Danny Brown, ProTrader

PROTRADER: Magic Origins Set Review, Blue

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I’m writing this introduction well in advance to discuss the preconceptions about what to expect when reviewing a new set. At the time of this writing, I haven’t yet looked at the full spoiler, and I have completely ignored preorder prices the last couple weeks, so of the cards I do know about, I have no idea where they’re priced. Once I get to the card-by-card breakdown, I’ll have had several days to review the set, the preorder pricing, pro commentary, and all kinds of other factors that go into a financial review of new cards.

But first, I want to mention what I expect to see in this (and every) new set:

  • A whole bunch of rares priced between $3 and $6 that will be bulk rares in six months.
  • A whole bunch of mythics priced at $10 or more that will be $2 or less in six months.
  • Very few—usually zero—rares or mythics that are significantly underpriced to the point I’ll feel confident buying in.
  • A few uncommons that actually are underpriced at 10 to 25 cents that will be $1 or more their entire time in Standard.

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WEEKLY MTGPRICE.COM MOVERS: July 6/15

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By James Chillcott (@MTGCritic)

5 Winners of the Week

  1. Lantern of Insight (Fifth Dawn, Uncommon): $2.00 to $4.99 (+150%)

As a true Timmy to the core, I am always excited to see another random bulk card hit the big time when someone uncovers a previously unnoticed set of interactions. Even better is when the deck in question represents an entirely new archetype, as was the case with the Lantern of Insight/Ensnaring Bridge deck that caught our attention at recent Modern tournaments of note. Though the deck isn’t quite established as a Tier 1 option, it has proven to be more resilient to disruption than previously thought, and a combination of speculative activity and players legitimately trying out the deck has resulted in our largest spike of the week. As Lantern is highly unlikely to be reprinted anytime soon, I think you can feel fine with unloading any copies you had lying around, while holding back a few for possible increases to hedge your bets.

Verdict: Sell/Trade

Format(s): Modern

2. Arcbound Ravager (Modern Masters, Rare): $18.00 to $39.99 (+122%)

Ravager is jumping as part of widespread increase in Modern staples that were not reprinted in Modern Masters 2015. Affinity continues to be a consistently competitive deck in the format, and it was also one of the more affordable decks, all of which set this card up for a spike. I’m in no rush to unload my copies as any future bannings are more likely to benefit Affinity than hurt it as an archetype, and it’s always a core 4-of in the deck.

Verdict: Hold

Format(s): Modern/Casual

3. Nettle Sentinel (M14/Eventide, Rare): $1.54 to $3.18 (+94%)

Driven by the power of Collected Company and Chord of Calling in Modern Elves, several key components are now on the rise, including this previously innocuous one-drop. Being called out as a spike target by members of our team didn’t hurt its’ prospects, but I’d think that the top line here is about $5. Feel free to bail out if you’re holding a bunch.

Format(s): Modern/Legacy

Verdict: Hold

4. Ancient Stirrings (ROE, Common): $1.49 to $3.49  (+75%)

Like Affinity, Tron has been a consistent top table contender in Modern for longer than most people have been playing the format. Also like Tron, any core components not recently reprinted are fair game for price increases. It’s just the latest in a long line of commons to start life below $1 and reward those of us that are hoarding them, but there is some slight risk of a reprint in Battle for Zendikar this fall so I’m fine bulking these out.

Format(s): Modern

Verdict: Sell/Trade

5. Horizon Canopy (Future Sight, Rare): $45.00 to $70.00 (+56%)

Future Sight continues on towards its manifest destiny of one of the greatest MTG Finance sets of all time. Here we have a decade old rare land that’s usually played as a 1 or 2-of, though in multiple decks. The ability to cash in an unneeded land for an extra draw phase provides enough utility to provide a price foundation, but it’s the age of the home set and the lack of a reprint that is floating this price. If you got in under $30 there is no good reason to hold out for more as $60-70 is already quite high for a card of this type and play usage.

Format(s): Modern

Verdict: Sell

 

3 Top Losers of the Week

1. Congregation at Dawn (Ravnica, Uncommon): $3.41 to $2.00 (-41%)

Congregation spiked as a potential Modern component alongside Collected Company, but as that card has found new friends, this uncommon has fallen back to a lower price. Hopefully you got out during the spike earlier this spring so that you don’t have to fret now about what to do with your extra copies now that you’re facing lower demand.

Verdict: Hold/Sell

2. Icefall Regent (Dragons of Tarkir, Rare): $2.26 to 1.89 (-16%)

This is a mild and natural drop on a card that hasn’t found a sweet spot in the Standard metagame but could end up seeing more play in either a rejuvenated blue devotion strategy or some other tempo/control style build in the next few months. Either way, feel free to trade these out at your leisure, as they are highly unlikely to spike in the face of so many freshly interesting Origins cards.

Format(s): Standard

Verdict: Buy below $4

3. Shorecrasher Elemental: $2.82 to $2.38 (-16%)

Unlike the frosty dragon above, I actually think it’s reasonable to acquire a few sets of Shorecrasher Elemental at this price. Maybe Harbinger of Tides sets off one last hurrah for blue devotion, or maybe that deck is retrofitted for Modern success, but either way, casuals could easily make this a $5 card a year or two down the road if the other options don’t pan out. It’s not an important spec, but I’ve got 20 copies or so lying around.

Verdict: Buy/Hold

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.

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Grinder Finance: Prerelease Week Edition

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Editor’s note: Jim Casale is back this week with his second Grinder Finance article. This series is perfect for the average player looking to stretch their Magic budget just a little bit more, so enjoy!

By Jim Casale

So with the prerelease looming this weekend, it’s a good time to talk about what to do before a new set release. I will preface this by saying that, 99% of the time, it’s not worth pre-ordering new cards. The ones that are pre-ordering quickly become not worth pre-ordering and written media is not a quick enough media to inform you of good buys. For that reason, I intend this article to expand on the ways to self evaluate cards and determine if they are worth ordering for you.

An important distinction to make is how this set fits into the rotation scheme and how it affects drafting. Sets that are released and replace the booster packs that are currently being drafted have a different impact on older cards than sets that change or add to the current draft format. For example, the release of Fate Reforged did not remove Khans of Tarkir completely from the draft format. Yes you drafted one less pack, but it is still being opened. What this meant is that the supply of cards from Khans of Tarkir was still increasing while the bottleneck for deck building would be cards from Fate Reforged. Unlike in Modern, Standard bottlenecks are quickly solved by the supply of cards from drafts and Magic Online redemption (although this happens much later).

Vryn

Being able to predict the bottlenecks for decks is a difficult task, but very rewarding if you are able to figure it out. Standard has the same style of bottlenecking that is more pronounced in Modern but it lasts for a much shorter period of time. When the Esper Dragons deck became popular in Standard, Dragonlord Ojutai was a $35 or more card for a few weeks, not months or years like in the case with Modern. Being able to stay ahead of that crowd by purchasing cards during their cheap period is the way to make playing Magic more affordable.

Now what we have now with Magic Origins is a completely new draft format. The bottlenecks for the upcoming standard will likely be cards from Khans of Tarkir block and the absolute most powerful all-star cards from Magic Origins. Due to the fact that Dragons of Tarkir was not drafted as much as Khans of Tarkir despite being a large set since drafting was cut off early with the release of Modern Masters 2015, I think the cards in the set have the largest ability to get expensive. We’ve already seen how many great cards have come out of the set despite it being one the lowest pre-order prices in recent history. I am going to suggest anyone who doesn’t own all the cards from Dragons of Tarkir that they might play to pick them up quickly.

Outside of the obviously power cards like the Dragonlords, Deathmist Raptor, Collected Company, and Kolaghan’s Command, there are a lot of cards that don’t get enough appreciation. I’m going to highlight a few I’ve even begun to grab in the past few weeks to bolster my collection.

  • Ojutai’s Command & Silumgar’s Command: We’ve seen from the other 3 Dragonlords’ Commands, the power level is there it just needs to find a use for the modes. Despite the fact that Ojutai’s Command is the Buy-A-Box promo, I think it has room to grow. It has a lot of upside being able to return the new Jace and Gideon planeswalkers to the battlefield. With the impending rotation of Hero’s Downfall, Silumgar’s Command is the only card able to destroy planeswalkers. That alone may bring up its playability.
  • Den Protector: You almost always see Deathmist Raptor accompanied with Den Protector but there are also many green decks that will just play Den Protector by itself. At a $5-6 rare from an under-opened large set it doesn’t have a lot of financial upside but can see a week or two where supply is pressured due to the “Deck of the Month” syndrome and you’ll wish you already owned them.
  • Ojutai’s Exemplars, Risen Executioner, Dragon Whisperer, Shaman of the Forgotten Ways, Dragonlord Kolaghan: What do all of these cards have in common? They’re pretty close to bulk level mythics and have decent enough stats to see Standard play. With a lot of important Theros staples rotation soon, I don’t think there will be a cheaper time to pick these up. The downside is that you never play them in the next year and they stay the same price.
  • Soulfire Grand Master: Wait, what? This isn’t from Dragons of Tarkir. Well if you thought that, you are correct. This is a personal opinion of mine but I think Soulfire Grand Master will fit perfectly into the upcoming metagame. It’s at an all time low and casual appeal should continue to keep it buoyed for the next few years. I can see it filling a similar role to Rakshasa Deathdealer and Fleecemane Lion because it is a 2 mana creature that can eat your excess mana later in the game for value. Fate Reforged is a rather unpopular set so there could be supply problems in the future.

 

So enough about old cards, what do I buy from the new set? The only thing I’d recommend ordering is painlands if you don’t already own them. We’ll have them for another few months and it’s unlikely you’ll be able to pick them up for much less than $2. It’s hard to go wrong when the old Core set lands are still worth a few dollars after being printed into oblivion. I’m honestly not very jazzed on the price points of many of these cards. I think the trajectory will look a lot like M15 and we will see large price drops across the board in the next month or so. I’ve personally only ordered 3 Erebos’ Titan because I know I will be playing them on release day but nothing else really strikes me as worth buying currently.

Day's Undoing

That being said, I’m cautiously optimistic about a few cards. The more times I read Gilt-Leaf Winnower the more I think it’s a lot like Flame-Tongue Kavu and less like Skinthinner.   I’m going to try to pick up some at the prerelease for a buck or two and hang onto them for later. It’s hard to evaluate the Menace ability but if this was a 5 mana 4/3 flyer it would probably get a lot more looks. I think there is a strong parallel to Icefall Regent as it also has a relevant tribal type and evasion.

I’m also pretty interested in picking up some Mizzium Meddlers on release day as it will be a promo given to everyone. I think the card could see some looks in Modern as a replacement that fills in for Spellskite while Kolaghan’s Command remains popular.

That being said I hope you enjoy the pre-release and next week I’ll talk more about Modern and the future impact of reprints on the price of decks.

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MTGFinance: What We’re Buying & Selling This Week (July 5/15)

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By James Chillcott (@MTGCritic)

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: June 29th – July 5th, 2015

Note: All cards NM unless otherwise noted. All sell prices are net of fees unless noted.

James Chillcott (@MTGCritic)

BOUGHT

So I finally landed the Big Kahuna Burger of collections this weekend, paying $14K for a collection that looks like it will end up being worth north of $30K. I’m going to be turning the handling of this collection into a new mid-term article series, providing transparency into the world of collection flipping, so keep an eye out for that on Friday this week. As such, for the first time in a long while, I didn’t purchase any singles this week, opting out entirely from the very tasty Origins pre-order opportunities to focus on the collection. I’ll be covering off potentially undervalued cards from the new set on Wednesday this week in the latest installment of Digging for Dollars. 

SOLD (Pucatrade)

  • 1x Shared Animosity  @ $7.01 ($2 cost)
  • 2x Mindbreak Trap @ $6.79 ($2 cost)

Just a few odds and ends I moved through Pucatrade this week.

Guo Heng Chin (@theguoheng)

Guo says:

All those below were acquired at GP Singapore.

BOUGHT

  • 2x Wurmcoil Engine (Prerelease promo) at $11/per: I bought it from a friend, hence the exceptionally low price. Vendors were selling it at around this price too at the Grand Prix. These are Wurmcoils 2 and 3 for my RG Tron.
  • 2x Painter’s Servant at $10/per: In my previous weekly purchases update (https://blog.mtgprice.com/2015/06/22/mtgfinance-what-were-buyingselling-this-week-june-2115/), I mentioned that I acquired a Painter’s Servant to try out it’s synergy with Ugin, the Spirit Dragon in this funky Tron build that surfaced in Tokyo a while back: http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=9272&d=253286&f=MO. I bought 2 more Painter’s Servants at the GP to tinker around with the ‘combo’. It’s a purely casual win-more synergy and under no circumstances should be brought to a competitive event. It’s helluva fun though. I may try and integrate the Ugin-Painter’s Servant combo into my EDH decks because I am a fun guy to play with.
  • 2x Karn Liberated (MMA2015) at $33/per:  I got these slightly lower than the fair trade price from a vendor due to plain luck, something I rarely attribute good deals to but in this case, it probably was a stroke of luck. Most of the vendors at the GP kept their displayed cards in perfect fit sleeves and marked the price of individual cards on the perfect fit sleeve using marker pen. The vendor I approached dug up the second copy of Karn from their box, which was why it wasn’t in a perfect fit sleeve. She then proceeded to scribble a ’49SGD’ on the back of Karn Liberated himself, before realising that the second copy of Karn was unsleeved. It turned out that it was their last copy of Karn as well. So she agreed to give me a bit of a discount on the total purchase (the original price of the Karns were $36 each) and gave me on of the foils in my purchase for free (foil Conspiracy Silent Arbiter).
  • 1x Foil Unburial Rites (Japanese) at $6/per: I‘ve read multiple accounts that UW Gifts Tron is an extremely fun deck to play, so I gave it a shot while testing for GP Singapore as I was lacking the expensive components of RG Tron. They were not exaggerating at all. While the deck is not exactly tier one, the deck was immensely satisfying to pilot. There is an incredible number of permutations of Gifts pile you could play around with and the deck could attack from a multitude of angles. I’ve decided to keep Gifts Tron as a permanent deck in my Modern repertoire and so I’ve begun the arduous quest of foiling it out.
  • 1x Iona, Shield of Emeria at $10/per:  For my Gifts Tron. I didn’t have an Iona as she was quite pricey prior to her Modern Masters 2015 reprint and I was replacing her with Sundering Titan, which was not as good as I thought it would be. GPs are good place to get deals from vendors as the $10 Iona testified.
  • 1x Emrakul, the Aeons Torn (Prerelease Promo) at $28/per: Another piece of RG Tron sorted out. Now to wait for a Grove of the Burnwillows reprint and I’ll be able to RG Tron-stomp my opponents. In the mean time I’ll experiment with the Mono-G Tron that showed up in a Modern daily a while back.
  • 19x Snow-Covered Mountains, 3x Snow-Covered Swamps, 1x Snow-Covered Forest at $0.74 per: Another acquisition for a Modern archetype I’ve been itching to try: Skred Red. Modern cards are not easy to find in Malaysia, and could be quite expensive. GP Singapore was a great opportunity for me to grab the Modern cards I need to complete certain decks. The Snow-Covered Swamps and Forest were for EDH.
  • 1x Snow-Covered Island @ $1.48 per: Another missing piece for Gifts Tron, for those rare situations where I am so desperate for a second blue source I Gifts up a Snow-Covered Island.
  • 2x Magus of the Tabernacle at $0.37/per: From reader and fellow mtgfinance enthusiast Daryl (@mtgProjectZer0). Sometime ago I mentioned that I was attempting to brew a Modern incarnation of MUD. One of the version I toyed with splashed white for Ghostly Prison and Ethersworn Canonist. Taking a bit of inspiration off a Mono-White Stax deck posted here http://puremtgo.com/articles/mono-white-stax-legacy-modern a while back, I thought Magus of the Tabernacle may be a good addition. Thanks Daryl!

 

Note: The rest of the guys were quiet this week.

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.

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