Misconceptions

April 8, 2015 Derek Madlem 20 Comments

“MTG finance.” Now there’s a loaded term. We’ve applied this label because we don’t really know what else to call this thing we do, but the label itself has created its own problems. Using the word “finance” implies there’s a science to this game we play. It teases the idea that factor X will move axis Y and we can adjust our position accordingly and make some money.

Comparing MTG finance to “real world” finance will quickly show you that we’re playing a game with money on the line and no real rules.

Take a look at Hero’s Downfall … what’s the card worth? Well, depending on which storefront you’re selling from, it’s worth between $7 and $8. So that means your Hero’s Downfall is worth at least $7, right? Do you have a TCGplayer store? No? Then it looks like yours is worth $4.75, minus the cost of mailing the card to Troll and Toad.

What’s Apple stock worth today? $125.32 at the time of writing this article. You know how much you’d get if you sold a share of Apple stock? About $125.32. You know how much Johnny Bigball’s Superbank would get for a share of Apple stock right now? About $125.32.

You see the difference here? I could go on about the invisible hand and all supply and demand and all that other nonsense, but this isn’t an article about Econ 101 … this is an article about shock lands. Wasn’t that obvious?

Misconceiving

One of the way Magic behaves differently is what I call the emotional aspect of pricing. Every card has an emotional impact on the people interacting with it. Some cards carry a price far higher than demand dictates because people “feel” that price is justified—our past experiences with a card shape how we feel about it going forward. This is part of why Timmy believes that Ulamog is worth $40, the card “feels” like it should be worth that much.

But I thought this was an article about shock lands?

Of course it is, we’ll get there. Part of that “feels” pricing is because of the herd mentality that occurs with card prices. We set a price floor for a card, or group of cards, and no matter what happens we don’t go below that line. It’s a phenomena we’re seeing with shock lands today.

Whaaaaaat? Everybody says that shock lands are a good pickup!

And we’ve certainly convinced ourselves to believe it. Even me.

And this is after I traded away more than 100 of the shocks I had acquired. Why would I do that? They’re a sure bet, after all?

Because they’re really … not. We were all promised that shock lands were the next fetch lands. We were told that these lands were more than just euphemisms for genitalia (go ahead, run all ten names through your gutter mind and tell me they’re not) and we bit onto that bait and swallowed it whole. Hook, line, and sinker.

Have you noticed what shock land prices have done since Return to Ravnica left Standard? With the exception of Steam Vents making a run during the Treasure Cruise fiasco, the answer is: NOTHING.

You know why? Traditionally, cards lose value at rotation, but that didn’t really happen with shock lands because the collective consciousness of Magic players everywhere said, “They’re going to go up,” and everybody mentally locked in that last price and essentially refused to budge.

But shock lands are the cornerstone of the Modern mana base! Everyone that wants to play Modern is going to need them!

Not so much.

Let’s do an experiment. We’ll look at the top 16 Modern decklists from this last weekend’s SCG Modern 5k and see how many shocks each deck runs … and we’ll go ahead and remove Tron and Affinity from that to ensure the averages don’t get skewed.

For starters, no deck ran more than five shock lands, and of those shock lands used, no deck ran more than three copies of any single one. Only two archetypes ran the three-set: Blue-Red Splinter Twin and Green-White Hatebears. The remainder of the decks ran only one or two of any given shock land in their lists.

But if you looked at fetch lands, with the exception of the Hatebears deck, which ran zero fetches, every deck than ran shock lands ran at least seven fetch lands, some as many as nine.

In the top 16 there were a total of 47 shock lands and 80 fetch lands. Where do you think I’m placing my bets going forward?

If you start plugging in four copies of any shock land into deck searches, you’re going to come to a conclusion: outside of Scapeshift and a couple fringe decks, you’re just not going to see four copies of any one shock land in a deck. The mana bases neither need nor want to run that many copies. This isn’t Return to Ravnica Standard where decks just ran twelve shocks and twelve M10-style dual lands.

We also have to take into consideration the Modern format’s player base versus Return to Ravnica Standard. I think it would be a very generous assumption that the number of Modern players is 50 percent of the number of players we saw during RTR Standard. Then look at the difference in the decks: Modern lists are running three to five shock lands whereas those Standard decks were typically running 10 to 12.

You could also go buck wild with comparative analysis of post-rotation price trends and see that cards typically “hit bottom” the January after they leave Standard and then start their slow climb back up from there. But the shock lands didn’t experience any “bottoming out” like you would typically expect—they’ve more or less held their pre-rotation prices with some minor slippages over the last couple of weeks.

Modern+

While we’re looking at the failings of shock lands, we would be remiss if we didn’t look at the fetch lands under the same lens. Fetch lands and shock lands are going to be reprinted cyclically going forward—count on it. Wizards has essentially told us that shock lands are the tier-one dual land for all prints going forward, so we know it’s going to be extremely unlikely that the fetch land / shock land relationship is ever going to be broken in Modern. This marriage is sure to last, but that does not mean that the fetch lands are going to remain faithful.

You see, here’s the thing. Steam Vents is a good partner, but you can ask any Scalding Tarn anywhere and it’s going to tell you the same thing: it would rather be with a Volcanic Island. Face it, Volcanic Islands are just sexier than Steam Vents and everybody knows it … but Steam Vents is still a reliable and dependable partner, and we love them for that.

Fetch lands have a bit more reach than shock lands because they’re getting action in Legacy. You can also check down Commander playability in favor of fetch lands as well.

Take a three-color deck, any three colors. What’s your mana base going to consist of?

Three shock lands – MAX.
Three dual lands – MAX.

Fetch lands … well, let’s say you’re playing red, green, and white.
Every fetch land other than Polluted Delta represents a dual land from your deck. I don’t know about you guys, but when I’m building a Commander deck, my first card is Sensei’s Diving Top. Every. Single. Time. I don’t know how you guys like your Tops, but I like my Tops served with plenty of shuffle effects.

Simply put, the fetch lands are more useful than shock lands and there are very few (plausible) scenarios where that changes. We also have to acknowledge that Modern’s mana bases are extremely diverse and are likely to continue down that road as Wizards digs deeper into its trove of dual-land designs.

Timeline

But Modern Masters II is coming out and Modern is going to be more popular than ever, right?

Sure, kid, keep telling yourself that. To me, Modern Masters was the super-soldier serum given to Steve Rogers that made him into Captain America, but is another dose going to have the same results? What about another dose after that? We’ll see some modest expansion of the format with Modern Masters II, but I doubt a second shot in the arm is going to turn Captain America into the Hulk.

For me, the writing is on the wall: shock lands were a bust and the potential upside pales in comparison to most other investments I could or would be making. I’ll take my time trading these away for more enticing prospects (like fetches or foil fetches) as the price is likely to stay in a nice stagnant holding pattern for the foreseeable future.

Even if these cards do creep up, there is a ceiling. Wizards will reprint these cards. It’s not a matter of “if” but “when” at this point. Ravnica was a blockbuster plane both times we visited, so you can be sure that it’s only a matter of time before we go back, and if Battle for Zendikar is any indicator, the amount of time between return trips to existing planes is likely going to lessen, especially with the new block structure going forward.

Placing your Bets

Do I think that shock lands are a safe bet to go up? Eventually, but probably not enough to warrant acquiring much more than whatever quantity you deem to be a “playset.”

Even as the self-proclaimed long-term hands-off guy, I don’t like shock lands as a “hold” any longer. I think the certainty of reprint combined with the reality of demand makes the window of opportunity on these cards far too narrow. What do you think?

EDIT: I should also point out that this is an article about shocklands, not about fetchlands. I’m not advocating fetchlands as the next fetchlands, they’re not. My goal was to point out why the old fetches DID have more success compared to shocklands.

The Gilded Goblin

Let’s Talk Promos

April 6, 2015 Jared Yost 3 Comments

By: Jared Yost

So we’ve got a few new promos on our hands. Historically, Wizards has used judge and World Magic Cup Qualifier (WCMQ) foils to distribute copies of cards that haven’t been printed in foil before or to add more copies of the card to the market because it is a tournament staple and needs to have a price reduction. Hopefully the Exemplar Program works out and distributes the same, if not more, copies of judge foils to the Magic masses. Because we’ve got some reprints on our hands this time that players have been clamoring about.

For additional insight into the price of judge foils, I recommend you read the piece written by Travis Allen last year when judge foil Force of Will and the others were released. It’s a good introduction to this article and will supplement my own opinions for the crop of new judge foils.

Damnation

Numero Uno on the list of reprints, at least from a casual perspective, players finally got their wish. However, be careful what you wish for. What players really wanted was for their Damnations to be reprinted in a much more widely distributed set – say, Modern Masters 2015 or even a Commander release. Why do I suddenly get the feeling that this no longer will be the case?

For starters, the inclusion of Damnation in Modern Masters 2015 has an almost zero chance of happening. Crazier things have happened, but I would be pretty surprised if Wizards decided to reprint this in MM in addition to including it as judge foil. That’s a ton of Damnations running around and I don’t think Wizards is quite ready yet to make the price of this card nosedive to Wrath of God levels.

When considering Commander, I believe Wizards was remiss about not including it in the C14 Sworn to Darkness deck though I understand their reasoning behind it. Simply put, they didn’t want a True-Name Nemesis situation repeat. The counterargument to this is that Damnation is a not a Legacy staple, and so would be less desired overall than TNN was on its debut simply because it won’t be an auto-include in several Legacy archetypes. I understand this point of view yet I think it severely underestimates the casual demand of this card. Many, many players finally want to get a copy of Damnation that doesn’t cost $45. Based on the value of other cards in the Commander decks, it would have only made the black deck absurdly higher in value than the rest. They could have offset this by printing a higher run of black-only decks but I think Wizards wants to avoid that type of scenario in the future. Thus, we’ve been left with a judge foil compromise.

The saddest part about this situation is that it won’t reduce the price of Damnation at all. The judge foils will be worth the same as regular copies (maybe a bit more, at least until the hype dies down) so the only bonus players are getting is that now they have a cheaper foil copy they can pick up.

Now in the not-so-distant future, one year or more from the release date, I could actually see the price of this judge foil Damnation fall to below the price of regular copies without a non-foil reprint. The Exemplar Program could actually wind up distributing more copies of judge foils than were on the market in the past. With an overabundance comes a price drop, and the same would be true for Damnation. If the judge foil falls pretty hard, say to $25 or lower, then I feel that is a pretty good price to get in on a casual staple that will be desired by Commander players.

Of course, everything I said above becomes completely useless if there is a Modern Masters 2014 or Commander reprint of Damnation this year. If Wizards does decide to bite the bullet on this and give us a non-foil reprint then my advice is to wait for the initial hype to die down, about three months or so, and then to pick up as many copies as you can fit into a suitcase. This card is casual gold and will always have some type of value as the black Wrath.

Dualcaster Mage and Feldon of the Third Path

Dualcaster Mage and Feldon were both featured in the Built from Scratch C14 deck and are powerful cards in their own right that can certainly find homes outside artifact-themed Commander decks. For discussion on their non-foil counterparts, I’ll refer you to my previous week’s article. Where foils are concerned, I would imagine that the prices would probably be around $20 to $30 range with the initial hype, however will eventually take an Overwhelming Forces turn and head back down towards the $14-$16 range.

One thing I’m not considering in this price is Tiny Leaders hype. Both cards are pretty decent in the format, and Feldon could even be a Commander, so the price might swing upwards to reflect that. They could even initially be as high as $50 each, though I believe that this price is pretty unsustainable in the short term. Long term, without reprints the foil prices are sure to climb. Either way, wait a bit for the hype to die down, and if you want a foil copy of either card the judge foil will be a nice acquisition.

Ravages of War

Now, here is a card that Cube enthusiasts and masochistic Commander players wanted to be reprinted! I think we can all agree that Wizards did this reprint right. Ravages of War was clearly a card that was maintaining an out-of-control price based purely on scarcity and not actual card utility. The price of this card is going to drop drastically due to this judge reprint. Since not everyone likes land destruction, there will be fewer players seeking out copies which means that this will further add to the price reduction. Do I think it will go below $100? Absolutely. Will it go below $50? That could actually be pretty likely. I think eventually this card will settle somewhere from $35 to $45, if I’m guessing at the demand correctly.

If it turns out that everyone wants this card for their cube, I could see it maintaining a price of $60 or higher like the current judge foil Armageddon. Though the only reason that this ‘Geddon has a $60 price tag is because it is the only nice looking foil of the card printed and the printing happened back in 2004, eleven years ago. So again, based on casual players hating land destruction and players wanting it only ever needing one for their collection, I feel that $35 to $45 is the eventual sweet spot. However, I don’t think the price will be that low initially, as it will take time to distribute more copies of the card onto the market. So expect prices of $60+ for some time until the card saturates the market.

Wasteland

I’m sure this came out of left field for some people. Another judge foil Wasteland reprint? Doesn’t it have two foil reprints already? Geeze, even with it being a freakin’ uncommon in Tempest the cheapest promo copies are $212 currently. Don’t fear though, this price will continue to decline once the new Wasteland hits the market. I think we’ll finally see judge foil Wastelands drop to below $100, which is a great thing for Legacy. It will help more players enter the format, as current players are able to upgrade their non-foil Wastelands, which will put more non-foils on the market for players looking to pick them up.

Legacy considerations aside, players do also like to have Wasteland for Commander since it can help get rid of pesky non-basics that might be bugging you. There will be some demand from casual, which will help bolster the price, however it is still coming down with this reprint.

Unfortunately, I don’t think this is going to have an effect on the price of Player’s Rewards promos since they feature the original Wasteland art and will always be the most collectable. The first judge foil printings will drop but these Player’s Rewards copies will be collectors items for the most affluent of Legacy enthusiasts. Though, at the end of the day it will be dropping other Wasteland prices across the board, so obviously that’s a good thing.

This judge foil reprint of Wasteland makes me think that the non-foil’s price is going to be volatile again this year. If Wizards continues to reprint Wasteland in this fashion, I think that the non-foil price will only continue to go down. I’m honestly not sure if Wasteland is a good card to hold onto for value anymore. If you guys feel differently, let me know in the comments, but from what I’ve seen pricewise Wasteland is only going down.

Thalia, Guardian of Thraben

I mean, just look at that art – this is clearly one of the best pieces Wizards has commissioned for a promotional card. Players are going to want this card, and because it is being distributed at all the WCMQ events there will be plenty of foils entering the market. That pretty much means that foil Thalia is never going above $30 for the foreseeable future.

Foil Thalias are currently around $30 per copy, which is significantly different than the non-foil price of $5. WCMQ Geist foils are only $5 less than their set foil counterparts, which means that this WCMQ Thalia foil will probably be around $25 once the dust settles. It is possible that some stores will upcharge based on the artwork and popularity of Thalia in Legacy, but I think that ultimately since it is a widely distributed foil that it will fall to slightly below the set foil’s value.

Now, the price of the non-foil is an entirely different matter. I think that non-foils at $5 are underpriced due to her popularity in Legacy, Modern, and Commander. Though this article isn’t about the non-foil counterparts, I feel that Thalia non-foils are due for a price increase soon without a reprint in a supplementary product.

Promo’ed Out

Between Commander, Duel Decks, Modern Masters, and Promotional Foils, Wizards sure likes to reprint cards these days. Judge Foils and WCMQ foils generally are ahead of the reprint pack in terms of price, due to their print run being somewhat limited compared to the other mass released products. Being foil and sometimes having alternate art also helps their cause, since these additions help the card become more collectable and desirable. However, just like with any other financial Magic endeavour, it’s best to try and get the most for our money. I think that promos like Dualcaster Mage and Feldon will start out high and then come down significantly as more are released into the world. For these types of cards, I would advocate on the side of patience to get the most bang for your buck in terms of promotional cards that you might want for a deck or cube.

Accumulated Knowledge

Back to the Future Sight

April 3, 2015 Ross Lennon 8 Comments

Welcome back! Go ahead and pull out last week’s homework when you sit down, and we are gonna go over it together once the bell rings. Oh, and if you have the signed parent forms and check for the field trip, I’ll take those, too.

So last week, I asked you to compare some of the more expensive cards from Avacyn Restored and Rise of the Eldrazi with new cards from Dragons of Tarkir. Now, my findings are not the full extent of this exercise, nor are they likely all correct. This is not a binary “right or wrong” question, but more of an exploratory practice to grow your own skills.

Give a man a fish, and he’ll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he’ll make money buying and selling Magic cards on the Internet. Uh, or something.

–Ross Lennon

The first thing I looked at were lands. None of these three sets had a cycle of rare lands that produced colored mana—but all three did have a marquee rare land¹ (Eldrazi Temple, Cavern of Souls, and Haven of the Spirit Dragon). Cavern of Souls is clearly the most versatile of the three, and it’s priced accordingly (remember, this is a card that even sees some play in Vintage), but Haven certainly has real-world applications. Like Temple, it slots in with a very popular creature type, and presents a very low opportunity cost for deck-builders in EDH. Both have the opportunity to get better over time (as more Eldrazi/Dragons are printed), but Haven also benefits from future forms of Ugin. Foils are likely the safest, but at $8, I may be tempted to wait a while.

All three sets contain above-average mono-red cards at mythic: Vexing Devil, Kargan Dragonlord, and Dragon Whisperer. This is most likely just a coincidence, although Zurgo is in DTK also. All four of the cards I just mentioned are Cube and Modern-worthy playables, though.

The majority of the value of the older two sets is tied up in mythics. If any of the marquee mythics (the elder dragons, primarily) tank at rotation, I would consider them a decent long-term option.

Did you see something I didn’t? Let me know in the comment section!

Turn In Your Papers—It’s Time for This Week’s Lesson

This week, we are going to do a little something different. Magic sets all have different values determined by the cumulative values of all of the cards in a given set. This value is most often assessed immediately upon release, even though that value is guaranteed to change over time. Some sets have the majority of their value tied up in a single card, like Dragon’s Maze, while other sets are full of expensive cards. The print run also plays a factor here, which is why Alpha and Beta are the two highest ranked sets in terms of overall value. Before we get too far into this, let me show you the formulas we will be working with:

FOR SETS WITH MYTHIC RARES:

(2R + 1M)/X

R = Combined value of all Rares in set

M = Combined value of all Mythics in set

X = Combined amount of mythics and twice number of all rares printed in set

FOR SETS WITHOUT MYTHIC RARES:

R/X

R = Combined value of all Rares in set

X = Amount of rares printed in set

These formulas may look familiar to you if you have an SCG Premium account, as they are the same that Ben uses for his preview articles. I hereby give him credit, although these formulas have existed for a very long time. You should write them down somewhere if you haven’t already. We are going to use these when we evaluate sets in the future, so expect to see them fairly often moving forward.

So anyway, as I was saying, obviously sets like Alpha and Beta occupy the top spots when you use these formulas to rank sets. But which Modern-era set has the highest value? The answer, of course, is Future Sight².

Using some rough estimates based on TCGplayer median prices, we get a combined set value of around $514. The set had 60 rares. Our formula tells us that the “average” Future Sight rare (and therefore booster pack) is therefore worth about $8.5. It is important to mention, however, that there is one giant, green, $200 outlier in this set, and its name is Tarmogoyf. Removing it from the equation drops the value to just over $5.25.

I cannot stress enough how important it is to always open a Tarmogoyf in a booster pack if at all possible.

–Ross Lennon

Future Sight, however, is more than just the Tarmogoyf lottery. The set was special in the sense that it precedes New World Order and the current era of design philosophy, and also features a ton of crazy cards that were designed to be unique. There are a lot of very good cards in this set. As a result, this set was very difficult to balance internally, and a lot of otherwise questionable effects got printed for the sake of being new and wild (hi, Bridge From Below!). Most of these cards (at rare, at least) have had some sort of Constructed-level impact, and have seen their prices develop accordingly. One of the important things to realize about Future Sight is that it’s “pre-mythic,” so every rare in the set is roughly as rare as ‘Goyf³. That’s a whole heap of potential.

I want to go through all of the low-end rares in Future Sight and see if we can find any diamonds in the temporal aether. Normally, I would say that I would do any card that is less than the price of a booster, but boosters of this set are… not $3. So we will stick to things that are largely $5 or under, but if I see any worthwhile exceptions, I’ll let you know.

Angel of Salvation: Even before being reprinted, this card was not very popular. Foils are under $5, which is the only foil version currently available. The card isn’t great, but it’s a rare angel and the foils have room to go nuts.

Remember, if angel collectors only cared about their cards being good, they wouldn’t be collecting angels. #HotTake

–Ross Lennon

Barren Glory: High ho, the dairy-o, The Cheese Stands Alone! And it’s obvious why. The best thing you can do with this card is get someone to draw Stinky Cheese Man on it—actually, that would be pretty cool. Foils are only about a buck, so I feel like that can’t be the worst way to spend a dollar.

Baru, Fist of Krosa: I actually think the grandeur legends would be pretty cool commanders, except that their best ability is literally blank in the format. Again, the foils are worth less than a pack of Fate Reforged, and the potential is infinitely higher. I don’t expect to see any of these guys again. Baru is competing with a slew of strong mono-green generals, however, and is probably never going to make the leap.

Bitter Ordeal: So this is the first card that’s above a dollar! It’s worth five of them! I’m not even sure where this sees play anymore—it’s definitely one of the weirdest cards in the set. I don’t think we will ever see enough demand for worse versions of Haunting Echoes and Cranial Extraction that this card ever surges past its current price. It’s a sorcery, which limits the upside a lot.

Darksteel Garrison: This card is really cool and evocative. Sadly, it’s only playable in Magic: The Gathering, which really doesn’t have a use for it right now. I’m starting to sound like a broken record, but the foils seem very cheap. I’m sure there’s a Commander deck that wouldn’t mind keeping its Eye of Ugin or something alive.

Epochrasite: Reprinted in MM1 (at uncommon!) and in Commander 2014. If every deck on Earth wanted four copies, that might be enough demand to pull it up over a dollar.

Force of Savagery: It… uhh… triggers Experiment One? This card has always been a trap for novice green mages, and there are so many better things you can do. I’d rather not make money off of these down the road than spend a dollar a piece on them. I have my pride.

Gibbering Descent: This is a black enchantment that costs six (or four) and doesn’t win you the game. Oh, and it’s better if you have no cards in hand! Necrogen Mists and Bottomless Pit are both much better, and Braids isn’t even a legal commander.

Heartwood Storyteller: The foils are roughly seven times the value of the non-foils. There’s potential, but it’s largely a Commander or Cube card, so they’re going to move much slower. It’s also only good in a small selection of decks, which limits potential. If you want some, get them in trade.

Imperial Mask: You know, there was a period of time when WOTC was really pushing Two-Headed Giant. I wouldn’t mind snatching up a couple of foils if they present themselves.

Intervention Pact: The range of quality in this cycle financially goes from bulk to more than $20. This is definitely the worst of the cycle, but it doesn’t target, and it requires double white to cast, so it’s always an option for Hive Mind. That doesn’t make it a smart buy, though.

Jhoira of the Ghitu: Reprinted in MM1 and competing with a couple other RU commanders. Foils are already $20, so pass.

Korlash, Heir to Blackblade: My heart breaks for this guy. He was actually pretty good in Standard for a little while! I’d play him in Commander. I still care about you, buddy. (Don’t waste your money buying any more than you want to play with, though—no potential here.)

Linessa, Zephyr Mage: Mono-blue commanders are largely formalities. Don’t expect to get much out of this card.

Maelstrom Djinn: Don’t make Fat Mhoti worse and expect people to pay more for it. That’s not how this works. Just take a second, compare this card on face to Delver of Secrets. Pass.

Magus of the Abyss: This is certainly the kind of card I could get behind. It’s good, but very fair for Commander. May be worth trading for a couple of foil copies, just because this feels like it could be in a Commander deck at some point.

Magus of the Future: I keep expecting to wake up someday and see these are super expensive, but it could also be in a pre-constructed deck at any point. There is a big spread between foils and non-foils, so there’s potential, but I’m not willing to stick my neck out on this one. If anything, this makes me like the other magi foils better.

Magus of the Moat: So turns out that resilience to Lightning Bolt costs about $397. I’m not crazy about these where they are, and this card is not Modern-viable. Pass.

Magus of the Vineyard: I won’t pretend to know enough about Tiny Leaders to say where this fits in that panoply. This could potentially fit in a number of formats, and I wouldn’t disapprove of trading for a couple of foils. I wouldn’t want to commit too much cash to getting them, though.

Molten Disaster: Reprinted and not very good. Pass.

Muraganda Petroglyphs: This is a card that encourages playing bad cards, costs four mana, and doesn’t even keep Force of Savagery alive. The flavor is neat, but if I found some of these in my closet, I would be thrilled to get more than a quarter for them.

Nihilith: This is the kind of card that I like in Cube. That’s why the foils are worth $2 and the non-foils are largely worthless. Not a viable spec target, but I’m going to go add one to my cube.

Nimbus Maze: This card took off right before Theros and hasn’t come back down. This is the type of cycle that I could see being printed someday, but is likely better in some of the other color combinations. If this card gets reprinted, I can see these actually holding or slightly increasing, because people might like the cool frame. That’s a small audience though.

Nix: This effect is largely not worth a card in your deck. If Bloodbraid Elf gets unbanned, I could see this price going up as a knee-jerk reaction, but the price will crater back down quickly. If there is any kind of spike, get rid of any copies you have immediately.

Oriss, Samite Guardian: Of this cycle, Oriss has the worst regular ability and probably the best granduer one (tied with Korlash). Pass.

Pact of the Titan: Like Intervention Pact, it’s good, but only in one deck. Also has been reprinted.

Pyromancer’s Swath: A trap and a reprint.

Quagnoth: This card exists only to make people think for a brief second that they opened a Tarmogoyf and then quickly break their hearts. I vehemently hate this card. It is also very bad and dumb.

Rites of Flourishing: Reprinted in M12, and very fair. The only demand is in singleton formats, so there’s more than enough supply.

Scourge of Kher Ridges: See my comments on Angel of Salvation, but replace “angel” with “dragon.” I never want to be in a situation where I cast this card.

Scout’s Warning: Did you know you can crack a Black Lotus on your opponent’s turn and cast this and Serra Avenger? If that’s your idea of fun, then buy these to your heart’s content, but you should probably look for a different hobby.

Seht’s Tiger: A 3/3 for four at instant speed with a worse Angel’s Grace attached. It has its uses, but they are not strong enough to inspire financial upside.

Shah of Naar Isle: This card lets your opponent draw three cards.

Shapeshifter’s Marrow: This is neat, but swingy and risky. I think I want to own one foil copy, but that’s it.

Shimian Specter: My brain is falling asleep.

Spellweaver Volute: Zzzzz…

Steamflogger Boss: Don’t. Just don’t. WOTC knows this won’t happen, but nobody at the company has the heart to tell you.

Take Possession: This was also reprinted as an uncommon.

Tarox Bladewing: This is worse than Oriss.

Thunderblade Charge: This is worse than Hammer of Bogardan.

Tombstalker: This is the safer version of Tarmogoyf. It has a price history that has been as high as $10, has evasion, is good in a lot of different types of decks, and is still respectable in Legacy. It was reprinted in MM1, and is the kind of card that I could see WOTC printing one or two more times, just because it is the kind of broken threat they want us playing with (as opposed to Griselbrand or Emrakul). It’s good in the mono-black Legacy decks that lots of players new to the format typically play at least once. It’s definitely worth owning a set.

Veilstone Amulet: Oh sweet, hexproof: everyone’s favorite mechanic. I could see this card being good in Tiny Leaders, since there are fewer board wipes in the format. I’m still going to pass, but I won’t think less of you for buying in.

Whetwheel: Of all the ways to kill someone with infinite mana, this is technically one of them.

That’s It

So we didn’t find very much. There are a few things with niche potential, but this was also an important exercise to demonstrate. Magic finance has gotten to a point where there are very few hidden gems left, so it’s worth doing a detailed analysis of sets with opportunity.

Thanks as always for joining me, and I’ll see you here next week.

Best,

Ross

BONUS!

Here is the formula breakdown for Modern Masters, which actually has a higher value than Future Sight (but wasn’t ever a Standard-legal set).

Combined value of rares: 371.25 (x2 = 742.5)

Combined value of mythics: 537.75

Total number of rares in the set (x2) plus the number of mythics: 121

The average price of the rare slot: 10.58

The average price of the rare slot (excluding Tarmogoyf): 9.00

Even with Tarmogoyf, the rare slot is only about half the price of the market value of an MM1 pack. Of course, the guaranteed foil slot is nice, but it’s too risky to predict.

1 Avacyn Restored also had the last three pieces of the Innistrad block rare land cycle (Desolate Lighthouse, et al), but those don’t really matter here since there is no parallel between the other two sets.

2 As in, the set that was standard legal. Don’t worry, we’ll get to you-know-what soon.

3 Impossible to say without seeing the sheets, but it’s close enough.

Casual Fridays

Asset Appreciation

April 3, 2015 Cliff Daigle

By: Cliff Daigle

So I’ve come to a decision: I’m selling my Kaalia of the Vast deck.

If you’re interested, here’s the decklist. I’m not trying to sell it to you. I’m not trying to stump for the prices using this bully pulpit, but the list of what is foil is instructive. I certainly did not spend or trade about $2,000 to acquire this deck, but the prices have all steadily increased from what I got them for.

As I’ve admitted before, I’m a collector. I really enjoyed having these unique and valuable cards in my deck, and playing a foil French Angel of Despair started some interesting conversations in games. Whenever I had a chance to pick up something outside the usual version, I went for it, and did so for years. As such, the value increased, and with some of my foils, I picked them up at their printing, when they were significantly cheaper.

I started this deck in 2011, when the Heavenly Inferno deck came out and when Commander really hit the mainstream of Magic awareness.

Today I want to go over some of the cards and the specifics on how/why they went up in value so much in the past couple of years, and see what trends jump out.

Akroma, Angel of Fury (foil)

This ‘alternate’ version of Akroma has not seen the same level of reanimation or love that the original has, but she remains a ridiculously powerful card. It’s only got one foil despite being in Heavenly Inferno, and she is the only mono-red Angel. There was once a combo involving turn 2 Radha, Heir to Keld and unmorphing Akroma on turn 4’s attack, but this increase in price is mainly due to age and availability.

Avacyn, Angel of Hope (foil)

This is the heavy hitter of any Angel deck. I have written before about how I expect her to headline FTV: Angels this summer, and her nonfoil price will take a hit but rebound nicely. Avacyn benefits from being incredibly powerful, in a popular tribe, and a mythic in a set that was widely regarded as unfun (and therefore opened less).

Kokusho, the Evening Star (CHK foil)

Interestingly, the Kamigawa foil is about $13 more than the Modern Masters foil, even for being the same card. The only differences are a line of flavor text and a set symbol. This card was initially deemed too good for Commander, and was banned for quite some time. Sheldon Menery used to give hints in his columns about cards they were ‘trying out’ and I got three Kokusho before the unbanning and subsequent price spike. Sadly, there’s no longer such indicators.

Gisela, Blade of Goldnight (foil)

She’s not as in-demand as Avacyn is, but many of the same price pressures apply: small sales, mythic, ridiculously powerful. Being two colors is the worst thing about her.

Aurelia, the Warleader (foil)

This is one of the most recent foils and at a multiplier of six from non-foil to foil, it’s an indicator of the casual appeal. Gatecrash sold very well, so that’s helping keep the price low. It’s one of the easier cards to cast, at only six mana, and that has probably put her into a few Cubes as well. Her synergy with Kaalia is undeniable, should you always play Aurelia a turn or two after Kaalia.

Iona, Shield of Emeria (foil)

First of all, her foil is sought after for Legacy Reanimator builds. This is one of the most powerful things to cheat into play, as it simply denies your opponent the ability to play spells. They aren’t countered, they aren’t exiled, they simply cannot happen. This is also one of the best Bribery targets in Commander. Zendikar is often regarded as a set that brought Magic to a new level of growth, but this is still in a lot smaller quantity than a mythic in Theros or Khans.

Baneslayer Angel (foil)

Being in two straight Core Sets should have her price lower than it is, but the power of this card is rather high. Five mana, flying, 5/5, lifelink, and a little protection was good enough to define Standard for quite a while.

Linvala, Keeper of Silence (foil)

Rise of the Eldrazi was ridiculously fun to play and a surprisingly deep set. This was opened at a very healthy clip for its season, and a little more afterwards. I remember my LGS choosing Rise drafts over M11 more than once. Linvala’s price has been creeping upward steadily for a while, a combination of her power in Casual formats and as an answer to many problems in Modern.

Swiftfoot Boots (foil)

The regulars are a dollar or less, from M12 and two Commander printings. The foils are $6, and it would not be a surprise to see then break $10 within a year, being the only chance you have to get them in foil. A foil-set reprint (Conspiracy 2 seems like a good spot for this) will impact that price somewhat, and should not be discounted.

Command Tower (foil)

Now, there’s two foil versions out there: the Judge foil, and the Commander’s Arsenal version. Both are a couple of years old, and aren’t terribly common, but the judge foil is still not hard to find.

Thespian’s Stage (foil)

I’ve written about this multiple times and this is the short version: Get the foils you need now. A reprint on this land is very likely, as it’s one of the best things you can be doing in Commander, but the foils are much more likely to hold their price for the long term.

Sacred Foundry, Godless Shrine, Blood Crypt (all foil)

Foil shocks are as safe as can be for the next five years or so. We had some pricey ones before Return to Ravnica block, and then the newer shocks have crept up to the $50 range, depending on the colors. The older shocklands provide a price ceiling, and while I don’t expect huge growth out of RTR/GTC foil shocks, I do see them at least holding steady. If I were trading Standard cards to get Modern ones, foil shocks would be my ideal targets.

So what lessons are there to be learned?

First of all, if you need to get foils that are not in print, go ahead and get them now. Waiting won’t make them cheaper. At best, they will be the same price, at worst, they will be much, much more. So take it from a collector, a foil hound, a magpie: Get them now and revel in it.

Secondly, the print run matters, but not as much as the Eternal play. Iona and Linvala’s foil prices reflect this. There are more foils of Iona out there, but she doesn’t see much play outside of being a one-of in Reanimator. If it’s a short print run, that will make a difference as well, and could be a factor sooner rather than later.

Finally, if you can stand to wait until foils are at their bottom, do it. This is not necessarily the time when they rotate out of Standard, but instead when supply is at their greatest.

For an example, let’s look at Sarkhan Unbroken. Right now, his foil is at a comfortable $50, and that’s nearly half what it was when the set arrived. In about six weeks, Modern Masters lands, and this summer, we’ll have Magic Origins. Origins’ arrival is when I’m hoping that Sarkhan’s foil will be $30-$40 or so, and that is a price I’m comfortable at. The power level in Commander and other casual formats just won’t let the foil go lower, and it’s likely to appreciate well.

I hope you’re able to look at foil appreciations and figure out what else we should be watching (Eidolon of the Great Revel at $30 is a fair price now, but it’ll be $45 by summer 2016) and picking up for our collections.

MTGPrice Blog