Putting the “U” Back in “Obvious”

No.

I know what some of you are thinking. “This title is some clever pun about how there is a ‘u’ in ‘obvious’ and it’s a play on the word ‘you.'”

You’re so vain.

No, this article isn’t about you, it’s about EDH cards that make a nice, predictable shape on their price graphs—and how we can use that information to our advantage. If you want, we can talk about the factors that contribute to that shape. Just kidding, we’ll do it if I want, and I want. Sorry if you were looking forward to not learning anything today. Yes, I realize I promised this would be a series about EDH finance, but we still have to talk a little finance.

I feel like the EDH case is easier to make to the finance community than the finance case is to make to the EDH community. If you’re someone who just wants to slang some cards, why would you care about graph shapes?

Basically, my hope for this series is that I may be able to make some of this material accessible enough that someone who is interested in saving money but not interested in speculation or really even paying a ton of attention to the finance market can save some money on EDH staples they will buy at some point regardless. I also think people who are interested in finance but not terribly interested in learning all the idiosyncrasies of EDH can avoid making some mistakes with card buying. This is a concept that both groups can apply without having to learn a ton about what the other group is up to.  Would I hate it if this piece got passed around /r/EDH? Nope, not even a little.

Predictability

We could have made a  prediction about the price of a card like foil Chromatic Lantern and it may or may not have been true. The problem with making a prediction about the value of a card is that sometimes we put our blinders on and look at the price as something we view through a keyhole. We get one glimpse of the value as a fixed point in time and sometimes it jives with our prediction and sometimes it doesn’t. Most people don’t view finance this way anymore, preferring to see a graphical representation of price as being less static, which is preferable. Otherwise, trying to get a sense of a card and how it fits into the overall tableau of prices is akin to the proverb about the three blind men feeling different parts of an elephant and all having very different ideas about what the elephant looks like.

elephant-with-blind-men
Thought of the Week UK

How do we avoid their ridiculous fate and get a sense of what the next elephant will look like before we wait two years for enough data to see if our predictions panned out? Well, we could palpate said elephant for two years, or we could just look at a picture of an elephant and extrapolate. You’ve seen one elephant, you’ve seen them all: that’s how predictability works. So what does an elephant look like?

The Elephant in the Room

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The “elephant” metaphor is a goofy one, but I think it illustrates how sometimes we put our blinders on. We all do it. I bought foil Lanterns and it was for too much money. I sold foil Lanterns and it was for too little money.  How badly did I punt? Well, not terribly and in fact, I did really well by most MTG finance standards. However, I was groping around in the dark and making guesses based on my experience, which means I was in okay shape since I spend a lot of time doing this. However, when the blindfold came off and I saw the real picture, I felt a little foolish, like a guy who described an elephant as having two tails and no trunk because he spent too much time around the ass end. What did my elephant drawing look like?

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The black arrow represents where I bought my foil Lanterns and the red arrow represents where I sold. In for $10 (cash on site, no fees or shipping) and out for $17. A 70 percent gain is pretty good in this game, but not great. Now, am I kicking myself for not selling at $25? Nah, the window was too small. Still, now that I have the whole “hindsight is 20/20” picture, we could have easily doubled up and done a lot better. The thing is, I had ample opportunity to buy in at $7.50 (cheaper from players, although anyone who has a foil Lantern isn’t usually coming off of it for $7.50!)—longer than I had to buy in at $10. I was following the price so intently, waiting for it to come down from its initial price of $15, that I didn’t stop to consider that there is a right time to buy and I might not have been buying at the right time. Let’s look at the three parts of a clumsy elephant metaphor an elephant and see where we buy and where we either sell or dive into a theoretical swimming pool full of our theoretical “winnings” like Scrooge McDuck.

Tail

This is a politer way to say “ass end.” It’s possible to buy too early, and when we’re dealing with EDH foils, impatience is a real thing. People are impatient about the cards they want to use to play Standard events, and EDH players have read the spoiler and identified the cards they want for their decks, and the foil people have already decided they want foils. Sometimes buying before the card really establishes itself means you can save money, especially since people tend to assume a two-times multiplier for foils even though the EDH foil multiplier is usually higher. Cards with no 60-card applicability are usually identified as EDH cards very early, and for this reason, it’s almost never a good idea to buy in early if you want a foil copy. For the purposes of simplicity, I’m lumping Cube in with EDH to an extent, which is convenient and not ridiculously intellectually lazy. Cube has nuances, but for the moment, we’ll assume Lantern is a 100 percent EDH card because I don’t feel like picking another example that has no cube applicability now that I’m this deep into the article.

It’s possible to buy too early and this is what happens in 99 percent of cases. If you think a card’s value can go up in the short term (like two to three weeks), preorder, I guess, but this very nearly never happens. If you’re impatient, understand you’re going to overpay and you deserve it. However, I almost bought in at the ass-end by buying in at $10. Buying in even earlier at $15 would have been the mistake I mostly managed to avoid.

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All you see is a foil non-mythic in the post-mythic era screaming out of the gates at $15. That’s pricey for a card in Return to Ravnica, a set that everyone knew would break sales records. If all you can see is the tail, you might think an elephant looks pretty ridiculous, but figure that’s how things are. You can buy in here if you want, but that’s almost never a good idea.

Trunk

Party! This is the upside area. We saw a decline and then the price started ticking up. If this happens after the card rotates out of Standard and it has no use in Modern or Legacy, it is EDH playability, Cube desirability, and casual appeal that will buoy the price. And buoy the price these things did, sending Lantern to $25 for a brief, shining moment. It will see $25 again, and relatively soon. They aren’t printing more unless they do another Commander’s Arsenal, and even then, the set foil will maintain most if not all of its value.

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If you’re inclined to sell, this might be a time to do it. You can buy here if you want the card, just like you could have if you were impatient. But the relationship between the trunk and tail is a special one because sometimes people don’t check out the midsection and end up losing out. How? It’s probably pretty easy for you to figure that out—incomplete information leads to incorrect conclusions.

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If you imagine someone who checked the price of foil Lantern when preorders went out and decided it was too expensive and decided to wait a while for the price to go down and checked after rotation, you can imagine them seeing the price be roughly the same and assuming the price didn’t go anywhere. Finance people check prices a lot more often, and people trying to find a deal may check more often than that, but we’re illustrating a point here.

Cards that are EDH staples have a nice, predictable U shape to their price graphs, and we can use that to our advantage. If you ignore the $15 at both points of the U because you know what the shape is going to look like, you’re in good shape.

“Got it. Don’t pay too much for cards. Great article, moron.”

The point here isn’t that you should pay attention to prices, although you should, The point isn’t that you should avoid paying too much by buying too early or too late, although you should.  Did you already know that a card like Lantern would start high, get lower, and go back up? Great, so did I. And yet, I was a blind man fumbling around to an extent. I knew that prices would go down because supply would go up as more packs were opened and the set was drafted, but my buying activity was still suboptimal. I bought below $15 thinking I was being smart and I still ended up overpaying. I paid too much attention to the numbers on the graph when the letters were just as important.

“Letters?”

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Peak supply happens when the set is just about to stop being drafted. People redeemed foil sets of RTR for the shocks and gave zero craps about EDH cards. People busted a foil Lantern in a draft somewhere in the world probably once a day.  Why buy in for $10 in March 2013 just because $10 is less than $15 when the price was $2 cheaper a month later? Did I know that would happen? Well, no, but it was pretty predictable, wasn’t it? In hindsight, of course it was. And that is what we want to do in the future.

The Next Elephant

The next card that will follow this pattern will be an EDH staple, likely one printed in Battle for Zendikar. It will preorder at a very high price initially based on Cube and EDH hype. At peak supply, the price will fall. It will likely flag until rotation or after rotation and then it will begin to tick back up as copies dry up and people build more decks.  A lot of the cards in Battle for Zendikar will do this because of how supply and demand works, but EDH cards don’t have other factors obscuring their fates. EDH staples also have the distinction of being identified as desirable foils irrespective of how they fit into Standard.  We can predict an early over-evaluation, a decline, and upside. Does this work for non-staples? Not usually.

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What’s going on here?

I think I may start ending every article with a “Why isn’t this card worth more?” discussion question. So why aren’t we seeing our sexy U shape here? Is Progenitor Mimic not ubiquitous enough? Does it not get played as much as we thought it would? It has no Cube applicability like we see with Lantern, so does that mean EDH needs to take the hit for all of its price? Was it speculated on early driving the price up artificially? Are we done seeing a decline and seeing the best time to buy in? Does it have room to fall?

Understanding what is going on with Progenitor Mimic is going to help us figure out what to do the next time we see a card that looks insane in EDH, so let’s revisit Mimic next week There’s a lot going on here, and if we decide this is a good time to buy, $12 into a probable $20 feels pretty good if we can avoid getting eaten alive by fees at both ends.

Let’s start talking about Mimic in the comments and the forums and we’ll have our heads right when we revisit next week. Until then!

On Pro Tours and Booster Boxes

By: Sigmund Ausfresser

Throughout the past few weeks, a number of readers have asked me the same question in different ways. The most common form of this question involves some form of investment in Khans of Tarkir booster boxes and whether or not they’re worthwhile investments. I remained demure on this subject, but not for lack of ability or willingness to answer these questions. Rather, I knew they would merit a lengthy response in order to do them justice.

On the other hand, I would be remiss to neglect last weekend’s events and their impact on the MTG finance market. Pro Tours have a reputation for significantly and permanently moving card prices, and last weekend was no exception.

Therefore, by waiving my writer’s creative license card, I will embark on addressing both topics in this single article. Let’s hope this works.

Star Wars

Pro Tour Dragons of Tarkir Perspective

I am choosing to lead with this topic for two reasons. First, the perspective is far more time-sensitive and therefore merits being digested while the Pro Tour is fresh in everyone’s minds. And second, I will be motivated to remain succinct in my analysis.

In fact there are really only a few key points I want to highlight from this event.

The most interesting analysis of the Pro Tour, at least for me, is the list of mythic rares played in the Top 8. This is an objective way of evaluating both which cards were powerful enough to show up in numbers on Sunday as well as which cards have the most upside potential and likelihood to stick. Naturally, I’ll focus on cards from Khans of Tarkir block since they have the longest remaining time in Standard. Below is a list of the mythic rares showing up in the Top 8 along with their MTGPrice.com prices as of Sunday morning (note that prices are likely to shift over the course of the day).

  1. Whisperwood Elemental ($13.13) – 8 copies
  2. Dragonlord Atarka ($13.48) – 7 copies
  3. Ugin, the Spirit Dragon ($33.04) – 6 copies
  4. Dragonlord Silumgar ($7.88) – 4 copies
  5. See the Unwritten ($4.11) – 4 copies
  6. Dragonlord Ojutai ($17.99) – 2 copies
  7. Shaman of Forgotten Ways ($6.14) – 2 copies
  8. Pearl Lake Ancient ($1.24) – 1 copy

Based solely on the numbers, I see a few trends leaping out at me screaming “opportunity.” For starters, if you’re sitting on copies of Dragonlord Ojutai after the recent run-up, I’d recommend selling. The card will certainly remain relevant in Standard, but there are some other Dragonlords I’d rather have my money in at this time—namely, Dragonlord Atarka and Dragonlord Silumgar. These are my preferred targets—Atarka in trade, and Silumgar possibly in cash at the right price. Both are cheaper and showed up in larger numbers in the Top 8. [Editor’s note: Sig was right on, and these have already spiked a bit between his writing and our publishing of this piece. Buying in now may be ambitious, but the logic for why he was buying at the old price remains intact.]

Ojutai

Whisperwood Elemental is already a $13 card, but showing up with two full sets in two separate lists certainly merits a closer look. I would advocate buying, except the recent price trajectory on this card is surprisingly negative. Perhaps it’s experiencing downward pressure because so many key cards in these decks come from Theros block? Perhaps the card was overbought and is now only settling at a more realistic price? Either way, I’ll maintain a hold on this one.

Whisperwood

Ugin appears overpriced to me, but I’m generally biased against $30 planeswalkers. The card did show up in the most number of Top 8 decks, but usually as a one- or two-of. Nobody is going to jam a full set of these, and I believe this severely limits the upside potential on Ugin. If he wasn’t such an iconic card, he would easily be $20. As it stands, I’d pass on these. But I can’t blame you for holding since this is a popular mythic rare planeswalker from a smaller set. If nothing else, Ugin will remain liquid in trade binders.

I’ll skip over Pearl Lake Ancient—I’m not falling for this one again. Shaman of Forgotten Ways made an intriguing appearance, but I’m not moving in on them based on this performance. And even though See the Unwritten made a rewarding appearance for those speculating on the cheap mythic rare, I’m likely to skip over the trend. Though I’ll admit the Top 8 appearance does legitimize the card to some extent. I wouldn’t be surprised if it trends higher from here, though how high is tough to say.

See

Before wrapping up this analysis, I wanted to mention a rare card I bought into at the start of the weekend, which put up zero copies in the Top 8: Den Protector. Clearly the newest version of Eternal Witness caught the eye of speculators, since it more than doubled in value over the weekend.

Den

What’s my take on the card knowing that it didn’t Top 8? I’m still optimistic those who bought in under $2 will make at least some profit. But I don’t see this going above $5 in the short term. I’d advocate selling copies you have in hand immediately with the hope of moving copies still in the mail rather quickly as well. Even if the card is as strong as some pros were indicating, the large set rare has a fairly low price ceiling unless it suddenly defines an archetype in Standard, a la Courser of Kruphix or Sylvan Caryatid. That being said, perhaps after rotation it will get a second wind. That’s a gamble you’ll have to accept if you choose to sit on copies through rotation. I’m not sure if I want to give up profits today to make that bet, but selling half now and half after rotation could be a balanced strategy.

Of course, there are dozens of other cards worth discussing. There were numerous rares from Khans block that showed up in the Top 8 of last weekend’s Pro Tour. But I can pretty much guarantee my article won’t be the only one to review the event’s metagame. Therefore, I will allow my assessment to remain fairly short and incomplete, in the hopes that the objective look at mythic rares at least provides a unique perspective of this highly covered event.

Sealed Booster Boxes

I’m eager to discuss this topic because it strikes close to home. Before sharing my recommendation, I want to first tell a story.

It all started about four years ago…

My spouse and I were on a weekend getaway in coastal Maine, when we happened upon a hobby shop on a stroll through town. Naturally I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to browse their Magic selection for deals. Most of their singles were fairly priced—no jackpots there. However, the store did have a couple remnant packs of Unhinged at a favorable price. The basic lands were already gaining traction and worth a couple bucks, and foil cards from Unhinged could randomly be worth big money. After endless deliberation I decided to roll the dice.

The contents of those packs were not as impactful as the ensuing thought process. At this point in time, Unglued booster boxes were already selling for $300 or more. Yet Unhinged boxes were selling for much less—well under $200. The light bulb went off. Unhinged wasn’t printed a ton, the game had grown significantly since Unglued, and the chance at getting foil full-art basics buoyed demand for sealed Unhinged product significantly. Still being fairly conservative and working with a limited bankroll, I made a move and purchased two boxes. They sat underneath my bed for months.

During this time, the price of Unhinged booster boxes skyrocketed to $300. I rang the register for a sizable profit (and of course, these readily sell for around $500 today).

Unhinged

This is when the gears started turning in my numbers-oriented brain. Could other sets have similar upside? Do all booster boxes rise in price over time simply because supply steadily dwindles? I set to work, researching the price of all boxes on eBay and Star City Games. As it turns out, a booster box from every single older set, with a few exceptions, increased in price over time. And those that didn’t were fairly obvious: certain core sets, Nemesis, and a couple others. And who would have wanted to invest in those boxes anyway?

The pattern turned into a realization—buying boosters boxes could yield almost guaranteed returns over time with minimal investment. Cha-ching! I began my shopping spree. Boxes of Coldsnap, Zendikar, New Phyrexia, Onslaught, and more all went under my bed. Usually it was only one or two boxes of each, depending on my level of confidence in each one. All of them appreciated nicely and yielded significant profit (and were all sold…prematurely).

Sometime during this endeavor, I decided to go deep on the set I was most confident in. It had already begun gaining traction in price and with such powerful eternal staples in the set I just knew it would take off. The set in question: Innistrad. At my peak, I had more money invested in Innistrad boxes than I had in certain stocks. It was a legitimate investment.

Impatiently, I watched prices rise. I tracked progress in a spreadsheet, noting small increases or decreases in the position’s value based on recent market prices. The inevitable climb ensued, and the prices of my boxes went from $145 (my average buy-in price) to $200. A delicious 38 percent gain. Surely I should have been singing and dancing, right?

Absolutely not.

A few realities set in. First, I had to overcome the illiquidity of older sealed booster boxes. It may come as no surprise to you, but I was severely disappointed with how difficult it can be to actually move these boxes at market pricing. Sure, people would offer me $170 on sites like MOTL, but I couldn’t bear to give up boxes for over 10 percent off fair pricing. It seemed that no one would be willing to pay $200 for the boxes unless I sold them on eBay.

The next issue was the timeline involved. I sat on these boxes for about two years and in this time I saw this 38 percent gain. I suppose profit is profit, but the opportunity cost of sitting on these boxes was brutally steep. Heck, I could have spent the same amount on foil Snapcaster Mages or Liliana of the Veils from the set and reaped a much larger return on investment for my money.

The booster boxes almost acted like an index fund for Innistrad. So while foil Snapcaster and Liliana more than doubled in value, boxes continued their slow and steady churn upward. Instead of honing in on the eternal staples in the set, I bought boxes, thinking the eternal staples would help drive box prices higher. It was naïve of me to not simply speculate on the top cards themselves.

Snapcaster

The worst part of this whole endeavor was the cost to unload this product. I had to price my boxes competitively on eBay in order to sell them. Then I had to eat about 13 percent in fees and $11 per box in shipping. Suddenly, selling a box for $200 only netted me around $163 . Now my profit had shrunk down to a meager 12 percent. After two years. During a time when the S&P 500 increased by around 40 percent.

While I couldn’t have predicted the performance of the stock market, the comparison is no less painful to make.  So in essence, while I did find an investment with nearly guaranteed upside and almost no downside, the risk/reward equation still didn’t quite work out as I had hoped.

As the dust settles, I look at my collection and realize that I (thankfully) only have a few boxes left—all of Return to Ravnica. At least with these, I got in at the floor. My average purchase price is around $85. But it’s already been over a year and these are only selling in the $100 range. Selling them here would actually lose me money after fees and shipping. So I continue to watch these boxes collect dust, hoping for some catalyst to move them higher in price.

What happened?! Why didn’t these boxes skyrocket like older sets? I had to think on this at length before coming to the inevitable conclusion: print runs. As Magic has grown in popularity, Wizards of the Coast has steadily increased its print runs. More and more stores are opening up each month, and they are all ordering more and more boxes to meet steadily growing demand from players. Often times, stores will max out their orders time after time to ensure they have enough product in stock for years.

With such large print runs, the time it takes for booster boxes of a set to run scarce takes longer and longer. Even with Modern and Legacy staples in a set, such as shock lands and Abrupt Decay, boxes just rise painfully slow nowadays. Yet again, I’m left wondering if I would have been better off putting this money into foil Abrupt Decays and shock sands rather than buying boxes themselves. They would at least take up less storage space.

So when people ask me about investing in Khans of Tarkir boxes, you can understand why I shiver inside. So much money tied up for years and years, the prospect of selling these boxes and eating so many fees, the storage space involved, the opportunity cost sacrificed…it’s overwhelming. Personally, I can’t stomach the endeavor again. If you are eager to throw money into a long-term spec, buy foil fetches. Or foil Siege Rhinos. Or just buy dual lands. At least those are on the Reserved List and are much easier to store.

Whatever you do, think twice before buying into new booster boxes. The return on investment just isn’t there.

Sig’s Quick Hits

  • Snapcaster Mage has really surged higher throughout the past few months. This is likely related to the fact that the card is dodging reprint in Modern Masters 2015. Star City Games has only 10 copies in stock, all moderately played at $45.65. Near-mint copies are sold out at $57.05. Why, oh why, didn’t I put my Innistrad box money into these???
  • Another reason I question See the Unwritten? The fact that the card made Top 8 of the Pro Tour, yet still sells for $3.99 at Star City Games. They have 40 copies in stock, too. If they really thought this card would move, they would increase price or at least set their stock to zero until the dust settled.
  • On the other hand, Dragonlord Silumgar is completely sold out at Star City Games with the increased price tag of $7.99. This is a strong indicator the card’s price will go higher. I’d much rather have money in these than in See the Unwritten or Dragonlord Ojutai (sold out at $17.15) right now. It just feels like there’s more room for upside.

The Spread on Fate Reforged

By: Jared Yost

Based on the work I’ve done previously for Khans of Tarkir (which you’ll want to read if you have no idea what I’m talking about when I mention spread), let’s take a look at the spread on Fate Reforged singles to see if we can tell where prices are going in the future.

Comparing Retail to Buylist

Let’s take a look at the Top 25 cards by retail price from Fate Reforged.

CARD NAME FAIR TRADE PRICE BEST BUYLIST PRICE SPREAD
Ugin, the Spirit Dragon $32.22 $23.50 27.06%
Monastery Mentor $19.80 $11.01 44.39%
Soulfire Grand Master $14.46 $9.70 32.92%
Whisperwood Elemental $13.40 $8.00 40.30%
Shaman of the Great Hunt $7.23 $4.00 44.67%
Tasigur, the Golden Fang $6.99 $4.01 42.63%
Brutal Hordechief $5.92 $3.01 49.16%
Warden of the First Tree $5.14 $2.51 51.17%
Crux of Fate $3.42 $2.15 37.13%
Outpost Siege $2.86 $1.55 45.80%
Torrent Elemental $2.78 $1.01 63.67%
Mastery of the Unseen $2.55 $0.75 70.59%
Valorous Stance $2.01 $1.25 37.81%
Temporal Trespass $1.96 $0.95 51.53%
Flamewake Phoenix $1.92 $0.60 68.75%
Citadel Siege $1.31 $0.48 63.36%
Frontier Siege $1.31 $0.31 76.34%
Mardu Strike Leader $1.31 $0.55 58.02%
Alesha, Who Smiles at Death $1.03 $0.14 86.41%
Soulflayer $0.99 $0.13 86.87%
Silumgar, the Drifting Death $0.96 $0.28 70.83%
Ghastly Conscription $0.95 $0.21 77.89%
Wild Slash $0.84 $0.23 72.62%
Monastery Siege $0.78 $0.10 87.18%
Kolaghan, the Storm’s Fury $0.77 $0.21 72.73%

One trend that should always be noted is that low spreads do not necessarily correlate with the higher priced fair trade cards. For example, even though Monastery Mentor has the number two retail price in the set at the moment, there are six other cards with lower spreads than the Mentor.

Warden of the First Tree has the highest spread amongst the cards in the top ten retail prices. The reason the spread is higher on Warden is because it only fits into one current archetype, Abzan Aggro, which needs to compete for demand in a field of other Standard deck possibilities. The best out for your extra Wardens is to trade them, since you’re hardly going to get half its retail value if you decide to buylist.

Now that we’ve gotten idea of what the desirable cards from the set are, let’s take a look at the list sorted by lowest to highest spread. This will better tell us which cards should be watched closely for price increases.

CARD NAME FAIR TRADE PRICE BEST BUYLIST PRICE SPREAD
Ugin, the Spirit Dragon $32.22 $23.50 27.06%
Soulfire Grand Master $14.46 $9.70 32.92%
Crux of Fate $3.42 $2.15 37.13%
Valorous Stance $2.01 $1.25 37.81%
Whisperwood Elemental $13.40 $8.00 40.30%
Tasigur, the Golden Fang $6.99 $4.01 42.63%
Monastery Mentor $19.80 $11.01 44.39%
Shaman of the Great Hunt $7.23 $4.00 44.67%
Outpost Siege $2.86 $1.55 45.80%
Brutal Hordechief $5.92 $3.01 49.16%
Warden of the First Tree $5.14 $2.51 51.17%
Temporal Trespass $1.96 $0.95 51.53%
Mardu Strike Leader $1.31 $0.55 58.02%
Citadel Siege $1.31 $0.48 63.36%
Torrent Elemental $2.78 $1.01 63.67%
Flamewake Phoenix $1.92 $0.60 68.75%
Mastery of the Unseen $2.55 $0.75 70.59%
Silumgar, the Drifting Death $0.96 $0.28 70.83%
Wild Slash $0.84 $0.23 72.62%
Kolaghan, the Storm’s Fury $0.77 $0.21 72.73%
Frontier Siege $1.31 $0.31 76.34%
Ghastly Conscription $0.95 $0.21 77.89%
Alesha, Who Smiles at Death $1.03 $0.14 86.41%
Soulflayer $0.99 $0.13 86.87%
Monastery Siege $0.78 $0.10 87.18%

Ugin’s Spread

The greatest point of discussion that we can draw from this is that Ugin, the Spirit Dragon has the highest retail price, highest buylist price, and lowest spread of any card from Fate Reforged. This highest spot in all three categories tells us some important information about the card. 

First, since he is played in Standard yet only played as one or two copies in any given deck, it means that there is gigantic casual demand for the colorless spirit dragon. No wonder! Being colorless means that he can literally just be jammed into any Commander or casual deck. Got a five color slivers deck? Throw Ugin in. B/R Goblins? Ugin’s good here. Is your Roon deck lacking burn? Ugin’s your man. So even though everybody only needs one or two copies, pretty much every single Magic player out there is picking them up as opposed to cards like Whisperwood Elemental which only a subset of players would need for a deck. 

Second, any card that is below a 30% spread is usually a good indication that it will further increase in price. Am I saying that the most expensive card in Fate Reforged could possibly get more expensive? Yes. There is a very real possibility that Ugin hits $40 or more during his Standard lifetime, just due to the fact that he is a popular casual planeswalker in addition to a huge Standard bomb. 

Last, the foil price is also an interesting area of discussion. Foil Ugins are currently almost $100, with just the amount of play that he is seeing now. That is almost unheard of for a Standard legal card. I’m not sure if foil Ugin will ever come down from the $90 highs, but my gut feeling tells me that there is more room for the foil to grow over time, especially if Ugin finds a home in a Standard deck that plays more than just one or two copies. That might seem farfetched now, however good mana ramp is always right around the corner and even though Nykthos is rotating doesn’t mean that we won’t have a suitable mana ramp replacement in the fall set. 

OK, so all in all what am I saying about Ugin? Essentially, given the demand for Ugin from the casual crowd in addition to his power in Standard, I’m saying that Ugin could be slightly undervalued based on the low spread that I’m seeing from the Fate Reforged top spreads data. Don’t be surprised if you see Ugins going to $40 and beyond next year. If you want an Ugin to play with, now might be the time to pick it up. 

Rest of the Top Ten Spreads 

Soulfire Grand Master is next on the list of lowest spreads, and this is a card that I’ve been highlighting since Fate Reforged has been available. It’s been showing up in Standard pretty consistently even if it might be fairly weak in the early stages of the game. The late game is where this card shines, and if you can stick a Master and cast even one or two spells with it you’re going to come out pretty far ahead. At this point, I’m hard pressed to see Master dropping below $10 retail since the buylist is so high. Similar to Ugin, I think the price here might also be driven by casual demand – after all, lifelink and lifelink spells scream casual to me and fulfill the demand of every casual player that has a lifegain deck. 

Crux of Fate is the best black sweeper in the format for now, however even with low spread I’m not entirely convinced. Its hard to see this card going above $5 since fewer and fewer control decks are seen in Standard these days compared to aggro or midrange. Still, if you need the card for Standard it certainly won’t be going down over the next year based on the data. 

Valorous Stance, an uncommon, has the fourth lowest spread in the set. This is big news for speculators looking to pick up a cheap target. I don’t think you can go wrong with Stance – it is a very playable card in Standard in Modern, it dodged a reprint in the latest event deck, is easily splashable at only one white mana in the cost, and is just an all-around flexible spell. Will this be the next $4-$5 Stoke the Flames? Unlikely, yet I do think there is some room for growth since it is an uncommon from a small set. 

Looking for other speculation targets based on price and low spread, we have Tasigur, the Golden Fang at $7, Shaman of the Great Hunt at $7.20, and Outpost Siege at $2.90.  Of these, Tasigur is the best speculation target for both foils and nonfoils. The best time to pickup your Tasigurs will be during the summer, since Magic Origins and Modern Masters 2015 will drive the spotlight away from him and potentially lower his price a bit more. He is a Standard and Modern powerhouse, and foils will be especially good targets for future gains. 

Trade Bait 

Cards that should be traded rather than buylisted if you’re looking to get rid of extras include Warden of the First Tree, Torrent Elemental, Flamewake Phoenix, and Mastery of the Unseen. These cards are pretty good in the right deck, however have narrow use in Standard which is why their spread is much higher than other cards on the high priced retail list. 

The only card I’m on the fence about (and I guess vendors are on the fence too since the spread is almost 50%) is Brutal Hordechief. Better to play it safe than sorry, so I would recommend holding onto your copies until we know if he will be played in any future Standard decks. Remember, Hellrider was insane in the right Standard environment, and Hordechief could easily follow in his Hellrider’s path if the opportunity presents itself. Not having haste is a huge downside but at least he still creates a trigger for every creature that attacks. Definitely a card to keep a close watch on even though the spread indicates that it might be worse than it actually appears. 

Final Thoughts 

Spread can definitely be one of the more powerful tools for picking undervalued cards because vendors aren’t playing around when it comes to buylist – they’ve also done their homework to set prices where they want them, and if a buylist spread is getting smaller and smaller it usually is only a matter of time before that card’s retail price rises as well. 

This time around, I’m more inclined to think that spreads could more easily shift since this is a smaller set where prices on mythics especially tend to get a little crazy if the card is super hot and in demand from several types of players. What do you guys think? Do the spreads add up or are vendors / players missing something about the higher priced Fate Reforged Cards? Do you see spreads changing pretty drastically depending on the results coming in over the next few months?


 

Pro Tour Dragons of Tarkir: Top 8 Coverage

The stage is set for an epic Top 8 bound to be remembered fondly both for the innovative deck lists and the quality of the talent.

Coming out of the Swiss rounds, here is where our Top 8 competitors ended up:

  1. Ondrej Strasky (GR Unwritten Atarka)
  2. Adrian Sullivan (UB Control)
  3. Martin Dang (RG Aggro)
  4. Jason Chung (RG Dragons)
  5. Shota Yasooka (UB Control)
  6. Marco Cammilluzzi (Abzan Control)
  7. Thomas Hendriks (GR Atarka)
  8. Andrew Ohischwanger (Esper Dragon Control)

Based on those results, here’s our Top 8 bracket:

  • Hendricks (GR Atarka) vs. Sullivan (UB Control)
  • Dang (RG Aggro) vs. Cammilluzzi (Abzan Control)
  • Strasky (Atakra Unwritten) vs Ohischwanger (Esper Dragon Control)
  • Shota  (UB Dragon Control) vs. Jason Chung (RG Dragons)

Here’s a list of notable cards that made Top 8 this weekend with the number of copies on display:

  • Whisperwood Elemental 8
  • Xenagos the Reveler 8
  • Goblin Rabblemaster 8
  • Dig Through Time 8
  • Nissa Worldwaker 7
  • Dragonlord Atarka 7
  • Ugin, Spirit Dragon 5
  • Surrak, Caller of the Hunt 5
  • Dragonlord Silumgar 4
  • See the Unwritten 4

To summarize, the potential MTGFinance implications of this Top 8 as follows:

  • If UB Control wins and it has dragons in it, expect Dragonlord Silumgar, Silumgar, the Drifting Death, Perilous Vault and/or Dig Through Time to potentially gain some ground.
  • If Strasky manages to make Top 2, it would seem inevitable that See the Unwritten will dodge a price spike, especially given that the Eldrazi are inbound this fall to make the card even more alluring.
  • If Hendricks pulls off a kill with Shaman of the Forgotten Way against Sullivan, look for that card to add some value.
  • Dang and Hendricks are running a combined eight copies of Goblin Rabblemaster, so their success could lead to some renewed interest there. The Dang decks runs three copies of Zurgo, Bellstriker, so that could be a thing, and Atarka’s Command should gain $1-3 if Dang gets to the finals.
  • Hendricks and Strasky are both running the full four copies of Whisperwood Elemental, so expect a boost if the card proves out to have enough power to win a major tournament in a completely different deck than in prior appearances.

 Hendricks (GR Atarka) vs. Sullivan (UB Control)

Game 1: Under pressure and facing multiple threats, Sullivan gets off a key Crux of Fate to clear the deck in the mid-game. Whisperwood Elemental is countered on the next turn, and Sullivan starts in with a flurry of card draw spells to get back into control of the game. A main deck Ashiok starts claiming green creatures off the top of Hendricks deck and puts things away within a few more turns.

Game 2: Sullivan hastily mulligans a terrible hand. His next hand is 5 lands and a Silence the Believers, putting him on the back foot. Hendricks curves out nicely into Mystic, Caryatid and Courser into Genesis Hydra to get another Caryatid onto the table and starts generating constant pressure in the form of a steady stream of Coursers, Xenagos and a back pocket Nissa, Worldwaker. Sullivan tries to bluff an Aetherspouts to fend off a lethal attack, and does indeed manage to buy a turn to find a better answer. The top deck is a Perilous Vault, and without enough mana to play and activate it, Sullivan is forced to use a Silence the Believers with Strive to hold on through a 2nd turn of bluffing Aetherspouts. The next turn however only gives him an Ashiok and Hendriks takes Game 2 with a large attack force on the next turn.

Game 3: Hendriks decides to keep a hand with just a land and a Mystic, but draws land off the top to stay on pace. Hendriks runs out a Whisperwood Elemental on Turn 4, which catches an Hero’s Downfall immediately. Sullivan plays Thoughtseize on the next turn gaining valuable hand information and getting rid of Reclamation Sage to ensure his future Vaults do good work. A 2nd Whisperwood for Hendriks catches a Dissolve, and on the next turn cycle Hendriks offers a Course of Kruphix as counter/kill bait. It too catches a Dissolve with Sullivan sitting on Disdainful Stroke, Dragonlord’s Perogative and a Vault. A Dig Through Time puts Sullivan into the driver’s seat as he allows a Xenagos to resolve, only to follow it up with Perilous Vault on his turn. Sensing his doom, Hendriks casts a Genesis Hydra for 9 and puts Nissa, Worldwaker into play in order to ensure a Nissa generated land will be left behind after a Vault activation to clear the board. Sullivan bites and clears the board, aiming to Aetherspouts the 4/4 land a turn later as needed. A Stroke handles a top decked Xenagos, and Aetherspouts does indeed remove the last remaining threat from the GR mage. Perogative once again helps Sullivan take control, and Ugin drops into play to put our first UB player into the Top 4 within a few quick turns.

 Dang (RG Aggro) vs. Cammilluzzi (Abzan Control)

Game 1: Dang leads off with his usual plan of low slung threats, with 3 creatures attacking for 5 on Turn 2. Our Abzan pilot Thoughtseize’s away Dragon Fodder on his second turn, but is down to 4 by Turn 3, and Dang steals the first game despite the presence of a Siege Rhino on curve. This is not the kind of start the UB Control players will want to face off against if Dang pushes through to further rounds!

Game 2: After sideboarding, Dang brings in 9 cards including four copies of Roast in exchange for Wild Slash to handle Siege Rhino and Whisperwood. Marco brings in 10 cards, including Bile Blight, three copies of Drown in Sorrow and three Fleecemane Lion as well as two copies of Duress to get token spells or Atarka’s Command. He boards out Ugin, Vess and Thoughtseize to speed up the deck.

After a fast curve out from Dang, Marco is facing elimination when he finds a land off the top and manages to clear the board with Drown in Sorrow and follow up on his next turn with a Siege Rhino. Dang however top decks Become Immense and kills his opponent in another game that took less than five minutes to play out.

Strasky (Atakra Unwritten) vs Ohischwanger (Esper Dragon Control)

Game 1: Strasky kicks off with an Elvish Mystic to start curving out after a mulligan from both players. Andrew takes Courser of Kruphix with Thoughtseize to slow things down. Strasky then offers up a Surrak, the Hunt Caller. A Foul Tongue Invocation from Andrew forces him to choose between his mana base vs. his only threat. He lets the Mystic die, and exposes himself to further removal. Sure enough a Downfall takes out Surrak and Strasky is left with a Morph and a Mystic, with a Boon Satyr in hand. Smart play with the Satyr on a Rattleclaw takes Andrew to 3, and he plays out Ojutai to attempt to stabilize. Strasky keeps the pressure on by forcing Ojutai to trade with his Mystic, leaving behind Polukranos, Boon Satyr and an Elvish Mystic against an empty board. It all comes down to an Anticipate looking for Crux of Fate, and failing to find it puts Atarka Unwritten up a game.

Game 2: Strasky brings in Nissa, Xenagos and Arbor Colossus. Atarka comes out. For Andrew, he brings in Ashiok and a small pile of singleton removal spells and the fourth copy of Thoughtseize. Strasky draws a great curve. Andrew gets a land heavy hand with very little action and fails to leave up a potentially key Silumgar’s Scorn to answer a Turn 2 Courser of Kruphix on Strasky’s second turn. On Turn 3, Scorn is held up, and Strasky opts to play Rattleclaw Mystic as a morph to avoid losing the turn to a counterspell. Perilous Vault comes out from Andrew, threatening to clear the board on turn five. With the UB mage tapped out Strasky drops Surrak and gets in for ten damage, putting Andrew to 9. The overwhelming board presence draws a Vault activation and Strasky gets to play Polukranos without worrying about it being countered. Ohlschwager uses Ultimate Price to keep the board clean. Strasky follows up with Elvish Mystic and a morph which are met by a Crux of Fate. Strasky declines to walk a Whisperwood Elemental into a potential counter, but drops Boon Satyr in at the end of his opponent’s turn.  He then plays out Surrak, threatening 9 more hasty damage. Surrak catches a Hero’s Downfall, but Satyr gets in as Andrew casts Dig Through Time to try and set up a comeback. On his turn he casts Dragonlord Silumgar, steals the Satyr, and Ondrej is forced to try for Whisperwood into a Scorn. Silumgar and Satyr swing in, and Andrew then counters a responsive Arbor Colossus. Strasky top decks a Nissa at just one life and steals the game out from under his opponent despite tight play from Andrew!

Shota  (UB Dragon Control) vs. Jason Chung (RG Dragons)

Game 1: Chung curves out normally with Heir of the Wilds into Boon Satyr. On turn four, Chung forces Yasooka to choose between countering his Thunderbreak Regent or killing an attacker. Yasooka chooses the counter option, and drops to 11. Facing a potentially hasty Surrak, the Japanese master user Downfall on Satyr to slow things down, and uses Crux of Fate to mop up on his turn. Chung is able to immediately field a Stormbreath Dragon, but Yasooka has another Downfall to stave off more damage, sitting at a perilous three life. Board parity established, Yasooka starts drawing cards and then plays his first threat in Icefall Regent to lock down a Rattleclaw Mystic. Chung draws into Draconic Roar but has no dragon to partner with it for the win. A Boon Satyr trades with the Regent and Shota gets off another DTT taking Silumgar, the Drifting Death and another Silumgar’s Scorn. A new Boon Satyr in the end step draws a Bile Blight and leaves Yasooka with four cards in hand. Scorn takes care of the next Stormbreath Dragon and Yasooka finds time to get Silumgar into play. In top deck mode Chung is hard pressed to table enough threats and Yasooka pulls away with Game 1, using his dragons to finish off his foe.

Game 2: Yasooka is forced to mulligan with one land but gets lucky as Chung fails to open with acclerants, holding 3 red dragons. Silumgar’s Scorn proves it’s mettle yet again, killing of the first Thunderbreak Regent that pops its head up. Bile Blight then cleans up a Boon Satyr but Chung answers with another Regent that is answered by Dragonlord Silumgar briefly before Chung uses Plummet to get his Regent back and swings for the win!

Game 3: Yasooka manages to answer a bevy of early threats only to use Dragonlord Silumgar to steal Xenagos and stabilize fully at ten life. With Chung running low on fresh threats, Shota sets off down the draw-go path, gets a Silumgar, the Drifting Death into play alongside his alternate self, backed up by counterspells and kill spells aplenty. Much to the dismay of the Kiwis, Chung falls to a masterful play pattern by Yasooka.

Quaterfinal Wrap Up

We’re down to the following decks: UB Dragon Control, RG Aggro, UB Control and Atarka Unwritten. For finance purposes we should now be laser focused on potential price movement on Dragonlord Silumgar, Dragonlord Atarka, Zurgo and Atarka’s Command. It’s also possible that camera time for Silumgar’s Scorn could move it into the $1-2 range from $.50.

Semifinals

Shota vs. Strasky

UB  Dragons in the hands of Shota takes down Strasky to tear down the dream for See the Unwritten and Dragonlord Atarka just one round too soon. Again Dragonlord Silumgar has featured prominently and I’d be surprised for the card to not hit at least $8-10 despite only being a 1-2 of in most of the UB decks this weekend.

Finals: Dang vs. Yasooka 

Game 1: The RG Aggro deck takes another Game 1 super quickly as Shota mulliganed hard and nearly caught a game loss because he had forgotten to de-sideboard after his last match. My eye turns to Atarka’s Command and

Game 2: Early Drown in Sorrow from Shota clears the board of red attackers and he follows up with an Icefall Regent and starts swinging. Eidolon of the Great Revel comes down, but Dragonlord Silumgar again shows up to steal it away and punish the red mage harshly and Shota runs away with it. I’m having trouble finding copies of the UB Dragonlord under $9 at this point, up $3 or so since the start of the weekend.

Game 3: Shota has 2 Status Dancer in hand after sideboarding, and is quickly facing down two Monastery Swiftspears. Drown in Sorrow clears the board yet again, but Dang plays out more threats than Shota can handle and takes the game.

Game 4:  On the play Shota mulligans his first hand seeing too few answers to early plays. His next hand is 5 lands and Ultimate Price and Shota is easily in top deck mode. Ultimate Price takes out an early Eidolon, and Shota follows up with Virulent Plague, shutting down a ton of the token related cards in the red deck. Another Eidolon joins Swiftspear and Shota must take 2 more from the Eidolon while using Hero’s Downfall.  Goblin Rabblemaster creates a fresh threat. Shota gets down a morphed Stratus Dancer, which can potentially counter a burn spell. It gets forced into blocking before it can gain more value however, Yasooka is down to lands in hand. Dang uses Atarka’s Command to put it away.

RG Aggro has won Pro Tour Dragons of Tarkir! Take a look at Zurgo, Bellstriker, Eidolon of the Great Revel, Atarka’s Command and Goblin Rabblemaster as potential spiking cards folks!

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