Best Bet: Booster Packs vs Fat Packs?

May 21, 2015 James Chillcott 10 Comments

By James Chillcott (@MTGCritic)

During the last few years, as my devotion to Magic: The Gathering as an alternate investment vehicle has grown, I’ve learned some (sometimes painful) lessons about sealed product.

If you swing by my place to check out my storage closet, you’ll find 12 sets of FTV: 20, a couple of cases of Commander 2013 decks and a half-dozen copies of the Dark Ascension Spiraling Doom Event Deck that I held onto just a bit longer than was wise. On the other hand, larger bets on foreign boxes of Khans of Tarkir, SDCC sets and Modern Masters have paid off huge for me.

As a result of my efforts, I can now confidently share the following general guidelines on sealed MTG investing with you:

Timing the market on the buying and selling of singles is more profitable than holding on to unlimited print run sealed product by a large margin, BUT you need to be good at both picking cards and timing the market. With singles, you also need to be on top of things day to day, rather than the month to month management you can generally get away with when managing your sealed collection.
Unlimited print run English booster boxes since Avacyn Restored have not shown positive returns, likely due to a dramatic stall in player growth since 2013 (see recent Hasbro investor presentations for details). This may weight against returns over the next few years, BUT a renewed period of player growth would likely reduce the trend.
Limited edition sealed products like FTV sets, Commander’s Arsenal and the San Diego Comicon sets are often the exception and can yield excellent returns in short periods of time if you can source them below market cost and time your exits near the highs.
Not all sets are created equal (think KTK vs. Dragon’s Maze), and choosing which sets to stash away is critical. When choosing a set, look for value spread across multiple cards, with a focus on cards that will appreciate in value due to demand from multiple formats, are hard to reprint often and were undervalued when on shelves (since this may indicate lower total products sales). Generally, fall sets are opened the most and spring sets and core sets the least, though this may change in 2015 with the new set release schedule.
The acceleration of Magic product releases, with regular fall and summer releases, additional ancillary product releases and the shortening of the Standard rotation schedule are all designed to ensure that existing MTG players spend more, and more often, eliminating the lulls between releases that once provided more opportunity for boredom to lead to the purchase of old products. (Note: This is pure theory, but I challenge you to outline other possibilities in the comments if you see reason.)

Now, all of that being said, I still generally put away a few cases of sealed product per year, choosing carefully. Recently however, it occurred to me that I had noticed some fat packs with price appreciation in excess of their corresponding booster boxes. In order to establish which product class was more likely to yield the best returns, I decided to take a look back at the last 30 sets worth of product, starting with M15, all the way back to Future Sight. To keep things simple, I limited my research to English language products.

(For the record, I’m a big believer in acquiring Russian, Korean, and Japanese boxes, in that order, especially for sets that are likely to yield relevant high end foils. This is on the basis that the foils in those languages hold multipliers in the 3-7x range, and therefore tend to contribute to sealed values down the road at levels far beyond their original cost, which can be as little as $20 more than a regular booster box.)

I have assumed that the average cost of a booster box for our purposes is $90 USD, and that the corresponding cost of a Fat Pack is $30 USD, based on the easily accessed pricing that has been popular for years on both products via online vendors. To establish current value I looked at Ebay, TCGPlayer and StarCityGames and selected the lowest priced copy available, including shipping within the US. It’s worth noting that actual sell prices can sometimes vary due to late night Ebay sniping, but because the pricing across the three major platforms tended to cluster within 5% of each other, I felt good about using the established market pricing.

Here’s what the research had to say about the last 30 sets worth of Booster Boxes.

Booster Box Research

				Current Price
Set	Release Date	Original Box Price	Ebay (BIN)	TCG	SCG	Lowest Available	Raw Return	Raw % Return	Annualized Return	Current Date
M15	7/18/2014	$90.00	$83.00	$93.00	$100.00	$83.00	-$7.00	-7.78%	-9.25%	5/21/2015
Journey Into Nyx	5/2/2014	$90.00	$84.00	$88.00	$100.00	$84.00	-$6.00	-6.67%	-6.34%	5/21/2015
Born of the Gods	2/7/2014	$90.00	$85.00	$86.00	$100.00	$85.00	-$5.00	-5.56%	-4.33%	5/21/2015
Theros	9/27/2013	$90.00	$90.00	$90.00	$100.00	$90.00	$0.00	0.00%	0.00%	5/21/2015
M14	7/19/2013	$90.00	$79.00	$88.00	$100.00	$79.00	-$11.00	-12.22%	-6.65%	5/21/2015
Dragons Maze	5/3/2013	$90.00	$70.00	$80.00	$90.00	$70.00	-$20.00	-22.22%	-10.84%	5/21/2015
Gatecrash	2/1/2013	$90.00	$80.00	$90.00	$100.00	$80.00	-$10.00	-11.11%	-4.83%	5/21/2015
Return to Ravnica	10/5/2012	$90.00	$98.00	$102.00	$110.00	$98.00	$8.00	8.89%	3.39%	5/21/2015
M13	7/13/2012	$90.00	$75.00	$95.00	$90.00	$75.00	-$15.00	-16.67%	-5.84%	5/21/2015
Avacyn Restored	5/4/2012	$90.00	$139.00	$140.00	$150.00	$139.00	$49.00	54.44%	17.87%	5/21/2015
Dark Ascension	2/3/2012	$90.00	$120.00	$115.00	$120.00	$115.00	$25.00	27.78%	8.43%	5/21/2015
Innistrad	9/30/2011	$90.00	$220.00	$221.00	$225.00	$220.00	$130.00	144.44%	39.67%	5/21/2015
M12	7/15/2011	$90.00	$92.00	$104.00	$100.00	$92.00	$2.00	2.22%	0.58%	5/21/2015
New Phyrexia	5/13/2011	$90.00	$345.00	$350.00	$350.00	$345.00	$255.00	283.33%	70.40%	5/21/2015
Mirrodin Besieged	2/4/2011	$90.00	$162.00	$166.00	$150.00	$150.00	$60.00	66.67%	15.53%	5/21/2015
Scars of Mirrodin	10/1/2010	$90.00	$224.00	$200.00	$200.00	$200.00	$110.00	122.22%	26.35%	5/21/2015
M11	7/16/2010	$90.00	$120.00	$141.00	$140.00	$120.00	$30.00	33.33%	6.87%	5/21/2015
Rise of the Eldrazi	4/23/2010	$90.00	$600.00	$606.00	$600.00	$600.00	$510.00	566.67%	111.56%	5/21/2015
Worldwake	2/2/2010	$90.00	$640.00	$776.00	$800.00	$640.00	$550.00	611.11%	115.33%	5/21/2015
Zendikar	10/2/2009	$90.00	$515.00	$547.00	$600.00	$515.00	$425.00	472.22%	83.79%	5/21/2015
M10	7/17/2009	$90.00	$195.00	$160.00	$200.00	$160.00	$70.00	77.78%	13.30%	5/21/2015
Alara Reborn	4/30/2009	$90.00	$265.00	$300.00	$250.00	$250.00	$160.00	177.78%	29.33%	5/21/2015
Conflux	2/6/2009	$90.00	$435.00	$526.00	$450.00	$435.00	$345.00	383.33%	60.97%	5/21/2015
Shards of Alara	10/3/2008	$90.00	$333.00	$361.00	$350.00	$333.00	$243.00	270.00%	40.71%	5/21/2015
Eventide	7/25/2008	$90.00	$327.00	$377.00	$400.00	$327.00	$237.00	263.33%	38.59%	5/21/2015
Shadowmoor	5/2/2008	$90.00	$500.00	$490.00	$600.00	$490.00	$400.00	444.44%	63.00%	5/21/2015
Morningtide	2/1/2008	$90.00	$425.00	$430.00	$400.00	$400.00	$310.00	344.44%	47.16%	5/21/2015
Lorwyn	10/12/2007	$90.00	$715.00	$590.00	$700.00	$590.00	$500.00	555.56%	72.99%	5/21/2015
10th Edition	7/14/2007	$90.00	$335.00	na	$300.00	$300.00	$210.00	233.33%	29.70%	5/21/2015
Future Sight	5/4/2007	$90.00	$628.00	na	$800.00	$628.00	$538.00	597.78%	74.24%	5/21/2015

Note: If the table doesn’t look good on your mobile device, you might have better results viewing my original spreadsheets in Google Docs.

And here is the research on Fat Packs:

Fat Pack Research

				Current Value
Set	Release Date	Original Avg Price	Ebay (BIN)	TCG	SCG	Lowest Available	Raw Return	Raw % Return	Annualized Return	Current Date
M15	7/18/2014	$30.00	$48.00	$40.00	$40.00	$40.00	$10.00	33.33%	39.63%	5/21/2015
Journey Into Nyx	5/2/2014	$30.00	$30.00	$30.00	$40.00	$30.00	$0.00	0.00%	0.00%	5/21/2015
Born of the Gods	2/7/2014	$30.00	$28.00	$30.00	$40.00	$28.00	-$2.00	-6.67%	-5.20%	5/21/2015
Theros	9/27/2013	$30.00	$45.00	$40.00	$50.00	$40.00	$10.00	33.33%	20.24%	5/21/2015
M14	7/19/2013	$30.00	$39.00	$35.00	$40.00	$35.00	$5.00	16.67%	9.07%	5/21/2015
Dragons Maze	5/3/2013	$30.00	$30.00	$30.00	$30.00	$30.00	$0.00	0.00%	0.00%	5/21/2015
Gatecrash	2/1/2013	$30.00	$37.50	$40.00	$45.00	$37.50	$7.50	25.00%	10.88%	5/21/2015
Return to Ravnica	10/5/2012	$30.00	$56.00	$56.00	$60.00	$56.00	$26.00	86.67%	33.02%	5/21/2015
M13	7/13/2012	$30.00	$46.00	$45.00	$40.00	$40.00	$10.00	33.33%	11.68%	5/21/2015
Avacyn Restored	5/4/2012	$30.00	$83.00	$76.00	$100.00	$76.00	$46.00	153.33%	50.33%	5/21/2015
Dark Ascension	2/3/2012	$30.00	$48.00	$50.00	$60.00	$48.00	$18.00	60.00%	18.20%	5/21/2015
Innistrad	9/30/2011	$30.00	$123.00	$128.00	$120.00	$120.00	$90.00	300.00%	82.39%	5/21/2015
M12	7/15/2011	$30.00	$54.00	$50.00	$40.00	$40.00	$10.00	33.33%	8.65%	5/21/2015
New Phyrexia	5/13/2011	$30.00	$93.00	$91.00	$99.00	$91.00	$61.00	203.33%	50.52%	5/21/2015
Mirrodin Besieged	2/4/2011	$30.00	$64.00	$60.00	$60.00	$60.00	$30.00	100.00%	23.29%	5/21/2015
Scars of Mirrodin	10/1/2010	$30.00	$68.00	$65.00	$60.00	$60.00	$30.00	100.00%	21.56%	5/21/2015
M11	7/16/2010	$30.00	$49.95	$47.00	$50.00	$47.00	$17.00	56.67%	11.69%	5/21/2015
Rise of the Eldrazi	4/23/2010	$30.00	$280.00	$175.00	$250.00	$175.00	$145.00	483.33%	95.15%	5/21/2015
Worldwake	2/2/2010	$30.00	$275.00	$285.00	$300.00	$275.00	$245.00	816.67%	154.13%	5/21/2015
Zendikar	10/2/2009	$30.00	$300.00	$300.00	$300.00	$300.00	$270.00	900.00%	159.70%	5/21/2015
M10	7/17/2009	$30.00	n/a	n/a	$130.00	$130.00	$100.00	333.33%	57.01%	5/21/2015
Alara Reborn	4/30/2009	$30.00	$111.00	$118.00	$120.00	$111.00	$81.00	270.00%	44.55%	5/21/2015
Conflux	2/6/2009	$30.00	$120.00	$150.00	$130.00	$120.00	$90.00	300.00%	47.71%	5/21/2015
Shards of Alara	10/3/2008	$30.00	n/a	$181.00	$150.00	$150.00	$120.00	400.00%	60.31%	5/21/2015
Eventide	7/25/2008	$30.00	$105.00	n/a	$120.00	$105.00	$75.00	250.00%	36.63%	5/21/2015
Shadowmoor	5/2/2008	$30.00	$155.00	n/a	$200.00	$155.00	$125.00	416.67%	59.06%	5/21/2015
Morningtide	2/1/2008	$30.00	$134.00	$138.00	$150.00	$134.00	$104.00	346.67%	47.46%	5/21/2015
Lorwyn	10/12/2007	$30.00	$227.00	$241.00	$250.00	$227.00	$197.00	656.67%	86.28%	5/21/2015
10th Edition	7/14/2007	$30.00	$145.00	n/a	$120.00	$120.00	$90.00	300.00%	38.18%	5/21/2015
Future Sight	5/4/2007	$30.00	$200.00	$252.00	$250.00	$200.00	$170.00	566.67%	70.38%	5/21/2015

Note: If the table doesn’t look good on your mobile device, you might have better results viewing my original spreadsheets in Google Docs.

So what does this info tell us? Let’s take a look at the average annualized returns (proper return on investment calculations, taking into account the discounting of returns over the time period in question).

Booster Boxes vs Fat Packs

	Annualized Gain
Set	Booster Box	Fat Pack
M15	-9.25%	39.63%
Journey Into Nyx	-6.34%	0.00%
Born of the Gods	-4.33%	-5.20%
Theros	0.00%	20.24%
M14	-6.65%	9.07%
Dragons Maze	-10.84%	0.00%
Gatecrash	-4.83%	10.88%
Return to Ravnica	3.39%	33.02%
M13	-5.84%	11.68%
Avacyn Restored	17.87%	50.33%
Dark Ascension	8.43%	18.20%
Innistrad	39.67%	82.39%
M12	0.58%	8.65%
New Phyrexia	70.40%	50.52%
Mirrodin Besieged	15.53%	23.29%
Scars of Mirrodin	26.35%	21.56%
M11	6.87%	11.69%
Rise of the Eldrazi	111.56%	95.15%
Worldwake	115.33%	154.13%
Zendikar	83.79%	159.70%
M10	13.30%	57.01%
Alara Reborn	29.33%	44.55%
Conflux	60.97%	47.71%
Shards of Alara	40.71%	60.31%
Eventide	38.59%	36.63%
Shadowmoor	63.00%	59.06%
Morningtide	47.16%	47.46%
Lorwyn	72.99%	86.28%
10th Edition	29.70%	38.18%
Future Sight	74.24%	70.38%
Average Gain/Year	30.72%	44.75%
Average Gain/Year (Sets Older than 3 years)	46.02%	58.25%

So there you have it. In comparing the average returns for booster boxes vs. Fat Packs over the last thirty sets, there is no question that Fat Packs are the superior investment, beating booster boxes by 15% on average over the last 30 sets and by 12% when considering sets older than three years old.

Why might this be? Here’s my theory:

Magic: The Gathering is a collectible card game and Fat Packs are more collectible than regular boxes because of the inclusion of dice, set guides, card boxes and (at one point) novels.
The price point on Fat Packs, both at release and down the road, is significantly below that of the booster boxes. Retail theory generally suggests that you will sell more of lower cost items than higher cost ones.
As pointed out by Spencer in the comments, Fat Packs are generally thought to be printed in a single wave up front and therefore significantly more limited than Booster Boxes. This is also likely to be a key contributing factor to their increased returns.

In short, there’s more demand for Fat Packs because they’re more collectible and they cost less, leading to naturally better returns. Even when considering the low returns on recent sets, Fat Packs for KTK and M15 stand out as having appreciated earlier than their corresponding booster boxes.

Best Bet? Go for Fat Packs over Booster Boxes.

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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UNLOCKED PROTRADER: Left Behind

May 20, 2015 Travis Allen 4 Comments

By: Travis Allen

Over the last two weeks, we’ve looked at the complete Modern Masters 2015 spoiler. We explored lots of individual cards, what this printing means for their price outlook, and the texture of the set overall. I wanted to make sure we all had as much insight as possible into what was hitting the streets, so that when it does, we’ll all be ready.

One thing I didn’t cover yet that is quite important, like yin to yang, is not what’s in the set, but what’s not in the set. The absence of some cards will have just as dramatic an impact on the market as the inclusion of others will. After all, when Emrakul, the Aeons Torn was spoiled, prices didn’t crash overnight. Yet once the full spoiler hit and Inkmoth Nexus was nowhere to be found, it more than doubled in hours. Keeping tabs on what’s in the pipeline and not standing in the way when the reprint bus barrels down the street is a good way to make sure you don’t lose money, but if you want to make money, you need to be paying attention to what’s not showing up on time.

Today, we’re looking for the gaps and the omissions. Our goal is to understand some of the reasons some of these cards may not have made it in, where they may show up next, and what all of this means for prices over the next six months.

Serum Visions

Visions is perhaps the most egregious offender in this roundup, with public discussion regarding its curious absence more prevalent than any other card. As a $10 common played in roughly one-fourth of all Modern decks, what could possibly be a better option for a reprint? Many, myself included, thought it was coming all the way back in September when the art for Omenspeaker was revealed independent of the rules text. When the Theros block, which even contained scry, came and went without Visions, we were all a bit confused. Expectations shifted, placing Visions in MM2015. It all felt a bit like I imagine a doomsday cult must feel when the day of rapture comes and goes without even thunderstorms. People mill aimlessly, dazed, lost. Where are the Visions?

My guess is that Wizards got caught with its pants down on this one. About a year ago, Visions was about $6—expensive, but not yet out of control. A year prior to that, it was between $2 and $3, which is true of many commons and no cause for concern. It sounds as if R&D may have considered Visions briefly for MM2015, but after deciding scry wasn’t making it in the set, chose instead to print it as a summer FNM promo. They hoped that the FNM promo would be enough to keep the price in check, not realizing that the card was destined to gain another $4 to $7 by the time MM2015 was on shelves. Unfortunately, FNM promos almost never do much to prices. Supply is low and alternate art often drives those with existing copies to acquire the promo. The new artwork for Visions is dramatic, and the result is that many that already own playsets of the Fifth Dawn copies will want a new set anyway.

Wizards is now stuck. Visions is badly in need of a larger reprint and there’s nowhere for it to go. It missed Elspeth versus Kiora, it missed MM2015, it’s terrible in Commander, and no expansion sets will have scry anytime soon.

At this point, my thinking is that there are two potential lines for Visions to take. The first is that Wizards is going to make scry evergreen, as has been done with hexproof. It’s not a terribly complicated mechanic, and it provides an additional knob with which to balance spells. If this comes to pass, it could show up in any Standard-legal set. Is any of this likely? I can’t say that it is, but it’s one possible avenue.

The second possibility is that Wizards may shoehorn it into Zendikar versus Eldrazi or this spring’s planeswalker Duel Deck. Either would be an appropriate place to include it. We saw Remand included in Jace versus Vraska last spring, which was no different.

There exists an opinion that the absence of Visions indicates a banning on the horizon. There are a variety of reasons I don’t believe that to be the case. Rather than detail them all, suffice to say that it’s possible, yet I’m not operating as if it will come true.

Unless scry becomes evergreen and is printed in Origins, none of the reprint avenues will do much to dramatically reduce the price. Showing up in a Duel Deck will take a notch out of it, sure, but not down to $3 or $5 levels. Mostly, it seems like Serum Visions is slated for continued growth, with $15 or $20 possible this summer. I’m not saying it will rise that high, but with no extra copies on the horizon and a mild panic regarding its absence, it’s not outside the realm of possibility. I’m happy to take these in trade in the short term. Pick them up now, ride any gains we see through the Modern PreTQ season, and ship them if they ever hit $15. Keep a personal set, and see just how high a modern-border common can go.

Goblin Guide

As a contender for “card your opponent hates you most for casting on turn one,” Goblin Guide has been a tool of sadists in Modern since the birth of the format. With the recent “what the hell were they thinking” printing of Eidolon of the Great Revel, Guide has only gotten stronger. It spiked dramatically last summer, and lately has been hanging around in the $20 range. It’s possible that part of the reason it didn’t hang around closer to $30 was because people expected it to show up in MM2015. Now that it hasn’t, what’s the play?

My guidance is to stay away. When Visions didn’t appear in the full spoiler, everyone was left asking, “Well then, just where the heck are they going to put it?” and, “Why is Travis using so many fake quotations?” With Goblin Guide, though, it’s just been, “Oh, I guess it’s in Battle for Zendikar.” Guide can show up in theoretically any expansion set, so long as it’s balanced around its presence. With no keywords and a name that doesn’t tie it to a specific plane, it’s the closest thing Magic has to a free agent. Knowing this, if we own speculative copies, we’re going to be biting our fingernails about whether Goblin Guide is going to show up every single time a spoiler season starts. This isn’t a position I’d like to be in. Even if they don’t reprint Guide this year and it ends up at $40, we can’t feel bad about staying away. Remember, be process-oriented.

Aven Mindcensor

While Serum Visions is the most obvious missing common in Modern Masters 2015, I find Aven Mindcensor to be the most glaring omission in the silver slot. Mindcensor has been running around Modern and Legacy for years now with a peak price of $15 for nearly all of last year. That price has since come down to around $10, but without any extra copies entering the market, we may see that number climb back towards or even north of its previous peak.

Magic 2015 brought with it Hushwing Gryff, another 2W 2/1 flash flyer with hateful text. At first blush, it seems that Aven Mindcensor may be primed to take over that slot this summer in Origins. After all, like Goblin Guide, there’s no keywords or flavor on the card that would prevent its inclusion in a core set or other expansion.

And yet, I’m highly suspect of the theory that we see it in either Origins or Battle for Zendikar. Why? Well, part of the reason Mindcensor is so popular is that it hoses fetch land activations. When someone cracks a Scalding Tarn, you flash down Mindcensor in response, and then they can only look at the top four to find an island or a mountain. No luck? Too bad. It’s a way for hatebear style decks to restrict an opponent’s resources while simultaneously applying pressure.

My concern is just how powerful this effect can be. Modern is a faster format, where losing your third or fourth land doesn’t necessarily lock you out of the game. There’s plenty of powerful ways to answer Mindcensor, such as Electrolyze or Forked Bolt. It’s dead against some opponents, and a format like Modern typically punishes dead cards much harder than Standard does.

Mindcensor in Standard would be much stronger. Games go longer and average spell costs are much higher. Stopping someone’s fifth or sixth land in Modern is often irrelevant, but in Standard, it’s still possibly a completely backbreaking play. It effectively becomes an instant-speed Stone Rain for 2W that also leaves behind a 2/1 flyer.

So long as fetch lands are in Standard, I don’t think we’ll see Mindcensor. The effect is simply much stronger in Standard than Modern as long as fetches are running around, and it’s strong in exactly the way Wizards doesn’t want it to be. Perhaps next spring, when Khans and the fetches rotate out, we’ll see Mindcensor show up. Until then, assuming Wizards doesn’t want it in Standard, it’s in the same boat that Serum Visions is: the two Duel Deck releases and maybe Commander product. If that’s the case, the short-term outlook for Mindcensor is quite rosy.

Inkmoth Nexus

This would have been great to talk about if it didn’t spike within 24 hours of the full spoiler dropping. As is: sell extras, stay away.

Blood Moon

The land denial strategy of choice in Modern, Blood Moon has a whopping five printings in the wild, and still clocks in at $30 today. Advocates of format accessibility (AFAs) were desperately hoping to see some full moon action in MM2015, but alas, we’ve seen no such exposure. There’s little debate regarding this one, either. While BMing is satisfying, it’s simply not an appropriate thing to do at your card store every Friday night. Very few would consider this a reasonable card to print in Standard, so we’re exclusively looking at supplementary product for more copies. Once again, that leaves us with a short list: upcoming Duel Decks and Commander product. Blood Moon would be a rather odd inclusion in the DD series, and putting it in a product aimed at EDH players is sure to piss off a huge swath of kitchen-table players that just want to be able to cast their spells.

We’ve seen consistent and unchecked growth on Blood Moon so far, and at this point I see no reason for it to abate. No more copies are on the horizon, avenues for reprint won’t bring many to the market anyways, and this card’s price ceiling is at least $10 away. I’m expecting $40 before the end of the year, possibly higher. Trade accordingly.

What Else?

The list of cards not in MM2015 is of course much longer than the list of cards above. I’ve captured several high-profile cards here, but I’m sure there are many more out there that stand to gain. Infect commons like Vines of Vastwood and Might of Old Krosa come to mind. What others have you noticed and think are ripe opportunities?

Jason Alt, ProTrader, Unlocked ProTrader

UNLOCKED PROTRADER: I Believe You Have My Staples

May 20, 2015 Jason Alt 9 Comments

By: Jason Alt

Look, I’m not going to insult your intelligence by publishing an article the thrust of which is, “Hur, pay attention to stuff.” Well, I mean, I might do that, but I want to let you know up front that although that may end up being the thrust of this article, it’s not the only point I want to make. You probably understand you need to pay attention to stuff, so I hope I can tell you what and why without making you feel like a dummy.

Why bring it up at all? Because I think an important part of being a good financier is paying attention to stuff you couldn’t give a hot $#^@ about. I don’t expect you to care about or play every format. I couldn’t possibly care less about Standard as a format if next week I had to play in a tournament where the prize for first place was, “We don’t kill your family.” That’s a weird prize to offer, but Standard is a weird and stupid format and if you like it, that’s cool and most Magic players agree with you, but just know that you’re wrong.

There are lots of formats I don’t actually care about, and you probably don’t care about. Five-Color. Pauper. Type 4. Momir Vig with paper cards. But you can bet that if there were money to be made in those formats, I’d be advising you to read everything you could about them. And why not? This is about learning what we need to learn to start stacking that scrilla. Super high piles. You remember that pile of cocaine on Tony Montana’s desk in Scarface? That movie was awesome. What was I talking about? Right, scrilla. Specifically, where the scrilla resides.

Let Others Care For You

I keep getting more and more messages, tweets, emails, and LinkedIn link requests each week from people who tell me they love the financial information in this article, like they’re surprised. You actually don’t have to care about EDH to make money off of price movements or stocking your binder with just the right bait. It’s almost magical that way. There are already a ton of people who care about EDH, and they care a lot. Good!

Make no mistake, I’m one of the people who cares about EDH, but I promise you that even if I didn’t, I’d still leverage this community to stay ahead of price movements and stock up. The best way to leverage them is to see what they’re talking about. How to do that? Why not go where they hang out and talk EDH? Let’s talk about a few resources.

Tapped Out

Tapped Out is a great, great site. It does a good job of policing the community by making it a difficult process to sign up for an account. Also, the EDH community may have a high nerd saturation, but it has a very low troll saturation, so an EDH-focused website is bound to be pretty troll-free. In fact, the people on Tapped Out are usually the opposite, going out of their way to help people focus.

Take a look at this post. The author created a decklist and it’s pretty decent. Scroll down and you will see helpful community contributors suggesting cards that should be in the deck. You are likely to see cards you didn’t know existed, and that’s okay. What you do when you see a card like that matters, though.

Someone on this page suggested the card Nomad Mythmaker for the deck. Click on the highlighted name to be taken to this page, where you get some info about the card, including its TCGplayer price data and the threads where the card is discussed. Mythmaker is almost exclusively discussed in the context of Bruna, the Light Alabaster and Uril, the Miststalker decks. That means the card is a bit narrow. Still, it’s old, underprinted, and is a very, very good card for this role. Tapped Out also has a very cool tab system that gives a lot of great info.

You can check the price on TCGplayer and Cardhoarder, see how many people are interested in the card (the ratio of haves to wants is telling) and there is a very ugly but useful price graph. Mythmaker doesn’t look like a great candidate for investment, but we’ve only looked at one card.

Look at this info. As many people as have Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger want him. His price is climbing steadily, he’ll be tough to reprint, and he just dodged a reprint in Modern Masters 2015.

Really explore the page for each card. There are combos for the card listed on the right side of the page, and you can click on the other cards in the combo to bring up their pages. This is a rabbit hole of cards you may or may not know that can teach you a lot about which cards in EDH are staples and which are narrow inclusions in specific decks. Tapped Out gives us a metric no other site gives us because we can look at the trade demand tab and see more people want the card or more people want rid of the card.

Compare Mythmaker to Vorinclex. You don’t need to learn all about EDH to be able to see that a popular format staple will have demand proportionate to or above supply rather than below (like in the case of Mythmaker). What do we expect that ratio to look like for a card like Mana Crypt? Can you guess?

3 have, 11 want. While this information is not exactly quantifiable, it’s a qualitative look at the cards EDH players are looking for and that’s not a terrible metric even though it’s a little loose. I wouldn’t rank cards based on this ratio or anything, but I would take notice of it. The higher the proportion of wants to haves, usually the more decks it goes in. Isn’t that what we’re looking for?

One More

I don’t want to inundate you with a ton of new websites you may have never visited before, so I will cover a few more resources next week to give you a chance to play around with Tapped Out. Yes, I’m teaching you to fish. Deal with it.

One resource is one you’ve heard of and are probably avoiding like the plague: it’s Reddit. Okay. Yes, I know. Reddit is gross. A lot of the people on Reddit are on Reddit because if they went outside, an angry mob would chase them with torches and pitchforks, so they stay inside and poop on other people’s enthusiasm instead. I’m not saying Redditors all kill puppies when they’re adolescents, I’m just saying that I can’t watch all of them 24/7 and dogs go missing every day.

Once you choke back your initial revulsion, the EDH subreddit is actually a great resource. I know, right? If you’d have told me two years ago that I’d find most of the readers in the EDH subreddit delightful and helpful and wouldn’t like spending much time with the readers of the more competitive subreddits, I would likely have distracted you for long enough for the orderlies to come restrain you and take you to the facility where I was having you involuntarily committed. They probably wouldn’t lobotomize you even though I’d suggest it, because I’m not a doctor and they don’t really do that anymore, but they would at least strap you in for some time to think about that nutty thing you said. Well, belt me into a straight jacket and call me Napoleon Bonaparte, because I love r/EDH.

You know what they do periodically that I love? They do stuff like this and anyone who wants to can read it. No one even asks them to, they just get bored and say, “Hey, why don’t we make a list of cards that will be more expensive in a few months than they are right now?” because they are pathologically helpful that way.

Read through the page I just linked. Not every card is going to be a good investment, but that’s not the entire point. It will help familiarize you with a class of cards that have broad utility and perhaps identify niches that named cards fill but other cards also fill, perhaps better. /u/TCV2 couldn’t make his case for Library of Leng without discussing the more popular Reliquary Tower, which led to someone else bringing up Venser’s Journal. Hey, while we’re talking about VJ, did you know this?

More than two years of steady growth entirely predicated on EDH utility, but a very suspicious two-times multiplier in the foil price. That bears looking into. In a few seconds, we identified a foil card that has growth potential and will weather a reprint much better than the non-foil. Actually, that’s not even accurate. Someone else identified the card for us. I still get these shipped to me as bulk rares, by the way. This card is useful in a lot of decks and can be considered an EDH staple, but the foil hasn’t gotten the memo.

Novelty is king in r/EDH, however. A similar post earlier in the week, titled “EDH auto-include cards?” rubbed people the wrong way and it was under-posted-in. Still, there is decent advice in there, and I got to talk about how much I like Trading Post. If you have a problem with that, then I guess you don’t like Karn either, because Trading Post is practically a colorless planeswalker.

That’s a reminder: try to identify when someone is talking up a pet card versus when someone is identifying an actual format staple. Trading Post may be super sick in EDH, and its printing in the Commander 2014 deck series bears that out, but no one told the price of the foil copies of the card.

That’s oogly.

What’s a “Staple” Anyway?

Just like in any other format, a staple in EDH is a card that is played in multiple deck archetypes and is included in certain decks on principle. Sol Ring, Command Tower, Rhystic Study: these cards are obvious to everyone, even people who don’t care about the format at all. However, there are other staples of the format that are harder to identify and need to be rooted out a bit before they become clear.

If you ask a mono-black player to name the three most iconic and important “staple” cards in her deck, pretty much no matter which deck, she’s likely to say something like, “Probably Demonic Tutor, Sol Ring, and Mana Vault,” or a similar list. A card almost none of them is going to say but a lot of them are bound to include but not give a second thought to?

Look at that growth. That’s EDH doing its thing and doing it very well. A reprint can pull this card’s pants down, but the foil has a nice, healthy four-times multiplier. You know what’s even sexier than that? The spread on the foil.

It’s miniscule. This is behaving like an EDH staple, yet no one is going to identify this as an EDH staple even if you ask them to list staples. You’re going to have to go looking a little bit harder to root some of these cards out.

Luckily, I have given you a few tools to play around with until next week, and when I come back at you, I will hit you with a few more. I’m going to do my best to write that article before I head to Las Vegas, because I have a feeling I’ll be a bit distracted when I get there.

Between the data screaming at us at the top of its lungs the way some of these price graphs are screaming at us and EDH players politely listing the cards they think you should research, this can be easy at times. It’s not as easy as identifying good Standard investment candidates, but then if it were that easy, everyone else would be all over it. This takes a little digging, it takes some knowledge of the format, and it takes some finesse. Luckily, this series is going to tell you just about all I know about this and bring you all along for a ride on the money train. I’ll be back next week with some more sources for you to consider. You won’t want to miss it.

As always, leave me something in the comments section and let’s try to get ahead of the next one.

Finding Value

Gods Part II: The Born of the Gods Pantheon

May 19, 2015 Guo Heng Chin 16 Comments

By: Guo Heng

A month-and-a-half ago, I wrote about the long-term potential of the Theros gods. Today we are going to cover the five gods in the set that comes after Theros, aptly named Born of the Gods.

The Theros block gods are financially interesting because they are splashy, unique cards exclusive to that block. They are popular in EDH, both as commanders and in main decks, and a couple of them rank among the most popular commanders in the format. The recent no-tuck ruling also bolstered the gods’ prospects as commanders.

In short, the gods are cards with immense casual appeal and are unlikely to be reprinted due to their quintessential flavor and Theros block-exclusive Nyx-ified frame, ingredients for a rosy long-term growth recipe. I could not describe the gods better than Corbin (@chosler88) did in his column two weeks ago:

Either way, these are basically mini-Eldrazi that will see growth over time, even if it’s not the momentous growth that Emrakul and friends saw.

-Corbin Hosler

We have scryed what the future potentially holds for the Theros gods in the first part of this series, and today, we are going to take a look at the five gods in the Born of the Gods pantheon.

Ephara, God of the Polis

Ephara, God of the Polis is the cheapest god among the Born of the Gods crew. Ephara’s ability is unassuming and requires a deck to be built around it, which narrows the number of decks that can run her as one of the 99.

However, Ephara does make up for her shortcomings by being a pretty fun commander to build around. Her draw-a-card ability triggers every upkeep, which allows for a slew of ways to exploit the ability, be it using flicker effects—a popular effect among the casual crowd—flash creatures, or token generators, like a fellow god in the Theros pantheon, Heliod, God of the Sun. Ephara also happens to be in a color identity with the highest number of wrath effects, which synergises well with her indestructibility and the fact that she is an enchantment. Check out Danny West and David McDarby’s deck tech and Versus video featuring Ephara on Star City Games from a while back to get an idea of the plethora of ways you could play around with Ephara’s ability.

Non-foil Epharas are a good pickup at $1.45, which is pretty close to bulk price for a Standard-legal mythic. The high multiplier on her foils, currently sitting at $13.01, points towards her EDH demand. I would probably wait until rotation or at least later in summer to pick up foil Epharas.

Karametra, God of the Harvest

Karametra, God of Harvests is unbelievably cheap at $2.02 for a second-set card with EDH and casual appeal. Creatures and ramp are popular strategies in EDH and Karametra embodies the best of both.

Non-foil Karametras are certainly a good pick-up at $2.02. Foils at $11.56 are a bit more steep, and as with Ephara, I would wait until the summer lull or rotation to pick up my copies. Foil Karametras have a moderate level of demand, reflected in her current spread of just 35 percent, unlike the 54 percent spread of foil Epharas.

Karametra has the potential to end up as one of the more expensive Born of the Gods gods in the long run. She is easy to build around and fits into a wide range of decks. Oh, Karametra is quite a fun commander to pilot, too.

Mogis, God of Slaughter

The price for Mogis, God of Slaughter baffles me. Mogis does not strikes me as a particularly popular commander, nor does he seem to fit in a large variety of decks. Yet, Mogis is tied with Xenagos, God of Revels for the most expensive god in the set, sitting at a price of $4.74 with a spread of just 30 percent!

Unless Mogis decks are more popular than I expected, I am honestly stumped as to why the card commands this price. I was expecting him to be at the very least cheaper than Karametra. At the moment, I would steer clear of picking up non-foils and foils ($14.60) and wait until rotation to see how Mogis’s future price fares.

Phenax, God of Deception

Phenax, God of Deception‘s reception within the EDH community was lukewarm. While milling is a popular casual mechanic, and Phenax is the God of Mill™, his ability requires a deck to be constructed in a way that would be absolutely powerless (walls can’t attack) without Phenax, but insane with Phenax on board. Granted, Phenax decks do get better with the removal of tuck (Phenax players were probably happy to hear that tuck is exiled from EDH rules), but he may be better off being in Lazav, Dimir Mastermind or The Mimeoplasm decks as Redditors in the r/EDH thread above suggested.

It seems that Phenax’s price of $3.95 is buoyed solely by casual demand, but the intensity of the demand is questionable with Phenax’s spread of 49 percent. I certainly don’t think Phenax is worth picking up right now. I am not even sure if he is a god you want to invest in for the long run come rotation.

Xenagos, God of the Revels

Last but not least, we have the newest member of the pantheon, Xenagos, God of Revels. As I expected, Xenagos is one of the most expensive gods in the Born of the Gods pantheon, by which I mean he has a non-foil price of $4.63. Xenagod has an explosive ability that appeals to Timmies, Johnnies, and Spikes, is a powerful commander himself, and also works well in Prossh, Skyraider of Kher, and Atarka, World Render decks for one-turn-kills with commander damage. Putting all those together, it is not surprising that Xenagod is one of the most popular commander cards from Born of the Gods, second only to Courser of Kruphix. Xenagod’s EDH and casual demand is reflected in his foil price of $18.19, the most expensive among the Born of the Gods pantheon.

Again, non-foils are at $4.63 with a 38 percent spread as of writing. I think the window to pick Xenagod is not here yet. There is a chance that he may drop further closer to rotation, which would make him a very good pickup then. However, if he retains this price at rotation, just snap up whatever copies of Xenagod you can find at that time. He is the best Born of the Gods god in terms of EDH and casual appeal and I suspect he will be the most expensive of the pantheon a few years down the road. The rest of the Born of the Gods pantheon is playable (maybe except Phenax), but none has the wow factor Xenagod evokes.

The same approach applies to Xenagod foils, which have a spread of 34 percent at the moment.

TL;DR

In summary, I think both non-foil Ephara, God of the Polis and Karametra, God of Harvests are good pickups from right now until rotation. I am curious about the source of Mogis, God of Slaughter’s demand, which propped up his price to the level of the resoundingly popular Xenagos, God of Revels, and I would stay away from him for now, lest my specs get slaughtered. Phenax, God of Deception seems to be the least popular of the pantheon and that makes him an unattractive pickup. Xenagos, God of Revels seems destined to be the most expensive of the lot, but the window to pick up foil and non-foil copies has yet to arrive.

Echoing Corbin, I don’t think the gods’ prices will hit Eldrazi heights, but I am confident most of them will not remain below $10 in the long run—and some may even break the $20 mark on the back of EDH and casual demand.

Thank you for reading. Share your thoughts below or catch me on Twitter at @theguoheng.

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