City of Traders

Pro Dragons Tour Dragons of Dragons Tarkir Dragons

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By: Travis Allen

A few days ago, Sam Stoddard posted on Twitter that R&D’s goal was to make dragons competitive in Standard. Mission accomplished, guys.

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The breakout deck of the event had to be UB Control, insomuch as a well-known archetype can break out. After no real presence at any major events since the release of Dragons, this was the coming home party many were looking forward to. It wasn’t just reasonable, either—PV commented that it’s the best deck he has played at a Pro Tour in quite some time.

As many suspected, Dragonlord Silumgar is in fact the real deal. Without a removal spell handy, Silumgar puts games away in a hurry. Adrian didn’t run Silumgar, though he seems to be in the minority. Both the other two control decks in the top eight ran him, and he was peppered throughout the other top-scoring Standard decks. Consequently, some time over the weekend, he was bought out to nothing but a scant few foil copies available. His price isn’t soaring out of control though; I see a few copies available for $10 to $12 as of writing this on Monday evening. Even though Silumgar is an excellent creature in these decks, he simply isn’t needed as a four-of. While Ojutai and Atarka are arguably playable playsets, Silumgar is often found solo or as a pair. I anticipate we see his price hover between $8 and $13 for the time being, and quite possibly dipping below that.

Dragonlord Atarka, on the other hand, is the real winner of the weekend. There were seven copies across two decks in the top eight, and no shortage in the other top-performing lists either. It turns out that the mana engine represented by Nykthos, Sylvan Caryatid, and Courser of Kruphix is enough to get people to play four seven-drops in their decks. This won’t be the last we see of this going forward, and while the number will vary between one and four, I wouldn’t be surprised if most decks wanted nearly the full set. There’s simply no better creature to flip off your See the Unwritten with Surrak, Caller of the Hunt in play. Green Devotion is going to be a contender right up until October when Theros rotates, and even once it does, people won’t forget how strong Atarka is. Her current price tag of nearly $20 is still on its honeymoon, but I doubt we see prices below $10 in the near future. I’m a seller today, though once we’re at $10 I’m happy to start picking up copies in trade. The omnipresent casual demand for huge awesome dragons quietly exerts quite a force on cards like this.

The known dragonlord coming into this weekend, Dragonlord Ojutai, did alright, if not quite as well as Atarka and Silumgar. We saw two copies on Sunday and five decks in the top sixteen played him, as well—four of them control and the fifth Wescoe’s Bant list. All said, that’s six high-profile decks he appeared in, though five were the same archetype. What’s that mean for his current price tag of nearly $20? I’m selling into post-tour exuberance. A $20 price tag usually indicates a card is the best or second-best card in the set, and I’m not convinced yet that it’s Ojutai. I seem to be in the minority on this, though, so if you want to hold, I guess I can’t fault you. I’m concerned that as a blue and white dragon, he lacks a lot of the casual support that the others enjoy, which means he has to work a lot harder in Standard to sustain the same numbers.

A blue dragon we can afford to be more interested in is Icefall Regent, up to $5 on the back of this weekend’s admittedly minor showing. I didn’t see much of it on camera, though I didn’t watch all of the coverage. There were five main deck copies between two of the control lists, and people apparently latched on to that. I liked it in my set review, and I still like it now. It’s great at stopping Siege Rhinos or Surraks from beating you up, and following up a Thunderbreak with Icefall is going to be absolutely miserable to break up from the other side of the board. At $5, I feel like we’re at 75 percent of the card’s price potential, so I’m holding off, but if we see this dwindle back below $3 it’s worth getting in.

Thunderbreak Regent did reasonably well, and the $10 price tag is sticking. We’ll see variations in this number in the coming weeks, though don’t expect it to stray far south of that. Don’t feel bad trading into a set at this point if you need them.

One last dragon worth noting is the big kahuna himself, Ugin. Five of the top eight lists had at least one copy, and six of the sixteen top-performing Standard decks ran at least one as well. That means that 38 percent of the best Standard decks in the room had Ugin in them. Taking a quick peek at Modern statistics, the only cards played in more decks than Ugin is are Lightning Bolt, Island, and Spellskite. Standard has five or six cards that show up in more decks than Ugin, but still. His presence is impressive. Add to this that he’s desirable in nearly every single other format—Modern, Legacy, Cube, EDH, and casual—and you have the makings of possibly one of the most expensive cards in Standard since Jace, the Mind Sculptor. Ugin is comfortably over $30 right now, and I think it’s more likely than not that he reaches $40 while still Standard legal, with prices north of that entirely possible. I’m willing to trade for him aggressively, and if you can get foils in trade for under $100, take those deals. When was the last time we saw an iconic mythic character that pinged every single player demographic in every single format?

Halfway down the mana curve is Surrak, the Hunt Caller, who is certainly worth watching after this weekend. While not every deck capable of generating GG was running him, plenty were. It seems as if he’s going to be a frequent member of the green party in the coming weeks. With copies available below $3, I’m happy to trade for him all day. At the very least, you aren’t likely to lose any value in that transaction, and over the next few weeks we may see him quietly creep up to $5 to $6 or more.

As for cards that play especially well with Surrak, I’m a big fan of See the Unwritten. We already saw a taste of it in the top eight at the Pro Tour, with Ondrej flipping Atarkas into play off of it. Surrak turns on the ferocious trigger, and putting just about anything into play will turn on his hasty formidable trigger. It’s a match made in heaven. With dragons running rampant and Eldrazi on the horizon, I feel like you can’t miss buying into this at $2 to $3 a copy. When the first Eldrazi gets spoiled this September, this is going to hit double digits. I’m in for sixty or seventy copies right now, and I’m looking to pick up more during the summer lull.

Sticking to cards red in cost and spirit, I don’t see much beyond Zurgo Bellstriker worth discussing. As is often the case, the format’s burn decks are often comprised heavily of commons and uncommons. It seems as if Zurgo was a two- or three-of most of the time, which doesn’t surprise me. While UB control may not mind getting stranded with an extra copy of Silumgar, or Abzan midrange with an extra Elspeth,  a small red decks is really going to feel it when one of its cards is legend-locked in its hand. His price is currently around $3, which feels about right. There’s upside here in the $5 to $6 region if it turns out that cubes and casual players alike take to dash, but without that additional demand, he should stay at $3 and below.

The top eight composition tells a story. While that story is one many will read, it’s not the whole story. Only one player in the top eight had a top-performing Standard deck; the rest got there in no small part due to their draft records. If these eight decks weren’t the best Standard decks of the field, then what was?

Six of the top sixteen were various flavors of Abzan. The breakdown leans in midrange’s favor, though both aggressive and controlling builds were represented. Siege Rhino, Anafenza, and Tasigur were the cornerstone threats of these decks, with Dromoka’s Command making a healthy showing as well. Both Siege Rhino and Tasigur being as cheap as they are is an anomaly and every single time I sit down to open another’s binder these days, I’m scanning for them. Getting them at $5 and $6 in trade is going to pay off this fall unless Wizards decides to totally hose me by putting them at uncommon in Origins or something. I also don’t really understand Anafenza at $4 or $5 right now. She’s a premier threat in Abzan Aggro, which I guess we’ve decided is a real deck. I’m happy to trade for her as well right now. I don’t think you stand to lose much here, and there’s a definite upside near $10 as a mythic.

Dromoka’s Command is showing up in lists all over the place, from Abzan Aggro to Bant Heroic. Tom Ross wrote a well-deserved love letter to the card last week describing that it seems to do far more than it reasonably should. With copies pushing $10, I can’t advocate acquiring any at all, though if you need them to play with, you shouldn’t feel bad about it. The ship has basically sailed here: sell ‘em if you got ‘em, and stay away otherwise.

 

The rest of the top sixteen was a mix of UB control, various similar types of green devotion, and a clever Collected Company brew out of Bram Snapvendragoners that looked to flip Avatar of the Resolute and Reverent Hunter into play. It seems like everyone and their brother wants Collected Company to be good right now. I’ve seen it floated as an engine in more Modern decks than Heartless Summoning already, and even in wacky UG Standard decks with Shorecrasher Elemental and Silumgar Sorcerer. That $4 price tag is going to hang strong for a while as people try their damndest to get it to work in every format imaginable. There’s a possible jump to $8 on the horizon if it really does get cracked, though that level of success seems remote at this juncture.

Den Protector had a solid showing on camera this weekend, which drove it upwards of $5. It plays well as a method for combo decks to Gravedigger lost components, midrange decks to buy back Downfalls, and aggressive lists to keep up the threat density while presenting a semi-evasive clock. Overall, it’s a very reasonable creature, though I think we’ve found its price ceiling. The effect is useful, but morphing is a high cost, and it’s not splashy or exciting as “just” a two-for-one. I’m selling my spares.

On lands: fetches should stay steady and rise down the road. I take them in trade anywhere I can get them. It looks like the pain lands started dropping off recently, which is to be expected. Get rid of them soon. Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth is just going to keep rising. Trade for it. Haven of the Spirit Dragon’s price remains intransigent at $4. That’s a nut I expect to crack this summer.

One of the juiciest parts of Pro Tours always comes in the two weeks after, when pros begin discussing the decks they landed on, but more importantly, what they didn’t land on. Some of my favorites to watch include Sam Black and Zvi Moshowitz. While the Pro Tour does an excellent job of fleshing out a metagame for the rest of us, it’s easy to forget that it’s only a single event on a single weekend. Decks that were not viable at the Pro Tour may be excellent two or three weeks later.

For instance, with the success of control this past weekend, expect to see a lot of Foundry Street Denizens in the near future. As red decks beat up on control, midrange strategies such as GW Devotion lists will rise in strength, and then combo decks like Jeskai Ascendancy will be able to beat up on a midrange-heavy format. Lee Shi Tian and MTG Mint Card were on the deck this weekend, and while he tweeted that the format took the wrong turn for them, it doesn’t mean we won’t get there eventually.

Knowing what decks just missed the meta is good, especially when they’re new brews. Maybe Sam will tell us that his team was on a Sarkhan Unbroken list right up until the night of the Pro Tour, when they realized it just couldn’t beat UB Control. That type of information is excellent—we get confirmation of cards and interactions that are definitely strong enough for Standard but that just didn’t have the weekend they needed. Insights into decks that weren’t chosen and why they weren’t chosen gives us a crystal ball through which to see into the future. We can’t be sure that our supposed Sarkhan Unbroken deck will assuredly take over Standard at one point, but we can at least know that it’s capable of it. Watch for “almost played” lists for insight into what may take over the next Standard GP.

The Gilded Goblin

The Spread on Fate Reforged

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By: Jared Yost

Based on the work I’ve done previously for Khans of Tarkir (which you’ll want to read if you have no idea what I’m talking about when I mention spread), let’s take a look at the spread on Fate Reforged singles to see if we can tell where prices are going in the future.

Comparing Retail to Buylist

Let’s take a look at the Top 25 cards by retail price from Fate Reforged.

CARD NAME FAIR TRADE PRICE BEST BUYLIST PRICE SPREAD
Ugin, the Spirit Dragon $32.22 $23.50 27.06%
Monastery Mentor $19.80 $11.01 44.39%
Soulfire Grand Master $14.46 $9.70 32.92%
Whisperwood Elemental $13.40 $8.00 40.30%
Shaman of the Great Hunt $7.23 $4.00 44.67%
Tasigur, the Golden Fang $6.99 $4.01 42.63%
Brutal Hordechief $5.92 $3.01 49.16%
Warden of the First Tree $5.14 $2.51 51.17%
Crux of Fate $3.42 $2.15 37.13%
Outpost Siege $2.86 $1.55 45.80%
Torrent Elemental $2.78 $1.01 63.67%
Mastery of the Unseen $2.55 $0.75 70.59%
Valorous Stance $2.01 $1.25 37.81%
Temporal Trespass $1.96 $0.95 51.53%
Flamewake Phoenix $1.92 $0.60 68.75%
Citadel Siege $1.31 $0.48 63.36%
Frontier Siege $1.31 $0.31 76.34%
Mardu Strike Leader $1.31 $0.55 58.02%
Alesha, Who Smiles at Death $1.03 $0.14 86.41%
Soulflayer $0.99 $0.13 86.87%
Silumgar, the Drifting Death $0.96 $0.28 70.83%
Ghastly Conscription $0.95 $0.21 77.89%
Wild Slash $0.84 $0.23 72.62%
Monastery Siege $0.78 $0.10 87.18%
Kolaghan, the Storm’s Fury $0.77 $0.21 72.73%

One trend that should always be noted is that low spreads do not necessarily correlate with the higher priced fair trade cards. For example, even though Monastery Mentor has the number two retail price in the set at the moment, there are six other cards with lower spreads than the Mentor.

Warden of the First Tree has the highest spread amongst the cards in the top ten retail prices. The reason the spread is higher on Warden is because it only fits into one current archetype, Abzan Aggro, which needs to compete for demand in a field of other Standard deck possibilities. The best out for your extra Wardens is to trade them, since you’re hardly going to get half its retail value if you decide to buylist.

Now that we’ve gotten idea of what the desirable cards from the set are, let’s take a look at the list sorted by lowest to highest spread. This will better tell us which cards should be watched closely for price increases.

CARD NAME FAIR TRADE PRICE BEST BUYLIST PRICE SPREAD
Ugin, the Spirit Dragon $32.22 $23.50 27.06%
Soulfire Grand Master $14.46 $9.70 32.92%
Crux of Fate $3.42 $2.15 37.13%
Valorous Stance $2.01 $1.25 37.81%
Whisperwood Elemental $13.40 $8.00 40.30%
Tasigur, the Golden Fang $6.99 $4.01 42.63%
Monastery Mentor $19.80 $11.01 44.39%
Shaman of the Great Hunt $7.23 $4.00 44.67%
Outpost Siege $2.86 $1.55 45.80%
Brutal Hordechief $5.92 $3.01 49.16%
Warden of the First Tree $5.14 $2.51 51.17%
Temporal Trespass $1.96 $0.95 51.53%
Mardu Strike Leader $1.31 $0.55 58.02%
Citadel Siege $1.31 $0.48 63.36%
Torrent Elemental $2.78 $1.01 63.67%
Flamewake Phoenix $1.92 $0.60 68.75%
Mastery of the Unseen $2.55 $0.75 70.59%
Silumgar, the Drifting Death $0.96 $0.28 70.83%
Wild Slash $0.84 $0.23 72.62%
Kolaghan, the Storm’s Fury $0.77 $0.21 72.73%
Frontier Siege $1.31 $0.31 76.34%
Ghastly Conscription $0.95 $0.21 77.89%
Alesha, Who Smiles at Death $1.03 $0.14 86.41%
Soulflayer $0.99 $0.13 86.87%
Monastery Siege $0.78 $0.10 87.18%

Ugin’s Spread

The greatest point of discussion that we can draw from this is that Ugin, the Spirit Dragon has the highest retail price, highest buylist price, and lowest spread of any card from Fate Reforged. This highest spot in all three categories tells us some important information about the card. 

First, since he is played in Standard yet only played as one or two copies in any given deck, it means that there is gigantic casual demand for the colorless spirit dragon. No wonder! Being colorless means that he can literally just be jammed into any Commander or casual deck. Got a five color slivers deck? Throw Ugin in. B/R Goblins? Ugin’s good here. Is your Roon deck lacking burn? Ugin’s your man. So even though everybody only needs one or two copies, pretty much every single Magic player out there is picking them up as opposed to cards like Whisperwood Elemental which only a subset of players would need for a deck. 

Second, any card that is below a 30% spread is usually a good indication that it will further increase in price. Am I saying that the most expensive card in Fate Reforged could possibly get more expensive? Yes. There is a very real possibility that Ugin hits $40 or more during his Standard lifetime, just due to the fact that he is a popular casual planeswalker in addition to a huge Standard bomb. 

Last, the foil price is also an interesting area of discussion. Foil Ugins are currently almost $100, with just the amount of play that he is seeing now. That is almost unheard of for a Standard legal card. I’m not sure if foil Ugin will ever come down from the $90 highs, but my gut feeling tells me that there is more room for the foil to grow over time, especially if Ugin finds a home in a Standard deck that plays more than just one or two copies. That might seem farfetched now, however good mana ramp is always right around the corner and even though Nykthos is rotating doesn’t mean that we won’t have a suitable mana ramp replacement in the fall set. 

OK, so all in all what am I saying about Ugin? Essentially, given the demand for Ugin from the casual crowd in addition to his power in Standard, I’m saying that Ugin could be slightly undervalued based on the low spread that I’m seeing from the Fate Reforged top spreads data. Don’t be surprised if you see Ugins going to $40 and beyond next year. If you want an Ugin to play with, now might be the time to pick it up. 

Rest of the Top Ten Spreads 

Soulfire Grand Master is next on the list of lowest spreads, and this is a card that I’ve been highlighting since Fate Reforged has been available. It’s been showing up in Standard pretty consistently even if it might be fairly weak in the early stages of the game. The late game is where this card shines, and if you can stick a Master and cast even one or two spells with it you’re going to come out pretty far ahead. At this point, I’m hard pressed to see Master dropping below $10 retail since the buylist is so high. Similar to Ugin, I think the price here might also be driven by casual demand – after all, lifelink and lifelink spells scream casual to me and fulfill the demand of every casual player that has a lifegain deck. 

Crux of Fate is the best black sweeper in the format for now, however even with low spread I’m not entirely convinced. Its hard to see this card going above $5 since fewer and fewer control decks are seen in Standard these days compared to aggro or midrange. Still, if you need the card for Standard it certainly won’t be going down over the next year based on the data. 

Valorous Stance, an uncommon, has the fourth lowest spread in the set. This is big news for speculators looking to pick up a cheap target. I don’t think you can go wrong with Stance – it is a very playable card in Standard in Modern, it dodged a reprint in the latest event deck, is easily splashable at only one white mana in the cost, and is just an all-around flexible spell. Will this be the next $4-$5 Stoke the Flames? Unlikely, yet I do think there is some room for growth since it is an uncommon from a small set. 

Looking for other speculation targets based on price and low spread, we have Tasigur, the Golden Fang at $7, Shaman of the Great Hunt at $7.20, and Outpost Siege at $2.90.  Of these, Tasigur is the best speculation target for both foils and nonfoils. The best time to pickup your Tasigurs will be during the summer, since Magic Origins and Modern Masters 2015 will drive the spotlight away from him and potentially lower his price a bit more. He is a Standard and Modern powerhouse, and foils will be especially good targets for future gains. 

Trade Bait 

Cards that should be traded rather than buylisted if you’re looking to get rid of extras include Warden of the First Tree, Torrent Elemental, Flamewake Phoenix, and Mastery of the Unseen. These cards are pretty good in the right deck, however have narrow use in Standard which is why their spread is much higher than other cards on the high priced retail list. 

The only card I’m on the fence about (and I guess vendors are on the fence too since the spread is almost 50%) is Brutal Hordechief. Better to play it safe than sorry, so I would recommend holding onto your copies until we know if he will be played in any future Standard decks. Remember, Hellrider was insane in the right Standard environment, and Hordechief could easily follow in his Hellrider’s path if the opportunity presents itself. Not having haste is a huge downside but at least he still creates a trigger for every creature that attacks. Definitely a card to keep a close watch on even though the spread indicates that it might be worse than it actually appears. 

Final Thoughts 

Spread can definitely be one of the more powerful tools for picking undervalued cards because vendors aren’t playing around when it comes to buylist – they’ve also done their homework to set prices where they want them, and if a buylist spread is getting smaller and smaller it usually is only a matter of time before that card’s retail price rises as well. 

This time around, I’m more inclined to think that spreads could more easily shift since this is a smaller set where prices on mythics especially tend to get a little crazy if the card is super hot and in demand from several types of players. What do you guys think? Do the spreads add up or are vendors / players missing something about the higher priced Fate Reforged Cards? Do you see spreads changing pretty drastically depending on the results coming in over the next few months?

 

Accumulated Knowledge

PT Finance 101 and Deal or No Deal

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Good morning, and happy Pro Tour Friday! These weekends are some of my favorite all year. Even though we live in a time of plenty in terms of streaming Magic, there is just nothing like watching a Pro Tour. We’ll get to a couple of smaller topics as well, but I want to discuss what I am going to be doing this weekend, and what you should be doing also. We are also going to talk about my new favorite game in the whole wide world.

Pro Tour Finance 101

Before we begin, there are a couple things to know about Pro Tours to understand why they are unique. First of all, they have the highest stakes of any Magic tournament (outside of the new Worlds format, which is a closed event and only hosts 24 players), and they have very low attendance compared to most Grands Prix. Pro Tours are also in a weird space where they are open to the public, but are largely not considered public events. If you live near a city hosting a Pro Tour, it is cool to go check out, but there are largely not going to be the kinds of things catering to you that a GP might feature (don’t expect that $5 Commander pod to fire, for example). This used to not be the case, and for a while Wizards tried to offer other events to draw in people who weren’t local, but it largely didn’t work. Pro Tours were also briefly closed to the public, although that only lasted for maybe a year.

publicexecution

The reason why I stress the attendance aspect is because it directly impacts the amount of vendors interested in coming to the events. While big events like GP New Jersey or GP Las Vegas are great opportunities to buy and sell, Pro Tours are largely the opposite. According to the Wizards website, there were at most two vendors at Pro Tour Fate Reforged. There were three vendors at Pro Tour Khans of Tarkir, but none of the big names you would have expected to see made the trip to Hawaii. The last Pro Tour I personally attended was PT San Juan1 (what we would today call “Pro Tour Rise of the Eldrazi”), and there were actually a few big vendors there, but there was also the WPN Championship and a few other unique events happening there that same weekend.

A lack of on-site vendors means that players will often need to bring entire sets of Standard (or more!) to be personally prepared, or expect to pay a hefty premium to get the cards they want at the event. Add to this the fact that Pro Tours are occasionally held in somewhat exotic locales, and the scarcity becomes even more of a factor. Now, crazy “on the floor” prices for events are not anything new—but what they highlight is demand.

Widespread demand for a card means that several different testing groups have all “discovered” it, and that it factors prominently into the environment that is expected for the weekend. While the floor price most likely won’t stick in the outside world, the old one is sure to go up.

Something that is important to understand about Pro Tours is the impact that a restricted playerbase can have on a tournament. Since many of the elite players travel and prepare for the tournament far in advance, they are more likely to properly assess the hierarchy of threats in the format and develop a control strategy that is able to foil those threats. When given the opportunity, many of the world’s best players will opt to play a control strategy, as it typically is able to reward skill more than an aggressive approach. Perhaps to put it more accurately, better players will play decks that allow them to leverage their skill to an advantage. The upside here for us is that typically the cards that reward that style of play are more difficult to assess during spoiler season, and may currently be underrated.

Here are a few cards I am watching this particular weekend and why:

dragonlordsprerogative

Dragonlord’s Prerogative: I’ve been talking this up for a while, but the truth is that it needs to show up this weekend if it is ever going to. The “if dragon” clause doesn’t actually hurt you if you can’t meet it, and in some matchups it is going to be largely irrelevant. It’s good on rate, and buying in at the floor feels like a good opportunity (waka waka!).

Ojutai Exemplars: This card could very well be one of the best threats in Standard, or it could be a total bust. While the price has stayed pretty close to $7, the buylist price has actually risen since release. This could be indicating that demand for the card is strong and dealers don’t want to get caught with it out of stock.

The downside here is that if you go too deep on them, you’re going to be stuck with a bunch of copies of a white mythic four-drop that cost you $7 each. I’d snatch up a couple in trade as a hedge, or take a flier on a couple off of PucaTrade, but I’m not comfortable enough dropping about $30 on a set.

pitilesshorde

Pitiless Horde: Just like Prerogative, this card is so cheap that it won’t really destroy you if you don’t hit the mark on it. It’s a flexible threat that can be cast on curve in an aggressive deck, or very quickly close out the game in a control list. Black also has a lot of really sweet cards right now, so even a light splash for Thoughtseize is enough to cast this card reliably. Also, it matches up well against Ashiok, which seems like more than mere coincidence.

dromokascommand

Dromoka’s Command: In case you haven’t heard, I really like this card. I’m not sure about the financial upside here, since I’m not sure how much higher the price can go right now, but I wanted to be on the record that this card is bananas.

Dragonlord Atarka: This has sneakily gone up a couple bucks in the last few days. This is the kind of card that seems like an ideal target to try and cheat into play—and seems absolutely busted with multiple copies of Rescue From the Underworld. Of course, that is most likely not what is happening here, since a RG Dragons deck won the Standard Open last weekend (with two of these maindeck).

siegerhino

Siege Rhino: Haters are gonna hate, hate, hate, but he’s just gonna siege, siege, siege.

Deathmist Raptor: The card started presales around $5, and is now three times as much. If there is going to be a deck that takes full advantage of this card, it is at least being tested in preparation for this weekend. If it doesn’t appear, or the deck puts up an overall poor finish, these may begin to slip.

dragonlordojutai

Dragonlord Ojutai: This card has gotten expensive quickly. It definitely seems like a potential new UW Control finisher, but those typically only have one or two in the deck, not four. I actually expect this to start to go down, but if it does hit this weekend, I expect the deck to have four Dragonlord’s Prerogative in it.

Descent of the Dragons: Somebody is going to have an early feature match playing the deck that runs this and Battlefield Thaumaturge, and the hype train is going to briefly go crazy. The second you see this in round five or whatever, be ready to sell your Thaumaturges (if you have them). Neither card is something I like long-term, and the deck is, in all likelihood, not very good.

If you have any cards that you are watching, or want to talk about one I picked, let me know in the comments!

“Deal or No Deal”

Pack Wars is a game-play variant that has a lot of different rules depending on who you ask. My favorite version, however, actually comes from the sports cards community: any number of players open a pack, and the player that opens the most valuable card wins all the packs opened that round. This is a great way to familiarize yourself with prices and bust extra packs. It’s very quick, though, and the suspense doesn’t build much (you pretty much know if you’ve won or not when you see your rare). Last week, my long-time friend (and local game store owner) Eric and I came up with an elegant solution that we call “Deal or No Deal.”

There are two ways to play—head-to-head or multiplayer. I think the first option is the most intellectually enticing to me, but the second one is what we have played the most. Either way, I’m getting ahead of myself, so here are the rules.

Head-to-Head Rules: Two players split the cost of a single booster pack (packs are $3 at Eric’s, so each player would pay $1.50). Open the booster without looking at the contents, remove the token2, and shuffle the pack. You may have a neutral third party randomize the pack if you so choose. Then, place the contents face down and spread out. Roll a dice to determine who goes first (or something more creative if you so choose). The first player will pick one card and reveal it and move it to the side. Now the second player makes their selection, reveals it, and moves it to their side. This repeats until all of the cards have been selected. The cards you picked, you own. Hopefully you got the better picks! The idea here is that if you play twice (or an even number of times), you have the potential to “break even” by getting a rare half of the time, but you could also win twice in a row!

Multiplayer Rules: Same basic thing, but each player contributes a pack. This way, there are multiple rares in the “pool,” a higher percentage chance for a foil, and more tension. It is also possible to get multiple rares for your $3 (or whatever your particular cost of entry is), so there is the sneaky potential for value. This mode is a lot of fun, because you can track how many rares have been revealed, and it seems there’s always one that doesn’t get turned over until the very end.

This game solves some of the inherent problems with other Pack War games. In the “best card wins” arrangement, the winner is simply whoever opens the best pack—you know right away that your Harbinger of the Hunt isn’t going to take down their Dromoka’s Command, and typically the only “excitement” is seeing which bulk rare has the highest TCGplayer median price. This also doesn’t have the value negative center that “Flip It or Rip It” has—it merely redistributes the pot, not destroys it. Next time I play, I’m going to record a round and post it.

Well, that’s all for this week. Good luck this weekend, and come on, Dragonlord’s Prerogative!

Best,

Ross

P.S. I’m interested in doing a mailbag article soon because they are less work because they are fun and people love them. Got a question? Submit it in the comments.

1 I went as a railbird, not a participant.

2 Obviously this is difficult to do if you are using Innistrad and Dark Ascension packs, since the check cards have Magic backs. If you are doing that, I say leave it in. Suspense!

Casual Fridays

We All Lose at Pack Wars

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By: Cliff Daigle

We are about two months away from what is likely to be the biggest Grand Prix ever. Three sites worldwide, a format of Modern Masters 2015 sealed, and a cap of 10,000 players, of which 4,000 have already preregistered.

Las Vegas is a town that can handle such a crowd. That’s not the issue at all. It wasn’t an issue in 2013 when the Electric Daisy Carnival was in town the same weekend. There is no worry about finding a hotel, even with a holiday weekend involved.

My concern is that what you’re going to be spending to play in side events is not going to be a good return on your money.

Specifically, I’m talking about the lottery ticket that is opening booster packs.

There are instances where packs are worth it, but mostly, you’re gambling and losing…a philosophy that leads to casinos making billions off of the hopeful.

For me, and for you, opening packs is almost always a money loser.

I want to take five examples from Magic’s history and examine the value involved before making my case about Modern Masters 2015.

Case #1: Dragons of Tarkir

This is the new set, containing the new toys and the hot tech. Let’s say we can get a box for $100 even, including shipping and tax, a number that works out to roughly $2.75 per pack.

As of this writing, there are 26 rares and mythics that beat that price, and the set is only a few weeks into being sold.

Here’s the issue, though: there are 68 rares and mythics in the set, giving you a 38% chance of getting your money back per pack.

Let me put this a different way for you: You could buy a playset of Thunderbreak Regent, a playset of Dragonlord Atarka, and have enough for a set of Surrak, the Hunt-Caller…or you could buy a box that potentially has none of those.

Yes, you’ll get some foils, but the variance is not in your favor there either.

Case #2: Khans of Tarkir

How about Khans? There’s fetches, and Siege Rhinos, and lots more!

Well…no. Not really. As an in-print set, let’s say we get our box price down to $90. That’s $2.50 per pack, but as the set page shows, only 16 cards beat that price! At $2.62, one of them is the uncommon Monastery Swiftspear, so it doesn’t count. So 15 out of 68 means we have a 22% chance of making our money back with the rare.

Case #3: Modern Masters 2011

This set had the second-highest MSRP of any booster (remember, the Alara block all-foil packs were sold for $15!) at $7, and had a guaranteed foil in each pack. Currently, a box of 24 packs can be had for about $375, a price per pack of $15.60.

Of the 68 rares and mythics, a mere 13 beat that price. Elspeth, Knight-Errant is not pricey enough to earn your money back! Your success rate for nonfoils is 19%.

Case #4: Rise of the Eldrazi

Widely regarded as a blast to draft, this also has a host of expensive cards. The boxes go for about $600 plus shipping, giving us a pack price of roughly $17.

Only seven of the rares and mythics in the set beat that price, giving you a success rate of ten percent.

Case #5: Revised/3rd edition

Revised boosters for $50! As someone who bought lots of these for three bucks, half a Benjamin for one is stealing. It does not matter if you buy at the single rate, or the box rate of about $1800. Even if you got lucky on eBay and got a box for $1500, you’re still scratching a lottery ticket. There are exactly 10 cards worth more than $25 in the set, and no surprise, they are the duals.

Compounding the problem is that this edition has nearly twice as many rares as modern sets do: 121 of them, giving you a success rate of twelve percent.

One other note: don’t you dare buy loose packs, especially online. Box mapping is totally a thing and you will never ever snag one of those pricey mythics, and the foils will be looted out as well with use of a highly accurate scale.

For Revised and older, the packs don’t need to be mapped. The plastic of the booster is just translucent enough to allow someone a peek at the card located at the top of the stack if it has been slid up a little.

So what can we take away from all of this? Well, it’s clear that the best success rate is right now, with the newest set. Best, though, is still no guarantee, since it’s still 60/40 that you will lose money buying a booster pack and opening it.

This is going to be my philosophy with Modern Masters 2015, especially as the packs are $10 each. It’s possible that at first, there’s lots of $10 rares, and maybe by the time of GP Vegas, that will still be the case.

However, the more packs that get opened, the more the values will decrease as the supply goes up. This is a four-day event, and it seems reasonable to expect that vendors will be lowering their buy prices accordingly at the event as time goes on. So even if they are worth it at first, they won’t be for long.

I’m not saying you should never open packs, as you’re often paying for an experience. Some stores or events have $10 drafts, or Half Price Sealed type of things. Going to GP Vegas is going to be quite a time, and likely there will be some incredible stories. I encourage you to go and have that experience, but when it comes to calculating the value of the events (especially $75 side event sealed!) keep in mind that value is not always equal.

 

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