Casual Fridays

The Fate of Dragons

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By: Cliff Daigle

Spoiler season! It’s the best. In fact, the full spoiler may be released by the time you’re reading this. (Wizards did that to me with Khans of Tarkir!)

EDITORS NOTE: Umm, sorry Cliff… (MTGPrice.com will have prices as soon as it’s officially up on Gatherer)

We have two full cycles of Legendary creatures in this set, both at rare and not mythic. They are aligned with two- or three- color combinations, and for casual play, there are notable implications. Let’s start with the best of all: Dragons! 

There are five two-color legendary Dragons in this set, and they all grant a bonus to attacking Dragons. Naturally, this means we want a Dragon-themed deck! I would imagine that most people reading this would have built a Dragon deck at some point, either a casual 60-card one or an EDH deck or something. I know I had a stack of Revised Shivan Dragons!

Fate Reforged has common Dragons, and a significant number of uncommon one. We get only our third mono-green Dragon too! The next set is named Dragons of Tarkir, indicating that we’ll get a few big flyers there as well.

What does this mean? We’re looking for cards that play well with Dragons. We’re looking for cards that enable casual Dragon strategies, or that synthesize well with the tribe.

Our first contestant is Dragonspeaker Shaman. I will be surprised if this card isn’t reprinted sometime this block. It’s already had three printings and it is at $5, but its only foil is at $8. I really like picking up the old-border foils right now, because if there’s a new version that comes out, the older, different foil will be a bit more sought after.

It’s interesting that despite being in two supplementary products, this price is still so high for non-foils. It’s barely second place behind Knight of the Reliquary in the Duel Deck! I’d expect the price of nonfoils to fall if it is added to Standard, though.

Dragon Roost, as a source of Dragon tokens that doesn’t die to creature removal, could be a fun target. Even foils are under $5, but it’s got two versions to choose from.

Utvara Hellkite is creeping upward. It’s a mythic in a very popular set, but it’s ridiculously good in multiples and if there’s one thing casual players like, it’s winning with more and more Dragon tokens.

Another card I’m intrigued by is Crucible of Fire. It’s a super-cheap pickup right now, and please don’t overlook how many people build 60-card casual decks. Commander is not the only casual format, and Crucible is outstanding in multiples. I would be content to get a stack of Crucible for under fifty cents, and just wait.

Dragonstorm is also appealingly cheap right now. It’s got multiple foil versions to choose from, and the new rare Dragons really like dumping a lot of Dragons into play. I wouldn’t mind having a few more of these, even if they cost nine to cast!

The cards I’m most excited about, though, are a set of Mirage legends that are now on the Reserved List: Hivis of the Scale, Rashida Scalebane, and Zirilan of the Claw. The first two are under fifty cents, and Zirilan is up to nearly $2 because he’s amazing in a Commander deck. These are not going to get reprinted, and they interact amazingly well when casual games have lots of Dragons. One is a Soldier that kills Dragons, one steals others’ Dragons, and the other grabs Dragon after Dragon out of your deck and fills your graveyard.

As cards that Wizards won’t reprint and rares from a set released nearly eighteen years ago, these are excellent candidates for a spike.

I don’t like moving in on Kargan Dragonlord or Dragonmaster Outcast right now. The price is already high and a reprint of either mythic would be disastrous for their prices. They are fun cards, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t condone picking them up, even if a reprint of a Level Up creature is unlikely right now.

Something else I’m not high on is the pair of Dragon legends, Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund and Scion of the Ur-Dragon. I am aware that these are not the only choices for a Commander, but they are possibly the best. Karrthus is in the main Dragon colors and gives theft and haste, while Scion is the only five-color choice…for now. Scion being a $50 foil reflects the popularity of having the five-color deck. I don’t see a lot of growth for the foil, but if you wanted to pick up nonfoil Scion at around $2, that’s pretty safe and might be a fun thing to trade to someone about to build their first Dragon-themed deck.

It bears repeating that Commander and R & D are closely linked. Members of the Commander Rules Committee work at Wizards. The things that players want to have, Wizards wants to give. I would call it unlikely that we’ll get a set called Dragons of Tarkir without getting a new five-color Legend, but I’ve been wrong before.

 

The Gilded Goblin

A Tale of Two Lists – 2014 Edition

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MTGStocks completed a great favor for the community when it released the list of 2014’s biggest risers and decliners of the year on January 1st. Starting with a request from Corbin, these two lists were soon noticed by myself and others for the valuable input they can provide to the community.

Rising to the Top

The first insightful observation came from James Chillcott, who noticed that eighteen cards out of the top twenty risers of the year all started at less than $1 in value on January 1st 2014. To give examples from the risers list, this means that if you bought in on cards like Choke, Stoke the Flames, Forked Bolt, and Orzhov Pontiff in January of 2014 you would have made out incredibly well if you held onto them until now.

Of course, there is a significant danger in pointing this out. Many of the cards that made the top gainers list were either uncommons or came from pre-constructed sets. In other words, it would be very risky to pursue cards based on the uncommon rarity characteristic in hopes of seeing them receive humungous gains like the data shows. We can actually relate these gains to penny stocks. Sure, penny stocks regularly see the gains that cards like Fatestitcher can reach. I’ve even seen some penny stocks reach heights of 10,000%+ gains. Does this mean that it wasn’t risky to go after it? Of course not! Penny stocks are some of the most volatile assets on the market and I would argue that many gainers of the year fall into this category. Look at how many of them are uncommons or were printed in a pre-con or other supplementary product.

Fatestitcher (U)

Forked Bolt (U)

Choke (U) (made the top twenty twice, had two printings)

Blackmail (U) (made the top twenty twice, had two printings)

Squelch (U)

Flames of the Blood Hand (U)

Monastery Swiftspear (U)

Stoke the Flames (U)

Battlefield Forge (R) (more than one printing, and this card actually made the list twice due to becoming Standard legal and having all the printings rise due to the demand from Standard)

Reef Worm (R) (C14 mass printing)

The rest, which only have one printing so far and not in a supplemental product:

Waves of Aggression (R)

Stony Silence (R)

Orzhov Pontiff (R)

Porphyry Nodes (R)

Norin the Wary (R)

Phyrexian Tyranny (R)

*Onakke Catacomb (S) – One interesting “card” that made the top twenty that surprised me was Onakke Catacomb, a planechase Plane card that is only used in the casual format planechase. Yes folks, these cards have value too! If you happened to purchase any of the past planechase sets I would recommend busting out the oversize cards to check them for value. You never know which ones might be worth several dollars these days.

OK, so in reality only six of the top twenty cards that made the list only had one printing, weren’t an uncommon, and weren’t printed in a pre-con. One interesting trend is that none of the cards are mythic rare – this means that mythic rares as a whole are much more stable price wise than rares and uncommons even if the mythic rare turns into a bulk mythic. Another trend amongst these remaining six cards is that they are all from out of print sets.

Let’s take a look at the data another way. Sorting the risers list by highest price rather percentage change tells a different story. The top twenty gainers pricewise from 2014 are as follows:

Card Set Dec 31st Jan 1st Change
Chains of Mephistopheles (R) Legends $348.49 $194.00 79.60%
Volcanic Island (R) Revised Edition $265.99 $125.99 111.10%
Tropical Island (R) Revised Edition $189.56 $107.10 77.00%
Invoke Prejudice (R) Legends $134.97 $54.97 145.50%
Noble Hierarch (R) Conflux $66.44 $27.79 139.10%
Cryptic Command (R) Modern Masters $54.01 $24.45 120.90%
Cryptic Command (R) Lorwyn $52.24 $25.74 103.00%
In the Eye of Chaos (R) Legends $49.99 $26.00 92.30%
Dark Depths (R) Coldsnap $47.49 $25.99 82.70%
Bitterblossom (R) Morningtide $39.20 $18.97 106.60%
Reset (U) Legends $34.13 $13.30 156.60%
Twilight Mire (R) Eventide $30.73 $15.62 96.70%
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite (M) New Phyrexia $27.51 $14.78 86.10%
Metalworker (R) Urza’s Destiny $27.24 $11.77 131.40%
Leyline of Sanctity (R) Magic 2011 (M11) $24.94 $11.89 109.80%
Blood Moon (R) The Dark $24.60 $12.59 95.40%
Hurkyl’s Recall (R) Antiquities $23.27 $12.23 90.30%
Azusa, Lost but Seeking (R) Champions of Kamigawa $22.53 $12.49 80.40%
Ensnaring Bridge (R) 7th Edition $19.98 $8.99 122.20%
Blood Moon (R) Modern Masters $19.95 $7.13 179.80%

The blue chip list, as David Schumann would say, provides insight into the most expensive cards that have had the largest gain this year. Revised dual lands fall into this list, but we also have some hard-to-find Legends cards that have shown up in addition to Modern, Commander, and Legacy staples. What surprises me most is the percentage gain that each of the cards has seen – all of the cards on the list gained at least 77% or more! The average amount that a card on this list gained was 110%!! Overall, this list tells me that Modern as whole has gotten very popular over the course of 2014 but also that the casual market, as always, reaches out with their invisible hands as well to create even higher prices for cards like Invoke Prejudice and In the Eye of Chaos.

Fall from Grace

We can’t talk about winners without also discussing who the biggest losers of 2014 were. Going back to the MTGStocks page, the biggest decliners of 2014 as you might guess were most likely to be a Standard card. In fact, out of the top twenty there were sixteen cards that were just previously Standard legal or have become Standard legal in 2014. The only four cards to buck this trend were:

Misdirection

Unexpectedly Absent

Stifle

Muzzio, Visionary Architect

Each of these cards fell at least -71% from their highest historical price of 2014. Strangely enough, two of those cards are Legacy playable and have been played in some of the top tier Legacy decks of 2014.

My theory for why this happened is twofold. Firstly, three of the cards were from Conspiracy which was a set released just last year. This means that stores had pre-order and release prices that in no way reflected the actual demand of the card. Once the initial “gotta have it NOW!!!” demand was depleted the stores had to lower the price to meet the actual market demand. Unfortunately, due to the somewhat large print run of Conspiracy and the fact that the cards were not Standard legal this meant that the price had to be considerably lowered from initial expectations of what stores thought the price should be.

Secondly, the cards Misdirection and Stifle were both reprints of Legacy-only cards, which will pretty much always significantly reduce the current price of a card. I’m not surprised that they fell so much but the surprisingly deep fall of Misdirection in particular is quite shocking. We might look to the sage advice of buy low and sell later once the price has risen higher. The current $3 for Conspiracy Misdirection could change easily edge upward as time goes on since its Mercadian Masques counterpart is around $10.

Speaking of buy low and sell high, the blue chip cards are the ones I would be most particular about watching for buying in at a lower price. Let’s see which cards by highest price have dropped considerably during 2014.

Card Set Dec 31st Jan 1st Change
Wasteland (P) Magic Player Rewards $300.54 $398.00 -24.50%
Polluted Delta (R) Onslaught $46.19 $88.03 -47.50%
Flooded Strand (R) Onslaught $41.16 $69.98 -41.20%
Misty Rainforest (R) Zendikar $37.99 $52.04 -27.00%
Windswept Heath (R) Onslaught $29.29 $42.99 -31.90%
Bloodstained Mire (R) Onslaught $26.75 $37.94 -29.50%
Wooded Foothills (R) Onslaught $26.20 $42.25 -38.00%
Intuition (R) Tempest $24.14 $30.99 -22.10%
Marsh Flats (R) Zendikar $24.00 $33.04 -27.40%
Dack Fayden (M) Conspiracy $22.00 $59.99 -63.30%
Ajani, Mentor of Heroes (M) Journey into Nyx $18.29 $29.98 -39.00%
True-Name Nemesis (R) Commander 2013 $17.81 $42.79 -58.40%
Mutavault (R) Morningtide $17.57 $34.99 -49.80%
Goblin Piledriver (R) Onslaught $17.32 $21.73 -20.30%
Vindicate (R) Apocalypse $17.09 $23.03 -25.80%
Voice of Resurgence (M) Dragon’s Maze $16.53 $30.40 -45.60%
Polluted Delta (R) Khans of Tarkir $15.99 $23.66 -32.40%
Exploration (R) Urza’s Saga $14.98 $23.75 -36.90%
Elspeth, Knight-Errant (M) Modern Masters $14.95 $19.98 -25.20%

As you probably surmised, the Onslaught fetchlands were going to be on this list due to their recent reprinting in Khans. Thankfully, Khans has also negatively affected the prices of the Zendikar fetches as well since players can easily replace a Zendikar fetch with a Khans fetch in a pinch. This means that fewer Zendikar fetches are needed in Modern these days, so therefore lower prices on the enemy fetches too.

The most expensive card that has dropped considerably in price is the Player Rewards Wasteland, which has dropped $100 during 2014. If you’re in the market for foil Wasteland, this could be the deal that you’ve been waiting for.

In terms of undervalued cards, I would put Voice of Resurgence as undervalued as well as Dack Fayden and Mutavault. I think these three cards, either due to casual or tournament demand, are going to start rising in price over this year and would be surprised if they continued to further decrease in price (unless they are reprinted of course, and then a drop in price is definitely not surprising).

Trends Seen in 2014

In terms of overall trends for cards in 2014, we can see that the top risers percentage wise were the penny stocks that happened to get noticed and explode in price – seemingly overnight. Price memory is a powerful force, since many of the cards in this category really haven’t put up too many results and yet still continue to demand a higher price going into 2015. I would stay away from almost all these cards, as they could all be reprinted again at some point and have already spiked.

Looking at the blue chip gainers, we see that many are reserve list cards that have become noticed and picked up by casuals and tournament players alike. However, we also need to be cautious with this list too since cards like Noble Hierarch and Twilight Mire are included among their number – cards that we know are going to be reprinted eventually and that it is only a matter of time before they drop in price. Like any investment, please do your research even on these blue chip cards to determine if they are ones you should be picking up for value.

Lastly, even the losers have lessons to teach us. What I have gleaned from them are that Standard staples drop the absolute hardest upon rotation and after they are forgotten about (Blood Baron of Vizkopa being the primary example here) so it is best to get rid of these cards when they have peaked in price during the Standard season. Also, Legacy-only staples that are reprinted will drop precipitously from a reprint, so watch for any Legacy reprints to get the most value out of your currently owned Legacy stuff. Finally, be aware that the reprinting of a cycle of previously valuable lands can have drastic effects on the other colors even if those color pairs aren’t reprinted right away.

Not to say that there isn’t potential in the losers. Cards that are otherwise popular can sometimes drop in price simply due to a current overabundance of them in the market. Once they’ve circulated for a while, even after declining the price can start to rise again if the card generates significant tournament and/or casual demand.

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Casual Fridays

Resolutions

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By: Cliff Daigle

Welcome to the new year! This year, we’re getting a new Modern Masters, the death of Core Sets, and a faster, more frequent rotation out of Standard. It promises to be a heck of a year, and so I’ve made a few promises to myself. Perhaps some of them will resonate with you.

#1: Play more Magic

I know it seems like a simplistic goal, considering how much I love this game, but due to moving and babies and lots of other little things, I didn’t play nearly as much Magic as I wanted in 2014. I’d like to attend a couple of big events and get to FNM at least once a month, and attend my first Prerelease since Gatecrash!

#2: Don’t cash out this year

At least once in 2012, 2013, and 2014 I sold big chunks of cards for big real-life expenses. Car repairs, moving money, and to buy a new Tempurpedic bed. (I cannot recommend this bed strongly enough!) Mostly, that came out of my EDH decks, as I’ve downsized to six Commander decks, from my maximum of 15 a few years ago.

I’ve never put a lot of capital into my collection, but taking value out this way, several times in a row, has really lowered the value of the things I have for trade. I don’t regret the loss, as I got what I needed when I needed it, but I would like to spend some time increasing the value without taking any out.

#3: Reorganize binders

Right now, I have four binders of varying sizes: I have my main trade binder, a second one with all my signed cards and speculative cards, a third which contains only cards I’ve taken out of Commander decks, and a fourth that is a Conspiracy foil set-in-progress.

I will trade out of the second and third, but only when there’s something I really want. The problem is that I’ve taken so much out of the first binder, so I often end up showing these other two. I need to go through and classify things better.

#4: Introduce a new player

This is a goal all of us should have. Introduce someone to Magic. It can be in any format, any method. Go slow, and remember that this is a very complex game. Magic’s player base has grown an incredible amount these few years, and if you get the chance, you should bring someone new into the fold.

It also counts if you bring someone back into the game. Remember, Magic used to be big enough that in 1997, the World Championships were televised! Lots of people used to play, and gave it up. Perhaps you’ll get someone back into the game that has some unsorted Alpha laying around, and you’ll help them get a lot of value!

#5: Watch more Magic

I love watching Twitch’s stream, be it the official Magic channel or SCGLive or anything live. I especially love coverage of high-level drafting, but somehow, I’m addicted to watching streams or recordings. The archives of video coverage are enough to get me lost for hours and hours, unless it’s hours and hours of Whip of Erebos mirror matches. Ugh.

Skipping shuffling/sideboarding time is the best argument for watching archives and not the live stream. But I’ll watch anyway!

#6: Continue not playing MTGO

I kicked the habit several years ago and I’m not going to get drawn back in until the program is worth my time. Is it a condemnation of MTGO or praise of SCGLive that I’d so much rather watch the stream than play online?

#7: Get that foil foreign Akroma, and WB Scrubland & Badlands

My Kaalia of the Vast Commander deck has a lot of foreign foil Angels. I’ve got foil Japanese Avacyn, foil French Angel of Despair, foil Italian Kokusho, the Evening Star, and so on. There’s a foil German Akroma, Angel of Wrath that I’ve had my eye on for a while and I really want it! So I’m resolving to buy it this year. Or just upgrade my Portuguese into a foil Portuguese.

On a similar note, I traded for a white-bordered German Plateau for the same deck, and now I need a Badlands and a Scrubland to match. Sure, this is a lofty goal, needing such a specific edition when I already have duals, but everyone needs a goal to aspire to!

#8: Use eBay more

I have had excellent luck in the past, buying single on eBay and then trading them for full retail value, when I picked the card up for significantly less. In this way, I turned one spare Plateau into a Verdant Catacombs and a pair of Cavern of Souls. Buying cards that are expressly for your trade binder is an excellent way to infuse value into your binder, as long as you are upfront about the premium for trading Legacy cards to get Standard cards.

Put another way: I buy a Vindicate on eBay for $12 + $2 shipping. I would feel comfortable asking for a pair of Bloodstained Mire and a Siege Rhino for it. Thus I’ve added $27 in value to my binder for about half that in cash. Winner!

And oh goodness…Vindicate in French is ‘Justification’…I might have a new resolution!

 

Casual Fridays

Naughty or Nice

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By: Cliff Daigle

It might be an over-used trope, but since this is the day after a major holiday, I thought I’d present my year in review, of the good and the bad.

Naughty : Everything MTGO

Sad but true that this should be a flagship. Duels of the Planeswalkers, as a watered-down version of Magic, is a lot of fun to play! Imagine you’re a new player, you’re good enough at Duels and you’re ready for ‘the real thing’ only to find out that it’s buggy, slow, non-intuitive, and ugly.

It’s been this way for quite some time, which is the worst part. I’ll give you that it is more stable than when I played in the long-ago days of Lorwyn and Shadowmoor, but there’s still a legion of other things that need to be addressed. The problem is not with the game: We have several years of consecutive, record-breaking growth. The online version should be able to offer the gameplay and strategy elements of the game, while in-person play adds a social context.

Nice: End of Core Sets

I could not be happier about this change. It’s true that the summer sets offered a change of pace (notably, M14’s focus on Opportunity after the blistering speed of RTR and Gatecrash) but there was a sacrifice of story and a loss of continuity.

Core Sets did offer the chance to return to some fun mechanics (Bloodthirst, Convoke, etc.) but that’s a goal that will be easier to accomplish in an independent world. I’m not worried about the frequency of reprints.

Naughty: Born of the Gods

It didn’t add much and took a lot away. It offered some interesting and fun cards, but it was just not the right fit for anything. Inspired turned out to be difficult to use and not often worth the payoff. Tribute gave your opponent all the power, and let them choose what they could deal with. Luckily, Wizards recognizes this issue and won’t have to deal with three-set blocks anymore.

Nice: Reprints Aplenty

We are in an era where only the Reserved List is safe. Putting the Onslaught fetches into a big fall set was an awesome move, making those lands Modern-legal AND knocking those prices down into easier realms.

The effect on Zendikar lands is noticeable too: We’re not asking “Will they?” but instead “When will they?” reprint these lands. This is going to be their policy going forward, especially with regard to lands. If you are expecting your Tarmogoyfs to hold their $200 tag, I don’t think that will be the case forever. Wizards will continue to judiciously reprint cards, especially Modern-legal ones.

I have enjoyed the effect of a Core Set reprint on Commander cards, especially Chord of Calling and Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth. Conspiracy, Commander, Duel Decks, PTQ-only foils, new judge foils…we’ve got a lot of ways to get extra copies of a card into circulation.

Wizards now has two cases of reprint-only sets: Chronicles and Modern Masters 1. By modern standards, Chronicles had a tiny print run and the cards looked noticeably different than their originals. If that happened today, I don’t think the reprinted cards would take much of a hit, especially with white borders!

Naughty: Cheaters

Jared Boettcher. Trevor Humphries. Alex Bertoncini.

Three very successful players. One Rookie of the Year. One winner of more than $20,000 in the past year. One ‘rehabilitated’ cheater. All banned for at least three years for having the gall to cheat on camera.

Lots of words have been written about the awful effect a cheater can have on a game, but this bears repeating: You have to have enormous confidence in your trick to try it on camera. Professional magicians can get caught by slo-mo cameras. Your minor-league shuffling trick will get caught.

Nice: Getting them!

As a community, there’s issues we have to deal with, and our response can be lacking. Luckily, cheating is a very galvanizing topic, and with high-definition footage available on YouTube, it can be parsed into frame-by-frame GIF files for endless scrutinization.

We did good, by noticing it, reporting it, and letting the DCI take care of things. We will also be on the lookout for anyone who shuffles our deck differently from how they shuffle their own. It sucks that we have to, but these cheaters only got to be on camera by winning lots of not-on-camera matches.

Naughty: the prize wall with Cascade Games

This was a feature of GP Los Angeles and apparently will be present at every Cascade Games event, including the upcoming GP Vegas for Modern Masters 2015. I don’t mind having something to work for, a chance to accumulate prize points and redeem them for sweet Magic things or just a ton of packs.

My issue is putting side drafts at a GP up to $20. Sure, it’s nice to get 3rd or 4th and have 50 tickets which can get you five packs of Khans, but at $20 you’re going to be drafting less. Offering these drafts for $20 or the simple drafts for $10 is a way to let us decide how much to spend.

Nice: SCG’s $10 drafts

Star City Games may have high prices on singles, but this is my favorite part of an Open coming to town. I can draft and draft and draft, and focus on getting better at the format. After a few drafts in a row this way, you’ll have mastery of the combat tricks at least, and likely many of the archetypes.

Plus, drafts at $10 is less than MSRP for packs, and that always gets me happy. It’s not Buy-One-Get-One good but it’s still something to be a bit thankful for.

Naughty: $10 MM 2015!

Good grief, $10 per pack? Is this just a straight-up cash grab from Wizards? What could they do to these packs to justify it? Guaranteed foils were worth $7. Are we getting double rares? I don’t think we’ll get much more, but the card choice will likely determine the worth involved.

My favorite piece of speculation is that there will be a foil token in every pack!

Nice: Worldwide Distribution of MM 2015

There will be three Grands Prix held at the same time, all the same format: Modern Masters 2015 Sealed Deck. This is unprecedented, and is done to show the demand for the format. Hopefully, a larger distribution means that I’ll get to do more than the one MM draft I did last time.

There will be three languages available as well, a change from last time and adding another chance to make your Commander deck that next level of unique.

Join me next week as I make some resolutions for the new year!

 

MAGIC: THE GATHERING FINANCE ARTICLES AND COMMUNITY