Price Surprises (pt. 1)

By: Cliff Daigle

I’ve been playing Magic on and off since 1994. I’d sold out and walked away, came back, repeated the process. I spent a couple of years only playing MTGO, but paper is where I’m happiest.

Every so often, I have had double-takes and spit-takes when I see what a card has gotten up to. I think that the biggest one for me was when I got rid of more than 100 Hymn to Tourach, which were buylisting for $1 at a GP. Fallen Empires cards that were worth something?!

I’ve gone through the sets and I’ll be presenting some casual cards to you, along with their surprising price of $5 or more. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but intended to help you sort out your bulk rares or assist with pricing cards better.

Keep in mind that Reserved List cards will not be reprinted and have often been looked at as ‘safe’ investments. I’ll let you decide how safe cardboard is.

Legends: Pretty much everything.

I’m not even kidding. This set is from so long ago, and so rare, and so iconic, that lots and lots of the cards are worth more than you think they are. Willow Satyr is $15. Thunder Spirit is $18. Angus Mackenzie is $73. These aren’t being played in Legacy or Vintage, or even many Cubes. This is collectors, this is Commander, this is the casual market at work for most of this set.

The Dark: City of Shadows (RL)

I can’t tell you how many times this card pops up on ‘worst card’ lists. It’s slow and clunky and sort of terrible unless you have lots of crappy creatures laying around. Tokens, in other words. Being on the Reserved List means that this won’t get more copies lowering the price, and that’s fine. Not many people actually want this…but just enough do, to get this price.

Mirage: Shallow Grave (RL)

It’s instant-speed reanimation, which is very important for getting around those pesky ‘shuffle me into your library’ triggers. It’s a 4-of in Tin Fin Legacy decks, and is on the list. $8 is almost low for this card.

Visions: Undiscovered Paradise (RL)

This gets played in Dredge decks, as it can be used for any color of mana and then discarded to Putrid Imp or the like, hastening Threshold. I’ve seen it used to good effect with Exploration or Azusa, Lost but Seeking.

Weatherlight: Lotus Vale, Winding Canyons (both RL)

Lotus Vale is kind of amazing. It’s acceleration and fixing all at once, for the low cost of putting two untapped lands into the bin. It’s terrifying to play if there’s any bouncing going on, or nonbasic lands getting destroyed. Winding Canyons needs to be in more players’ hands, but more copies wimply will not be entering circulation.

Tempest: Mirri’s Guile, Coffin Queen (RL)

I had no idea Mirri’s Guile was so expensive. It’s not on the list, though Coffin Queen is. Guile isn’t in any top decks that I can find. It’s all about cheap card selection for green decks. It’s not as good as Sylvan Library, but it’s half the price in mana and in dollars.

Coffin Queen is a Zombie! I have four of her in an old casual deck built around the Visions Chimera cards. She’s not on the list, so maybe one day I’ll have her in foil. She’s another instant-speed reanimation method, but is more fragile than Shallow Grave. She’s pretty amazing for what she can do repeatedly, especially in EDH and its legions of enter-the-battlefield abilities, and I wouldn’t mind picking up a few spares for the long haul.

Honorable mention to the uncommon that is Horned Sliver at $3.50, two and a green to give trample is just silly. We love our casual Sliver decks!

Stronghold: Grave Pact, Mogg Infestation

Grave Pact has seen six printings, three of them in foil. All of the nonfoils are $10 or so, and the foils range in price depending on the art. This is pretty crazy, and if I ever have time, I’ll look up and see if there are other cards that come near to this number of printings while maintaining a price. Mogg Infestation is a two-way card, for doubling yourself up or for turning someone else’s board from value plays to a token horde.

Exodus: Hatred (RL)

I played Standard in the days of “No blocks? Tapped out? Ritual-Ritual-Hatred.” Pretty fun, especially when this was the same block as Shadow creatures. It’s a tough card to use in Commander, and that’s the primary consideration for its casual price.

Urza’s Saga: Contamination

This makes waves occasionally as a sideboard card in Legacy. It’s very good at locking someone out once it lands and stays, but it’s not hard to tap for mana in response and have it dealt with that way. Having a creature per turn is a big drawback in Constructed play.

Urza’s Legacy: No Mercy

Twelve dollars! For a card not on the list, seeing zero tournament play, and allowing something to hit you, it’s not a good deal for me. Interesting that this wasn’t used as a way to deal with True-Name Nemesis, since it gets around the protection by not targeting.

Urza’s Destiny: Yavimaya Hollow (RL)

Regeneration is a great ability to have, even with high-powered casual sweepers like Terminus or Toxic Deluge around. This is a sweet pickup for any green Commander deck, and you know that it’ll never be reprinted. Looking at this graph, I wouldn’t be surprised if it continued a slow upwards trend in price.

That’s part 1, to be finished next week.

For those of you attending GP Jersey this weekend: Stock up on worn dual lands. Get that MP Plateau and bring it back to your FNM, and watch as casual players feast their eyes. A surprising amount of Cube/Commander/Casual players could not care less about the condition of a card, as long as it’s sleeve playable. Trade/buy accordingly.

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Preparing for Grand Prix New Jersey

By: Jared Yost

EDITOR’S NOTE: MTGPrice.com will have extensive live coverage of the #mtgfinance side of GP:NJ Friday through Sunday. This includes dealer interviews and live blogging from the floor. Be sure to check blog.mtgprice.com all weekend long!

In preparation for Grand Prix New Jersey coming up later this week I thought I might share with you some of my ideas for what to expect at the tournament.

Vendor Paradise

There are going to be twenty vendors at the event – twenty vendors! – which means there are going to be many different opportunities for buylisting and arbitrage during the weekend. Buylisting almost becomes an art rather than a science during a GP.

Of course, the best time to visit the vendors is early Friday morning if you want the best deals and most opportunities to sell to them. At the beginning of the event the vendors will be looking to stock up not only for the weekend but to increase their general inventory. However, as the weekend goes on, fewer and fewer vendors are prone to offer high buylist prices on staples.

Besides buylisting cards, GP’s are a great opportunity to pick up swag. What I mean by swag are sleeves, dice, bags, binders, and other Magic related items that aren’t the cards themselves. Lots of vendors will be looking to undercut the others for items like Dragon Shield sleeves, Ultra Pro binders, and more.

Binder Preparation

You will want to give yourself plenty of time to gather all of the Legacy staples you want to trade at the event. Prices are going to be spiking the weekend of the tournament, for at least a select few cards. If you are keeping an eye on the price changes you will be able to capitalize on cards that experience short term spikes by trading them or buylisting them to the vendors.

Beyond Legacy, you should also prepare another binder for Modern and Standard trades. There will be plenty of opportunity to trade higher valued Theros block cards during the weekend like Elspeth, Sun’s Champion, Hero’s Downfall, Kiora, the Crashing Wave, and Ajani, Mentor of Heroes. There are going to be side events for Modern and Standard plus vendors will be picking up many of the Standard staples, in addition to Legacy and Modern, to increase their inventory.

Here are some cards that will be good to have for the event. I marked the format(s) the card will be desirable in. The more formats a card is desirable in the higher the chance you will have of being able to trade it. You should be able to trade or buylist all of the Legacy cards at some point during the weekend.

CardFormat
Force of WillLegacy
Volcanic IslandLegacy
Misty RainforestLegacy / Modern
Scalding TarnLegacy / Modern
WastelandLegacy
Tropical IslandLegacy
Deathrite ShamanLegacy
KarakasLegacy
Jace, the Mind SculptorLegacy
TundraLegacy
BayouLegacy
Sensei's Divining TopLegacy
Snapcaster MageLegacy / Modern
TarmogoyfLegacy / Modern
Umezawa's JitteLegacy
Stoneforge MysticLegacy
BatterskullLegacy / Modern
True-Name NemesisLegacy
Liliana of the VeilLegacy / Modern
Council’s JudgmentLegacy
Steam VentsModern
RemandModern
Stomping GroundModern
Temple GardenModern
Cryptic CommandModern
Sacred FoundryModern
Breeding PoolModern
Noble HierarchLegacy / Modern
Restoration AngelModern
Abrupt DecayLegacy / Modern
SpellskiteModern
Marsh FlatsLegacy / Modern
ThoughtseizeLegacy / Modern
Goblin GuideLegacy / Modern
Elspeth, Sun's ChampionStandard
Kiora, the Crashing WaveStandard
Ajani, Mentor of HeroesStandard
Keranos, God of StormsLegacy / Modern / Standard
Mana ConfluenceLegacy / Modern / Standard
Courser of KruphixModern / Standard
Stormbreath DragonStandard
Sylvan CaryatidStandard

I would also like to mention some decks that I think many different players will adopt for the Legacy main event. The decks are on the cheaper side to build and players could be looking for copies of random cards that appear in the decks. If you prepare well, you will be able to trade some of the more obscure pieces to someone looking to play the deck.

  • U/R Delver
  • Dredge
  • Belcher
  • Elves
  • Death & Taxes
  • Merfolk
  • Affinity

I think many players will want to use these decks because they are fairly straightforward to pilot and offer a pretty simplistic game plan in order to win. Check out a few lists online and see if you have any of the pieces of the decks. If you do you can probably trade them away during the weekend if you currently aren’t using them.

Besides decks, cards that show up in sideboards will also be nice to have for trades. Some cards in this list include:

By no means is this an extensive list but it does reflect many of the popular choices for sideboards.

Bulk Drop Off

Vendors are pretty happy to buy bulk at these types of events, especially bulk rares. If you have a stack of them lying around that you’ve been looking to get rid of a GP is a great place to do it. Similar to buylisting, different vendors have different goals about how they want to buy bulk. There will be plenty of pricing options available for getting rid of it. Bulk foils are also pretty desirable and you should be able to get a decent quote if you shop around.
Don’t be afraid to barter. There are plenty of other vendors at the event and most vendors will be open to reasonable offers. The place will be crowded and  the vendors are going to want to get things over as fast as possible but it doesn’t mean that you have to feel pushed into making a deal you don’t want. Feel free to walk away if you’re not comfortable. There will be plenty of opportunities throughout the weekend.

Similar to buylisting, getting rid of bulk will be much easier Friday morning compared to Saturday or Sunday. By Saturday and Sunday vendors will already be dealing with piles of cards so the chances of getting a deal will be harder and harder the further you try from Friday.

Discount Binders from Vendors

Grand Prix’s are great places for vendors to get rid of cards that they have a hard time moving locally if they don’t have a big online presence. Several vendors will have $1 Binders, $2 Binders, $5 Binders, etc. where they will put a ton of random cards into and hope to sell them during the event. Many times, staples of formats will be in these binders and you should be able to get good deals on otherwise higher prices at other stores. For example, at Grand Prix Richmond I saw cards like Scapeshift and Hero of Bladehold in these type of binders. It’s a pretty sweet deal if you take a few minutes out of your time to browse the binders.

One caveat with this plan is that if you are looking for NM condition than the discount binders may not be for you. There is usually a reason that these cards are in the binders in the first place. Foils with some scuffing, cards that are SP or even MP, and tons of cards that you probably aren’t interested in that you still have to look through will usually be prevalent. Don’t be discouraged though, if you are one to pick through bulk to find gems then browsing these binders should be a walk in the park in comparison.

Final Thoughts

Most of all, have fun at the event. Since there are tons of people be aware of your surroundings and keep a close watch on anything you bring to the event. I’ll be thinking carefully about what exactly I want to bring to an event of this size and so should you. I find that bringing less is much less stressful (barring bulk, of course) and helps me focus on other activities like playing, participating in events, and bargain hunting through the various vendors.

GP’s are pretty much the best place to find deals at and unfortunately there are hardly any Legacy GP’s anymore. This is going to be the best opportunity for many of us in some time to sell off any unused Legacy staples, or pick up those remaining staples we’ve been looking for to complete a deck or add to our collection.

Good luck to any playing in the main event, and safe travels to those flying in and driving four or more hours. Your dedication is what makes Magic great!


 

Overcoming Disappointment

By: Cliff Daigle

Really, I should have known.

Oh, Wizards teased us and they did it well. A glimpse here, a tantalizing hint there, and then they let our imaginations do the work.

So the full Commander 2014 decks are now on sale, with the contents known to us all. I’m very sad that we didn’t get Iona or Avacyn or even Radiant, Archangel! We got a deck that is half casual Angels and half Equipment theme. I feel like this is a big miss.

Teferi made me think that we would be getting all colors of iconic characters from the past, but instead, we only got him and Freyalise. Perhaps there will be another chance in the future, but this is a missed opportunity.

I’m not saying that Avacyn, Angel of Hope and Iona, Shield of Emeria are safe long-term investments (foils are more likely to retain their value, but at this point, nothing is reprint-proof besides the Reserved List) but those will be harder to print going forward. Perhaps in Modern Masters 2? Conspiracy 2? A Duel Deck?

I want to look at a few more cards this week, but I’m not expecting anything major out of most of this release. Look at the prices for Commander 2011 and Commander 2013 to see how in the long-term, these prices are mostly going to stay low.

Looking at the C13 prices again, maybe Wizards didn’t want to tank the prices of these amazing Angels. I expect that C14 will be printed about as much as C13 was, perhaps a little less, depending on which cards are the high-demand Legacy cards.

Speaking of which…

Containment Priest – This is a remarkably effective card against Dredge strategies, Reanimation strategies, and especially Sneak and Show decks. It doesn’t work if they Show and Tell Omniscience into play, but the presence of this card might be very warping to the Legacy metagame. I expect this to increase in the near term (say $25, especially with the Legacy GP being so near) but settle quickly into the $10-$15 range.

My inclination is to say that this and Dualcaster are going to be the major Legacy players.

 

Malicious Affliction – It’s true that this is a bit difficult to cast at BB. However, it’s also the casting cost of Hymn to Tourach and that’s a card that sees some play. It won’t kill a Deathrite Shaman or a Tombstalker, but there’s tremendous upside against decks that are heavy on counterspells. You get the copy when you cast this spell, so they have to be able to counter both. On the downside, you’ll have to target both copies at the same creature if you’re concerned about counterspells. An interesting card that I think will end up around $3.

 

Song of the Dryads – I don’t see this getting much Legacy play. There’s cheaper ways to deal with creatures (Lignify, Swords to Plowshares) or lands (Phantasmal Terrain, Spreading Seas). It’s unlikely that this keeps much of a price.

 

Titania, Protector of Argoth – This has Legacy potential. I like the thought of playing her, getting a fetchland back, and cracking that land to gain a 5/3 creature for free. It’s for certain that she would be more feared in Modern, but costing five may price her out of Legacy.

I want to reiterate that this set is going to see some widespread printing. Wurmcoil Engine is down $5 since it was spoiled and it’s not done dropping. Goblin Welder has lost about 25% of its value. Thran Dynamo is down $3. There are going to be a lot of cards that take a hit and never get up again.

If you can get a deck or two today, and trade its components immediately, there is value to be had. There will not be value for long. Wizards is using this set, and others like it, to take cards that are fun from being rare (due to printing/age) to being common enough that anyone can get one with minimal expense.

Here’s an example: Adarkar Valkryie

Capture

Look at the drop last summer when it was in Modern Masters.

Have another one: Avenger of Zendikar

Capture

Commander 2013 was spoiled in mid-October, and the price was high for a couple of weeks, then began to fall. That’s the pattern I expect, and that’s the pattern you should be working from if you’re trying to extract value. Go ahead and try, but don’t build up a big inventory. Speed is going to be everything.

If you’re dying to grab a deck and try to trade/sell for the value, I don’t think that’s a winning play but the red deck has three big cards in it: Wurmcoil, Dualcaster, and Daretti. This does not bode well for the prices of the other cards in the red deck.

Personally, I’m going to sort through the new cards and slowly trade for what I want. I’m going to figure out what I would take out of decks first, because if I can’t decide what to cut, I’m not going to waste time and value trading for a card I won’t use.

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Are You Cuban?

By: Jared Yost

The first time I brought my girlfriend Em over to my friend Nic’s house to introduce her to Magic beyond the realm of our own kitchen table, my other friend Matt had brought his cube and we were ready to play with it. I’ve fondly named it the “Matt’s Greatest Hits” cube since there isn’t any goal or overarching theme with the cube (at least that I can see). It is simply his personal favorite cards along with solid roleplayers to create archetypes to play with. Anyways, we’re trying to get people involved to get some awesome cube action going and he’s asking everyone “Are you cubin’? Are you cubin’?” clearly leaving off that oh so important ‘g’ at the end of the verb ‘cubing’. When Em was asked this question she responded “From the country of Cuba?” fully believing his question was “Are you Cuban?” We all had a good laugh, and after I explained this misinterpretation we were soon underway.

Besides the “Matt’s Greatest Hits” cube, Matt also has put together an Innistrad cube and a Return to Ravnica cube. These are definitely more theme and goal oriented, as he is focusing on specific limited environments for these cubes in addition to trying to foil out as many cards as he can. These cubes also better reflect the draft environments of the sets because he includes multiple copies of commons and usually two of every uncommon from the sets.

Drawing inspiration from my friend’s ventures into the cubing world, I’ve made it a goal to refine my own cube. I’ve had a “Jared’s Greatest Hits” cube for quite a long time myself, which I created for something to do with my brother when I go back home to PA and we want to play Magic together. However, I’m thinking about upgrading it and making it deeper and more interactive. I currently modify it here and there but I feel like it could use more cohesiveness.

Of course, being a financier I want to know approximately how much it is going to cost me to create an updated cube. I’ll be looking at cubes that span the financial spectrums, from the ones that include Moxes to the peasant cubes that are much more limiting in the cards you can include. I will even show you some price quotes that include proxying anything $50 or more. For the calculations, I’m going to assume I’m starting from scratch with zero cards so that others who may want to build a cube for the first time know the cost of all cards.

In order to help with this effort, I am drawing upon the power of Cube Tutor and their average cubes list to get the best picture about the costs of a cube. The website’s average cubes use the most popular cube cards. Odds are that players are going to want to include most cards on the list with slight modifications based on personal preference. I think this is a good starting point for determining approximate cube values because the Cube Tutor website draws these averages from all the cubes posted on the site.

Budgeting for a Cube

The average cubes tracked are:

Briefly looking over the cubes, they range in size from small to large according to your budget or tastes. For example, even though you might have the budget to get almost anything you want, maybe you don’t have a very large group that you cube with so you only need the bare minimum 360 cards to have a well rounded cube.

One aspect of the lower card count cubes that I noticed right away was that they did not contain cards like the Power 9, Mana Crypt, Mana Drain, Yawgmoth’s Will, Aether Vial, etc. The lower cube counts opted to play more straightforward cards since cubes with lower card counts will be more linear in their strategies. This leads to the super powerful cards like Black Lotus becoming unbeatable powerhouses. To avoid this, the cube average aggregator decided not to include them in the smaller cube lists. Expensive cards are still in the smaller cubes, like Revised dual lands, Karn Liberated, Cryptic Command, and Jace, the Mind Sculptor – it’s just that the extremely broken cards like Black Lotus tend to only be balanced out by including a majority of the old broken cards. This will greatly affect the overall price of the smaller cubes if we can expect extremely rare cards like Black Lotus to be absent from them.

Pricing the various cubes, we arrive at the approximate values without proxies:

No Proxies

Cube Price
Cube Tutor 360 $4,502.14
Cube Tutor 360 Peasant $191.75
Cube Tutor 360 Pauper $121.71
Cube Tutor 450 $5,008.29
Cube Tutor 450 Peasant $236.13
Cube Tutor 450 Pauper $142.19
Cube Tutor 720 $18,316.41
Cube Tutor 720 Peasant $396.97
Cube Tutor 720 Pauper $229.77

*TCG Mid

Well, if we’re talking about a 720 card cube with Black Lotus and Moxen in it, that $18,000 price tag doesn’t really surprise me. It certainly is a ton a money to invest in a cube, and if you have a cube like this more power to you. Just please get insurance. We all hate seeing those reddit posts saying that someone “forgot” to hand back in all their cards when cube drafting…

For more reasonable options, the Peasant and Pauper cubes for 720 cards are much more affordable. If you’re looking to build a large cube on a budget that can accommodate lots of players and a plethora of archetypes I think it would be a good idea to start with a Peasant or Pauper cube and modify it from there.

Myself, I only need the 360 card cube. I think I’m going to start with the 360 Peasant and modify it to my tastes from there.

Hooray for Proxies

If you’re a person that just has to play all those powerful cards and don’t care if you have real copies, then proxying everything over a certain price point makes sense. This way you can have the best of both worlds and also have a goal to work towards – to one day own a cube that has all the real copies of the cards you want in it. When accounting for proxies of cards that are $50 or more, these are the updated cube prices for the regular cubes. I didn’t bother with the Peasant and Pauper options because they are already heavily discounted.

Proxies ($50 or more)

Cube Price
Cube Tutor 720 $4,939.03
Cube Tutor 450 $2,221.65
Cube Tutor 360 $1,803.95


As would be expected, the price with proxies drops considerably. It didn’t drop as much as I thought it would, however you could always lower the limit to $30, $20, or even $10 as the threshold for proxying. Your startup costs will keep decreasing with the limit you set yourself until you can build something that is affordable and work up from there.

Since I set the proxy limit at $50 or more, the prices show that there are still plenty of $30-$45 cards that can be included with a cube to bolster the price. Even the lower cards that range from $5-$15 can add up quickly.

Oooh, Shiny!

Just for fun, let’s see how much these cubes are on average are if your goal is to ultimately foil them out.

FOIL Cubes

Cube Price
Cube Tutor 360 $9,738.61
Cube Tutor 360 Peasant $1,045.71
Cube Tutor 360 Pauper $789.90
Cube Tutor 450 $10,847.83
Cube Tutor 450 Peasant $1,230.37
Cube Tutor 450 Pauper $928.39
Cube Tutor 720 $26,303.03
Cube Tutor 720 Peasant $1,794.67
Cube Tutor 720 Pauper $1,210.16

 

So if I wanted a foil 360 card Peasant cube, I could expect to pay around $1,000 for it. This is about what I expected in terms of pricing for foils. Clearly the the 720 card powered cube was going to be absurdly expensive, there is not denying that – if your goal is to foil out a powered cube it is quite a lofty goal.

Time to Play

Once you’ve decided where your budget lies and how big you want to make your cube, all I can say is go for it! Know that I too will be working on my cube now that I have a goal in mind and know where I want it to fall on my budget. Even if I have to proxy a few cards initially and then pick them up over time, I at least have a starting point for how much it will cost me – especially if I want to foil out my cube down the road.

Some final thoughts:

What have you guys spent on creating your cubes? Do the averages match what you think you’ve spent?

Do you procure expensive proxies to fill the slots of Black Lotus, the Moxen, Time Walk, and other powerful old cards that are hard to find? This can be a good compromise to purchasing the real card, in addition to having a fully foiled cube if the proxy is foil. I’m curious to know how much it costs to create these premium proxy cards for those who play with them.

Also, do you like to build cubes on a budget and add some spicy bulk/cheaper rares when the urge strikes you? Are you picking up multiple copies of cards to make set themed or more linear cubes? It would be good to know if Cube Tutor is hits or misses the mark in terms of what a typical player’s cube looks like.

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