turn of the calendar.

There’s a lot of theories I’ve put together for this: holidays strapping cash, tax day providing a lift, summer doldrums pushing people outside and away from Magic, etc. Whatever the reason, the facts remain: cards perform better in the first half of the year than the second.

So then, what about all these shiny new Modern cards that have spiked like crazy? There’s a lot of reasons to believe prices will stay steady or even continue rising. After all, the format is very healthy right now, the current spiked prices have mostly held, Snapcaster and Liliana of the Veil aren’t getting any worse or facing an immediate reprint.

But as Travis pointed out, that’s been true of other cards before, and it hasn’t panned out that way.

Decision Time

All of this, of course, leads to a very basic question: is now the time to sell out?

The answer to that question depends on where you fall on the line of prices. Will this growth continue? Will Magic: Origins and the latest Duels of the Planeswalkers bring enough new players in to bring on further growth? There are reasons to believe these things are the case, and if so, you may want to hold onto your Modern specs.

Or are you on the other side? Will the historical reasons to be concerned repeat themselves and make the best decision to sell cards now? Will people care about Modern after its PTQ season is over? Will Standard rotation take enough attention away from the eternal format to send people’s money that way? If so, selling out now isn’t a bad choice.

Personally, I fall somewhere in the middle, and the fact that I’m in for so many of these cards at such good prices does sway me. I know that “technically” my buy-in price shouldn’t affect my decision-making here, but the fact is I’m not opposed to locking in money. Profit is profit, after all, and the Myth of Making Money™ tells me it doesn’t matter what TCGplayer says if I never sell my cards.

So I’m hedging. I’m moving some cards but holding a few copies. For instance, I have a few dozen Snapcaster Mages, and while some of them have come in since the price spiked a great many were acquired in the $20 to $25 range. That’s a lot of profit waiting to be realized, so rather than hold two dozen Snaps I’ll never sell through, I’m going to buylist some number of them to lock in profits while still exposing myself to additional upside.

As for the in-season spikes we’ve been ahead on, like Nettle Sentinel, Heritage Druid, Wanderwine Hub, Glimmervoid, Arcbound Ravager, etc? I’m happy to move them at a profit. If there’s one thing this game has taught me, it’s that there’s always another target. Sure, some of the cards that have spiked this year will likely spike more next year. But some of them won’t. Something will be surprise-reprinted. Something will fall out of favor. Something could be banned.

So I don’t mind selling out of many of them, and happily walking away with my profits. After all, there’s plenty of targets already on the horizon for next season. Glistener Elf, Blighted Agent, Thought Scour, Silvergill Adept, Gavony Township, and more may not hit this season, but I can already start stocking up on them cheaply in anticipation of movement a year from now. Why chase down another 10 to 20 percent on this year’s specs when I can stock up on cards that could turn a 500-percent profit in 2016? I’m happy taking my own advice and leaving the last 10 percent to the next guy.

Of course, that’s my usually-conservative take. What will you do?

Thanks for reading,

Corbin Hosler

@Chosler88 on Twitter

Conjured Currency

The Immortality of Planeswalkers

June 25, 2015 Douglas Johnson 10 Comments

It’s been almost eight years since the planeswalker card type was introduced. Before that, the lore of the game cast planeswalkers as legendary pseudo-gods that were almost always too powerful to print. I mean, we got Nicol Bolas back in Legends, but he felt like more of an “attack with big dragon that roars” instead of “archmage that casts multiple spells to obliterate his opponents.” We never got a card for Urza, because Wizards claimed that he would be far too powerful to see play. Neither did we ever get Serra or Leshrac from the pre-Mending era.

Planeswalkers were basically gods that would far overpower the “normal” creatures of the time, and WOTC didn’t yet have the design knowledge to make world-crushing nigh-unstoppable beings in card form.

During the Time Spiral block, we saw the last of the “planeswalkers imagined as creatures.” Jaya Ballard had multiple activated abilities to show the versatility of her spell weaving, but it wasn’t enough to make her feel awesome. Teferi controlled the flow of time by slowing down his opponents, but he was still just a creature. I’m not going to write an entire lore column, because you guys aren’t here for that, but the Mending was Wizards’s way of fixing and adjusting the walkers to a power level where they were more feasibly printed.

October of 2007

Enter Lorwyn. With a brand-new card type that was hinted at by Tarmogoyf itself, planeswalkers and the rules surrounding them were the talk of the town. At least, I assume they were. I barely knew how to play Magic at the time, and I wasn’t paying attention to new set releases until closer to Shards of Alara. But as a casual player, I fell in love with planeswalkers as soon as I saw them. Ironically, I was the last person in my small casual group to actually attain one, and that was only because my friend took pity and traded Garruk to me because he had two from the Garruk vs. Liliana Duel Deck.

Anyway, the point here is that the planeswalker card type was a home run on pretty much all fronts. Casuals foamed at the mouth at the chance to summon an ally to the battlefield and cast spells every turn, and the Spikes of the world enjoyed how difficult to remove and mana-efficient they were. While there were balancing issues over the first few years, ‘walkers as a whole were appreciated by the entire community. Savvy traders who navigated the rift between casual and competitive caught on quick, and learned that converting tournament staples into undervalued loyalty counters was a quick way to make a profit.

This mantra has held true for as long as I’ve been in this business. If your trade partner’s binder is stretched thin, just target pretty much any planeswalker ever. I’ve sold more Vess than Veil in my time buying and selling Magic, and it’s not close. Hell, even Tibalt is worth trading for because he’s so goddamn infamous. There are multiple people out there who collect exclusively Tibalt because he’s regarded as the first “obviously bad” planeswalker. I’ve traded for a Tibalt before, and it was intentional. I wanted that Magic: The Gathering card because I knew another human being on this planet actually wanted to own it, even though the card is obvious garbage and is basically a recurring joke at this point.

In years past, $5 was always the benchmark for “cheap planeswalker that you should probably buy, because it’s going to rebound back like an Immortal.” If the garbage version of Gideon can float around at $5 despite seeing zero play, then that should be the benchmark low (the one exception being our beloved Fiend-Blooded friend).

However, it looks like we have a few challengers in our midst who are refusing to make the climb:

I can come to terms with the fact that Architect and Vraska won’t rise to the occasion. The Duel Deck skewered their prices and sealed their fates (and both pieces of alternate art are absolutely awful).

However, I had at least a little bit of faith in M15 Jace and M12 Chandra slowly making a comeback…

Don’t Call It a Comeback (It’s Probably Not)

Tibalt has a higher fair trade price than M15 Jace . And yet hell hasn’t frozen over, pigs are grounded for the moment, and the third world war hasn’t caused the end of us all. I’m not sure if we should throw a party for Tibalt or mourn the end of his legacy. When M15 first bottomed out, I took the $3 Jace as a signal. His name had E, J, C, and A all arranged in a certain spelling towards the front of the card, he was four mana, and he started with a large chunk of loyalty. Even if he was obviously inferior to his cousins, I figured I could easily pick these up in trade and then dump them out of my display case once they made their climb back to the $5 bare minimum.

Easy game, easy life, right? Those who can’t afford a Mind Sculptor go for Beleren, and those who couldn’t afford Beleren would jump on these. I made similar moves on Chandra, the Firebrand, trusting in the creep back to $5. Trade for a bunch, and then dump them in the display case. Garruks don’t last a week behind that glass, and neither do copies of Nicol Bolas. Why would these be any different? In my past experience selling ‘walkers to casuals, they didn’t have to be good to move off the shelf. A six-mana Chandra sells like wildfire, and she never saw a spark of competitive play in her life.

So how many Living Guildpacts and Firebrands have I sold out of my case ever since initating my master plan?

Zero Jaces, and one or two Firebrands.

There was actual dust on the front Jace when I went to check on my case last week, and he’s priced at $3, yet hasn’t moved in God knows how long. You would think that casual players would jump at the chance to jam a planeswalker in their decks for such a low cost, but my experience suggests anything but.

A Fading Spark

The mantra that all of us financiers and value traders has been chanting has been dead for over a year. “Trade for a planeswalker if it’s under $5,” and, “Trade for any planeswalker ever because it’s easy to sell,” are relics of a forgotten age.

I’m even wondering if my Daretti investment was a worthwhile buy, even though I managed to find some copies that I thought were underpriced at $2.70 each. I was going to rely on his rock-solid $5 price tag in order to evacuate from the spec in a pinch and settle for doubling up, but he’s already shown signs of sliding in the opposite direction.

So what went wrong? Well, planeswalkers aren’t as special anymore. Instead of having a limited number in each color to choose from, the casual players have approximately seventeen different mono-blue Jaces to choose from for their mill or control decks. Being the 57th best walker out of 59 available walkers sucks a lot more than being the 25th worst walker back when there were 27. There’s a lot less of a “uniqueness” factor, because Living Guildpact, Firebrand, or Vraska all fail to fill a niche in a deck anymore, even down to the casual level of play that those reading an article like this just don’t experience first-hand.

**Where to Go with Origins?**

As much as I loathe talking about upcoming sets and speculation, I’ll throw my hat into the ring on the Origins double-sided walkers because it’s relevant to this discussion. If you’ve dabbled in Magic finance at all, you’ve obviously been told or have been the one to tell people to drop ‘walkers early on in the opening season like hot potatoes. Sell them as soon as you crack them at the prerelease, because there will be a time several months down the road when you can reap the profits by buying or trading back for them at that sweet $5 baseline fallback plan.

Half of this will still be true. Sell whatever planeswalkers you open at your prerelease right away, but even once they “bottom out” at $5, I’m going to suggest staying away from these new flip ‘walkers entirely.

While they can be used as Commanders this time around, none of these ‘walkers have any truly unique traits compared to their predecessors. Chandra burns creatures and players? So does every other Chandra in existence. Gideon makes you attack him, and then turns into a creature to smack you right back. No surprises there. Jace mills? Someone fire up the printing press, this is breaking and unbelievable news!

While I definitely sound a bit cynical concerning their appeal, I’m not trying to suggest that they’re unplayable. All of the novelty is tied into the fact that they can flip, and I don’t expect their backsides to be overtly exciting or novel to the average casual player.

If you want to play them in EDH (I certainly don’t think they’re bad in that format), I suggest waiting until an absolute rock bottom of $3 to $5, and I wouldn’t advocate holding onto them while crossing your fingers. At least Garruk Relentless started out as a ‘walker, made an impact on the opponent’s board, flipped immediately, and presented a large number of options while in play. Unless these five find homes in Standard (which I do think is entirely possible for Gideon and maybe Liliana), I think it’s possible that we’ll see them at an extreme low, and it will end up being a speculating trap.

End Step

Am I correct about the $5 minimum on planeswalkers being gone for good? Is there a new lower boundary of $3, or is it possible for non-Tibalt walkers to sink even into the $1 bulk mythic status?

I’m certainly expecting a bit of dissenting criticism from this one. I’m curious to hear your thoughts on where the Origins walkers end up, and if being double-sided is enough of a novel appeal to the casual crowd that would sustain a price above $5 throughout their lifetimes.

As always, thanks for reading!

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