City of Traders, ProTrader, Unlocked ProTrader

UNLOCKED PROTRADER: A First Look at Modern Masters 2015

May 6, 2015 Travis Allen 19 Comments

By: Travis Allen

Clack-Clack-Clack-Cla

This article will have been the most fun I’ve had writing in months, possibly ever. I say this without any consideration for the content within. What am I talking about? I recently purchased a mechanical keyboard, and ho boy, let me tell you. This thing is amazing. Every key press is simultaneously a musical note and a distinct tactile sensation. Typing is akin to receiving a massage, and each muscle plays it’s own sound when relaxed. You see, most keyboards, such as those on your laptop or the one many of you are using on your desktop, use a series of rubber membranes underneath the keys. You push a key, some rubber moves, an electrical circuit is formed, and the computer registers a key press. On the surface of the board the keys are independent, but the inner workings beneath the keys are all connected.

Mechanical keyboards, on the other hand, hearken back to a time before advanced manufacturing techniques had turned its eye toward computers, before capitalism drove down both the cost and quality of everyday keyboards. Each key on the board is completely independent of the others, and they use a fully self-contained mechanical process to register key presses. (This website does a good job of illustrating the function, as well as educating you on which type you may want to invest in. I chose Cherry MX Brown switches, and I’m quite happy with them, though they don’t have the same distinct tactile bump mid-stroke that the Blues have. I’d be happy with either.) The end result is a wildly satisfying typing experience that I can’t recommend strongly enough if you spend any appreciable time at your computer. Be forewarned, though. If there are any light sleepers in your home they will be immediately aware of your new purchase.

Modern Reforged

What does this have to do with our topic for the week? Nothing, really. I just wanted a chance to type more words on this thing and I thought I’d take the opportunity to share with you all this nifty new device I’m enjoying. As far as content goes, I had planned on starting this week off by continuing from last week’s topic—that is, what cards to trade for heavily over the summer as Khans of Tarkir block prices fall.

After pulling up Fate Reforged, though, I find really only a single card that looks to be immediately underpriced: Tasigur, the Golden Fang. He’s making waves in Standard, Modern, and Legacy right now, quickly cementing his place as a stalwart eternal staple. With FRF feeling under-opened, I see non-foils cresting $10 to $15 this fall, and foils are an absolute slam dunk in the $25 to $30 range. Realize that foil Abrupt Decay, another recent eternal staple, is nearly $70.

Beyond Tasigur, there isn’t much in Fate Reforged I’m too excited about right now. I do believe that Ugin, the Spirit Dragon will ultimately rise, though I’m not entirely sure of exactly how his price curve will play out over the next several months. I believe that it’s highly likely we see him above $50 before the end of 2016, though that doesn’t mean that this August is necessarily the best time to buy in. And if we’re looking for places to stock up on cards that will be rising this fall in order to cash out, Ugin may not be the best choice with both a high barrier to entry and uncertainty about when exactly he’ll reach his full price potential. There’s also the looming specter of the spring’s Duel Deck, for which Ugin is a serious candidate. Should that come to pass, it will add another year at least to his growth cycle.

I’m a big fan of Monastery Mentor, as well, especially foils, though again, with such a high price tag already, it’s going to be hard to build up too much of a portfolio this summer. I would recommend trading for all three of these FRF cards as much as possible over the coming months, and for any other cards you want to park value in, refer to what I wrote last week.

Just the Thing

While staring at the Fate Reforged price list and wondering what the heck I was going to write about this week, I noticed that Modern Masters 2015 official spoilers began today. Well, hey, that’s something people care about, right? Perfect. We’ll look at what’s official up through Tuesday, May 5.

It won’t be too surprising to learn that most cards in MM2015 are going to drop in price, at least initially. Our goal isn’t to just guess at which direction everything is going to go, but rather, to understand how far it will drop and consider the point at which we want to buy. Having said that, there is one culprit that may once again escape the pitfalls of reprint.

I had two reactions to the official reveal of MM2015. First, that Tarmogoyf was going to be in, and second, that its price would finally fall. Finally, I reasoned, supply would begin to outstrip demand.

In the intervening months, however, my opinion has wavered. I am no longer so sure that the amount of Goyfs introduced to the market will be enough to satiate public demand. My fellow writer, James Chillcott (@mtgcritic), has been trying to hone in on the number of copies that will be introduced relative to the existing population of Goyfs, and I’ve got to say, it’s less than I would have initially expected. When you consider just how few people out there actually own sets, it’s easy to see how this could once again fail to slay the green monster. Next time you’re at Modern or Draft or FNM, ask around and see how many players actually own playsets. Almost everyone that isn’t a die-hard Spike won’t own any, and even among the competitive players, I’m guessing you’ll find perhaps a 25 percent ownership rate. If the printing of MM2015 creates more players that are seeking playsets of Tarmogoyf than playsets themselves, demand rises, and so too will the price. My estimated price on Goyf right now for the initial months following the release of MM2015 is somewhere between $160 and $190. Time will tell, I suppose.

Mythics

How about the rest of the spoiled cards? Let’s start with some big ones. Emrakul, the Aeons Torn was spoiled very early, and as a result, he’s dropped from $60 all the way to…$50. There will be further loss here, though don’t expect prices south of $30. He’s still the preeminent reanimation and cheat-into-play target in every format where he’s legal, and is a casual all-star to boot. Our best course of action here is to wait for Emrakul to hit his floor, and as soon as he begins to rise again (likely sometime this fall), begin scooping up copies like mad. We won’t see him again for quite some time after this, and I’ve no doubt he’ll return to $50 within a year or so of his appearance here in MM2015. The only way he doesn’t climb back up to that price is if he’s somehow trumped in Battle for Zendikar, which I consider highly unlikely. Right now, Emrakul is a prime target to trade all of your Siege Rhinos and Rattleclaw Mystics into this October.

Kozilek returns, the last of the three to receive a second printing, and boy did he need it. He’s been more expensive than Ulamog for quite some time, despite the fact that Ulamog is fringe-playable in any big mana deck and Kozilek is resigned to casual-oriented formats. That his price stayed that high without a modicum of tournament success tells us just how much casual demand there is for this guy. The only reason I see his price suffering much at all this year is because of just how packed with value the mythic slot is this time around. Kozilek will be another excellent trade target as MM2015 prices bottom out in several months.

Karn should follow a similar path as Emrakul as a giant, colorless, awesome card. In fact, Karn seems even more resilient here than Emrakul is. He was just about $50 before he was officially revealed in early March, and he’s still about $50 today. He won’t be able to sustain that price, as the market always seems to react rather slowly to reprint news like this, but like Emrakul, I’d be surprised if he made it under $25 or $30. I’m less bullish on scooping up copies of Karn this fall, though. While very cool, he’s not actually played in nearly as many places as Emrakul is. There’s clearly appeal from casual players, EDH tables, and cubes, but he isn’t a mainstay of combo decks in both eternal formats in the same way as Emrakul. You could do worse than picking up Karn this fall, but he won’t be my first choice.

While we’re talking about colorless cards, Mox Opal is yet another high-profile colorless mythic, though unlike the Lovecraftian horrors detailed above, is vulnerable to corrosion and violent storms. Another $50 to $60 mythic before its announcement, Opal too hasn’t budged much yet. The path for this will be similar to Emrakul. It will drop into the $30 to $40 range, then given its utility in various formats and status of being a Mox, will only stand to gain once we get past the initial supply glut.

I’m a bit surprised to see Iona here, as she was widely expected to show up in the upcoming From the Vault: Angels. Given that she’s so casual-oriented, she makes sense in an FTV product, while Linvala was expected here in the competitive product. With Iona in MM2015, did Wizards switch things up on us and put Linvala in the FTV? It would seem that way for now.

As for Iona, the hits at the mythic slot just keep on coming. There will be an interesting tension between this many high-demand mythics and $10 pack prices. Looking at Swords of Fire and Ice and Light and Shadow from the first time around, I see the Darksteel copies losing about 15 percent after the reprint. Given that Iona is similarly a casual-oriented card with a very minor competitive play profile, I’d expect something similar here. She’ll probably dip below $25, but don’t expect anything south of $20 unless the whole set drops more than people expect.

If we divide the mythics into “better than average” and “worse than average” piles, I’m putting Bitterblossom in the worse half. The current price tag of $40 is based entirely on scarcity. While a mythic run in MM2015 isn’t going to add “one in every box of Cheerios” quantity to the market, it’s going to add quite a few copies of a card that is relatively unpopular right now. Add to that the same artwork, and there’s no reason to believe this will fare well. With the uncontested popularity of so many other mythics, Bitterblossom’s outlook is not great here. Could we see prices south of $20?

Vendilion Clique is probably the worst positioned mythic at the moment. The trio is competing against a slew of useful rares that plenty of players have been waiting ages to pick up, as well as several high-profile, heavily-played mythics, all while losing competitive ground in both Modern and Legacy. I picked up a small stack of these about a year ago at around $50 because I anticipated they would reach $90 to $100, as Dark Confidant had done, but they just never saw enough play to get that high. It seems they’re not used any more today than they were then, and if anything, it seems like I see them less often, particularly in Legacy. With another printing increasing both availability and competition among expensive cards, Clique could end up being one of the mythics with the furthest to fall.

Primeval Titan was shown off on Monday by perennial green mage Brian Kibler, and while the price hasn’t dropped much yet, expect it to in the near future. This will mark the titan’s fourth printing, and even with Amulet Bloom running rampant in Modern right now, it still hasn’t been enough to push its price much past $15. With so many other, more desirable cards in the set, things don’t look good for Primeval Titan in the near future. Given how long it took this to rise in price the last time, unless we see PrimeTime in the sub-$4 range, I’ll be inclined to stay away. This goes doubly so for the rest of the cycle, which all have far fewer competitive applications than Mana-Hulk.

Rares

On the rare side of things, the reprint everyone saw coming before MM2015 was even announced, Noble Hierarch, is going to present a lucrative opportunity. Its price will crash hard, with Jason (@JasonEAlt) and James looking for prices in the $10 to $15 range. I’m right there with them, and I’m also in total agreement that this is an excellent long-term gainer. Hierarch is all over the place in basically every format, including the kitchen table. They even printed Llanowar Elves in the most recent Commander product, which means that mana dorks can find a home just about anywhere. I’ll be looking for as many copies of Hierarch as possible this fall when she’s at her lowest, and hopefully she’ll climb all the way back to $40 given a year or so to grow. It took less than a year for Cryptic Command to go from under $20 to $55, and I expect the same here.

Fulminator Mage is likely to end up in the top five or ten most useful rares in the set, but that won’t save its value. I expect the price to take a nasty hit, just as Hierarch will, though the rebound should happen slower and softer. Hierarch is on the whole much more popular across a wide spectrum of players, while Fulminator Mage does exactly two things: fills out Modern sideboards and annoys people at kitchen tables. Mostly the former, I’d guess. In any case, I’ll be glad to finally have a set back.

Spellskite should fare as well or better than those two, given its ubiquity in Modern. I wouldn’t be surprised to see it being one of the top ten or even top five best rares in the set. Still, we’re going to see more of a drop from the current price tag of about $25. I’d anticipate prices in the low teens, perhaps even below $10 depending on how great supply actually is, and what the rest of the rares look like. I certainly like Spellskite at its floor in a few months. It isn’t seeing any less play in Modern than it was, and will be good for at least 50 percent profits a year from its lowest point.

Splinter Twin is going to eat it hard. There’s exactly one deck that wants copies anywhere in the world, and even then, it doesn’t even necessarily run four. I don’t like it as a gainer, either. Once the boost in supply drives the price low, there won’t be sustained illiquid demand to drive it back up.

Daybreak Coronet was spoiled with a worse border and less interesting art, and like Adarkar Valkyrie and other casual cards, should suffer greatly. Boggles is hardly a major component of the competitive Modern scene, and beyond that, demand for Coronet exists only in casual circles. It will join the ranks of the slaughtered rares with nearly no hope of recovering. It won’t be the only white rare down there either, as Mirran Crusader will be joining it.

Another casual all-star, All is Dust, maintains a $20 price tag despite being GP promo’d. A rare printing is going to hurt like hell, though. Adarkar Valkyrie dropped dramatically when it was reprinted, from double digits to under $2, and I don’t expect other expensive casual rares will fare much better this time around. I can see Dust dropping well south of $10.

Next week should bring us quite a bit more to discuss, although there’s no way the density of absurd mythics can continue at this rate. There’s been a sort of semi-unofficial spoiling of Dark Confidant and Tezzeret via an MTGO announcement, so I’m assuming we’ll see those, as well as the rest of the Titan cycle. Probably a great deal more rares, as well, which I’m quite curious about. Once we have the full spoiler list in, we can begin turning our attention to all those left behind. Until then!

Uncategorized

Going Mad – The Good Guys

May 6, 2015 Derek Madlem 5 Comments

By: Derek Madlem

Last week I might have come across a little hard on the #mtgfinance. Judging by the feedback I received, the zeitgeist was right there with me for most of what I said … and I received A LOT of feedback, more than any article I’ve ever written.

People associate a lot of bad things with #mtgfinance, even the use of the #mtgfinance hashtag has become a punchline to most people. Though to be fair, what hashtag has anyone ever taken seriously? #thanksObama

So now with everyone who tweets about the price of cards being evil we can all just agree that anyone that considers themselves a Magic financier is probably a terrible person right? After all, they’re out there just ripping off orphans, sharking trades from naive single mothers, and stealing Black Lotuses from the elderly using elaborate e-mail scams right?

The Retail Level

In the distant past there was a time when no Standard legal card was ever worth more than $20, it just didn’t happen. When you opened a pack of 4th Edition the best you could hope for was a Shivan Dragon because it was the most valuable card in the set at $20, with Royal Assassin right behind it at $18. Meanwhile, there were no “dollar rares” … even Chaoslace was $3, just go ahead and give that one a read.

Cards were hard to find, there were no internet stores…hell, there wasn’t really even an internet. It was years later when I convinced my mom to order a box of Tempest from an online store … she had to FAX HER CREDIT CARD INFO … things have come a long way since then.

When people began to approach selling cards as a business rather than a hobby, things revolutionized. Most cards got cheaper. As more and more people entered the fray, competition and innovation increased. The Chaoslaces of the world became what they should be – bulk. But some cards crept up in price. I missed the middle years of Magic, I was absent for everything that occurred from Invasion through Time Spiral block, but you know what I saw when I came back to the game?

Cryptic Command – $20
Bitterblossom – $20
Ajani Goldmane – $20

The best rares still didn’t seem to break through that $20 ceiling. But then we were introduced to Mythic Rares and everything was ruined. I mean seriously, it’s a Magic card … who would pay more than $20 for a stupid piece of cardboard?

As it turns out, a lot of people. Around this time there were a lot of people quitting because Magic was “getting too expensive.” At the same time the game was experiencing a Groundswell of new players.

Did these players come out of the woodwork because they were secretly waiting for a more expensive game to play? Obviously not. I’m going to put this next part in bold letters because it’s really important.

Tying up more of a set’s aggregate value in a few cards made running a game store easier.

Game stores are popping up everywhere and one of the main drivers of their success is selling Magic singles. Higher prices on popular cards creates opportunity for entrepreneurs. Think about this for a second: most stores made more profit selling a playset of Goblin Rabblemasters than they did selling a box of M15 … this is the reality of running a modern game store.

You know what provides you with all those tables at your local game store? I’ll give you a hint, it’s not the dollar rares or booster pack sales; it’s Baneslayer Angel and Bonfire of the Damned and Jace, the Mind Sculptor. It’s players like you buying cards like these that are creating a place for you and your friends a place to meet up and battle with Magic cards.

Supply and Supply

In my last article I drummed up the artificial creation of demand for certain cards. You know what else the Magic finance community does for you? They create supply as well. Whaaaaaaaat?

The “scrappers” of the finance community are out there aggressively digging through 5,000 count boxes pulling out the gems you need and they’re selling them by the fist full to online retailers, vendors at events, and local game stores. These people keep prices down by keeping the supply flowing into the hands of people that need the cards. With cards as mundane as Gitaxian Probe already hovering around $3, you can imagine what the price would be if the supply were cut in half.

It’s not just about picking bulk, these guys are combing the local game stores that lack an online presence and buying up staples and putting them back into circulation so that you can find them. They’re out there flipping through the binders and boxes of the most casual of players to pluck out these diamonds in the rough.

They’re going into places like this to find cards, so you don’t have to. Those binder grinders are providing inventory for local game stores and online retailers alike to sell. You have to keep in mind that when a store runs out of Goblin Rabblemasters they can’t just order more from the distributor, they have to buy them second hand.

News Team Assemble!

“You heard it here first, the #mtgfinance crowd is not all bad … full story at 11”

One of the biggest benefits the #mtgfinance community has brought to the people is a dissemination of information. As more and more people provide regular content about the financial workings of the Magic economy, the average reader becomes more educated. While it sucks for the old-school sharks that made a fortune trading with the blissfully ignorant, the bulk of the Magic population is better served by being well-informed.

A genre that may have begun as articles about value trading has evolved into much much more. We have writers bringing over real-world finance lessons and explaining complicated concepts in simple terms. We have weekly reports on what we’re buying and selling to promote transparency.

We’ve got writers “attacking the format” from a variety of different angles – casual, Standard, Modern, eternal formats, Commander, Tiny Leaders, and the list goes on and on. I know that I sure don’t care to learn the worldwide metagame for EDH, I play against the same four or five people…but if I read what others are saying about popular EDH cards, then I have a more informed perspective.

All of these content creators are providing current and trending news on the cards you want and the cards you own. They’re boiling down complex concepts and interactions into 140 characters. They’re publishing 2,000 word manifestos on the inner workings of Tiny Leaders. They’re putting in the work analyzing and interpreting trends so you can focus your free time on what makes Magic so magical – playing the game.

As the volume of finance content created increases, the public becomes more informed and we have fewer people throwing away hundreds of dollars on sure-to-fail preorders. As the general public becomes more informed buyers we’ll see a decrease in those outrageous preorder prices and we’ll more quickly discover the cards that have real motivators for demand.

Most importantly we’ll hear less of that guy at our local game store making bold predictions on mundane cards because his audience will be informed enough to shut him up.

Technology

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9ERiI1epI4

I agree, I love technology. You know what drives technology and innovation? Money. Take a look at all of the sweet offerings you have at your fingertips because of this whole #mtgfinance thing. Sites like MTGPrice and QuietSpeculation have cobbled together an assortment of tools to make your lives easier.

Buylist automation and collection tracking are just the tip of the iceberg as far as features we have at our disposal for under a few bucks a month.

We have portable access to pricing through apps and there are numerous “fair trade” apps that will make sure that you don’t leave a single penny on the trade table. All of this technology was created because of the #mtgfinance community. You may not think yourself a financier, but if you’ve ever looked up the price of a card then you’re a part of the community as a whole.

Maybe Not So Bad

Magic finance isn’t all about called shots, buyouts, and spec targets, it’s about understanding the underlying principles. We can read articles to find out the “why” instead of just looking up the “what” of a price.

We have access to a variety of resources that all popped up around this little community. Historic pricing data aggregated from dozens of sources? Yeah, we’ve got access to that. Daily gain / loss reports in our e-mail inbox? Yeah, we’ve got access to that. How many of you remember the old days when you had to log into starcitygames.com the night before you went to FNM to look up the prices of all your cards so that you were on point at the trade tables? Now we’ve got access to up to the minute pricing on our phones from a variety of sources.

We’re living in a world with no $3 Chaoslaces, and I have a hard time saying that’s a bad thing. The next time you hear someone mention MTG finance, remember the good things this community does for all of us regardless of our level of participation.

Until next time, you can find me on twitter @GoingMadlem or you can find me at GP Atlantic City working at the Aether Games booth, stop by and say hello.

Jason Alt, ProTrader

Is It Safe? Part 2

May 6, 2015 Jason Alt 3 Comments

By: Jason Alt

For a brief second, I found myself wishing this series dealt with MODO at all because “Part 2: Electric Reprint Boogaloo” would be a sweet title. If you’re not laughing, you’re just mad you didn’t think of it, and envy is a stinky cologne, readers.

Electronic reprints are relevant to the discussion, but online EDH is so irrelevant it’s not funny. It’s played, technically, but there’s not much money in speculating on such an underplayed and volatile medium, so let’s stick to what we know.

<h3>The rest of this content is only visible to ProTrader members.</h3>

<h4>To learn how ProTrader can benefit YOU, <a href=”http://try.mtgprice.com/protrader“>click here to watch our short video.</a></h4>

<center>ProTrader: Magic doesn’t have to be expensive.</center>

Finding Value

Game Day Promos, Part I

May 5, 2015 Guo Heng Chin 3 Comments

By: Guo Heng Chin

The Dragons of Tarkir Game Day weekend was one of a kind. Out of the four Game Day events I attended, three of them attracted a crowd larger than the average PPTQ in my area. Game Days have never been that popular, nor that competitive. The weekend also set the record for the most Game Days I’ve ever played for a single set.

This was the reason:

Bow before the might of the Regent, in full art.

Back at the Fate Reforged Game Day, the coveted prize was the Game Day Champion playmat featuring Chris Rahn’s alternate art of Ugin, the Spirit Dragon. The playmat sold for $80 on eBay during the weeks following the event, and is now selling for $30 to $50. The expected value for participating in Fate Reforged Game Day was not spectacular, as only one person could win the playmat and sometimes tiebreakers can be heartbreaking.

This time around, the main prize as players saw it was not the playmat, but rather the full-art foil Thunderbreak Regent which was awarded to the top eight players at each Game Day. Besides being a highly playable dragon in Standard with casual and EDH appeal, the card features a gorgeous full art treatment by Jason Rainville. Here is a slice of eBay completed sales for the promo during the Game Day weekend:

The Game Day Thunderbreak Regent is still commanding a TCGplayer-mid of $20 as of writing. If you took Derek Madlem’s advice and made top eight of your local Game Day, you would most likely have made a good return for your participation fee.

The price of the foil full-art Thunderbreak Regent got me wondering: is it one of the most expensive Game Day promos ever to the given out?

Today, we are going to take a trip back in time to the first Game Day ever that awarded full art foils to the top eight players. The long-term price trajectory of full art foil Game Day promos piqued my interest because:

They are limited edition and in limited in supply as only eight players per Game Day receive copies.
A large majority of them seems to cater to the casual and EDH crowd, which means good long-term potential.
Full-art foils are more collectible than set foils. Barring a few, Wizards has done a great job in ensuring that the art for the Game Day top eight promos blows the set version’s art out of the water.
Chances of being reprinted: 0.05%.

Those four factors put together make for solid long-term potential. Does that mean that these promos are good investments? Let’s have a look at how the first several Game Day full-art foil promos have done over the years.

History

While the first Game Day to hand out a promo to its participants was the Tenth Edition Game Day back in 2007, the first Game Day that set the current trend for awarding a promo to each participant and another foil full art promo to the players who made top eight was the Magic 2010 Game Day. We shall start from this point.

Magic 2010 Game Day

Even though Mycoid Shepherd was the first full-art Game Day promo, it is worth nought. The foil full-art Mycoid Shepherd is just going for $3.64 on TCGplayer.

In the next Game Day, the top eight players received a more valuable card:

Zendikar Game Day

The Game Day promo (still called WPN or Gateway promo back then) full-art foil of Emeria Angel is commanding a TCGplayer-mid of $20 today, which is impressive and yet not really that surprising. She is an angel after all, and being a limited-edition foil featuring full art by none other than Steve Argyle could not hurt her price, even after being out of Standard for four years and not seeing play in Modern.

I’m tempted to say that the casual force is strong in this one. However, the set foil is only $3. Could the fact that this Game Day promo features a full art drawn by a well-loved artist explains large chasm between the set foil and the Game Day foil?

More importantly, could the Thunderbreak Regent Game Day promo follow the footsteps of Emeria Angel?

Worldwake Game Day

The Worldwake Game Day top eight promo is another that remains moderately valuable today. The full-art foil Kalastria Highborn has a TCGplayer-mid of $11.84, but near mint copies start at $14.08. As limited edition cards get older, near mint copies become harder to locate.

Contrast the Game Day full-art foil of Kalastria Highborn with the set foil, which is only $4.60. The difference between the set foil and Game Day top eight full-art foil may be less stark than that of Emeria Angel due to both versions sharing the same art, and vampires not being as popular as angels. Vampires may not be a legitimate archetype in Modern, but the tribe has moderate casual and EDH appeal and Kalastria Highborn is a key piece of any vampire tribal deck.

By the way, the set foil has a multiplier of only 0.56 compared the non-foil.

Rise of the Eldrazi Game Day

Someone at Wizards was slacking at his or her job. We get another Game Day promo with the same art as the set version, albeit in full art glory and in foil. The Deathless Angel Game Day promo is only worth a TCGplayer-mid of $7.33, not much more than its set foil counterpart, which is going for $3.76. Deathless Angel may be an angel, but her ability is underwhelming, and I am not sure she is at all popular. Off the top of my head, I can only think of one deck that would want Deathless Angel: Kaalia of the Vast EDH. And there are much better ways to protect Kaalia.

Magic 2011 Game Day

The trend of underwhelming Game Day top eight promos continued into the Magic 2011 Game Day. The only explanation I can think of for the reason behind selecting Mitotic Slime as the promo for this one is its perceived casual appeal. I can only imagine the collective disappointment of the players who made top eight of the Magic 2011 Game Days.

At least Wizards commissioned a different art for the Game Day promo this time. Still, it’s barely worth anything, with a TCG-mid of $2.98.

Scars of Mirrodin Game Day

Now that’s a card worthy as a Game Day top eight promo! Tempered Steel was the centerpiece of its namesake deck which propelled four pilots, all from Team ChannelFireball, into the top eight of Worlds in 2011. The Tempered Steel archetype went on to become one of the premier aggro decks during that Standard season.

Unfortunately, since Scars of Mirrodin dropped out of Standard, Tempered Steel has struggled to find a home. It is too clunky for Modern Affinity, and it does not really fit the bill of a casual all-star. This all explains the Game Day full-art foil version of Tempered Steel being at a paltry $4.21 TCGplayer-mid. The Memnite non-foil full art promo, which was given out to all participants of the Scars of Mirrodin Game Day, is worth nearly as much as the promo exclusive to top eight players, with a TCGplayer-mid of $3.83.

The next Game Day top eight promo recently experienced a hike in price, due to the recent surge in Tiny Leader’s popularity.

Mirrodin Besieged Game Day

The Game Day full-art foil promo Black Sun’s Zenith was hovering around $6 late last year, and spiked to the double digits early this year when a new format exploded into mainstream Magic. For a while, every single Magic content website featured discussion about the novel format that is Tiny Leaders.

Black Sun’s Zenith is one of the rare few board wipes that is legal in Tiny Leaders, as its XBB casting cost qualifies it as having a converted mana cost of two. Black Sun’s Zenith’s Game Day full-art version is currently priced at a TCGplayer-mid of $14.48, making it one of the more expensive Game Day promos out there. The set foil is only $6.37.

The Game Day Black Sun’s Zenith’s price is buoyed mainly by Tiny Leaders. It is not used in Modern, and there are better board wipes in EDH like Damnation (or Decree of Pain and Life’s Finale if, like me, you can’t afford Damnation).

The Game Day full-art foil Black Sun’s Zenith also has one of the sweetest full-art treatments in existence, with an epic depiction of the onsetting despair of getting your board wiped by an opposing Black Sun’s Zenith by James Paick.

Until Next Time

That is all for today’s adventure back in time. Join me for future discussions of Game Day promos, as we will be continuing on our journey exploring the beautiful full-art cards given out to worthy players in the past few years.

Feel free to leave your comments below, or catch me on Twitter at @theguoheng.

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