Pro Dragons Tour Dragons of Dragons Tarkir Dragons

April 15, 2015 Travis Allen 8 Comments

By: Travis Allen

A few days ago, Sam Stoddard posted on Twitter that R&D’s goal was to make dragons competitive in Standard. Mission accomplished, guys.

The breakout deck of the event had to be UB Control, insomuch as a well-known archetype can break out. After no real presence at any major events since the release of Dragons, this was the coming home party many were looking forward to. It wasn’t just reasonable, either—PV commented that it’s the best deck he has played at a Pro Tour in quite some time.

As many suspected, Dragonlord Silumgar is in fact the real deal. Without a removal spell handy, Silumgar puts games away in a hurry. Adrian didn’t run Silumgar, though he seems to be in the minority. Both the other two control decks in the top eight ran him, and he was peppered throughout the other top-scoring Standard decks. Consequently, some time over the weekend, he was bought out to nothing but a scant few foil copies available. His price isn’t soaring out of control though; I see a few copies available for $10 to $12 as of writing this on Monday evening. Even though Silumgar is an excellent creature in these decks, he simply isn’t needed as a four-of. While Ojutai and Atarka are arguably playable playsets, Silumgar is often found solo or as a pair. I anticipate we see his price hover between $8 and $13 for the time being, and quite possibly dipping below that.

Dragonlord Atarka, on the other hand, is the real winner of the weekend. There were seven copies across two decks in the top eight, and no shortage in the other top-performing lists either. It turns out that the mana engine represented by Nykthos, Sylvan Caryatid, and Courser of Kruphix is enough to get people to play four seven-drops in their decks. This won’t be the last we see of this going forward, and while the number will vary between one and four, I wouldn’t be surprised if most decks wanted nearly the full set. There’s simply no better creature to flip off your See the Unwritten with Surrak, Caller of the Hunt in play. Green Devotion is going to be a contender right up until October when Theros rotates, and even once it does, people won’t forget how strong Atarka is. Her current price tag of nearly $20 is still on its honeymoon, but I doubt we see prices below $10 in the near future. I’m a seller today, though once we’re at $10 I’m happy to start picking up copies in trade. The omnipresent casual demand for huge awesome dragons quietly exerts quite a force on cards like this.

The known dragonlord coming into this weekend, Dragonlord Ojutai, did alright, if not quite as well as Atarka and Silumgar. We saw two copies on Sunday and five decks in the top sixteen played him, as well—four of them control and the fifth Wescoe’s Bant list. All said, that’s six high-profile decks he appeared in, though five were the same archetype. What’s that mean for his current price tag of nearly $20? I’m selling into post-tour exuberance. A $20 price tag usually indicates a card is the best or second-best card in the set, and I’m not convinced yet that it’s Ojutai. I seem to be in the minority on this, though, so if you want to hold, I guess I can’t fault you. I’m concerned that as a blue and white dragon, he lacks a lot of the casual support that the others enjoy, which means he has to work a lot harder in Standard to sustain the same numbers.

A blue dragon we can afford to be more interested in is Icefall Regent, up to $5 on the back of this weekend’s admittedly minor showing. I didn’t see much of it on camera, though I didn’t watch all of the coverage. There were five main deck copies between two of the control lists, and people apparently latched on to that. I liked it in my set review, and I still like it now. It’s great at stopping Siege Rhinos or Surraks from beating you up, and following up a Thunderbreak with Icefall is going to be absolutely miserable to break up from the other side of the board. At $5, I feel like we’re at 75 percent of the card’s price potential, so I’m holding off, but if we see this dwindle back below $3 it’s worth getting in.

Thunderbreak Regent did reasonably well, and the $10 price tag is sticking. We’ll see variations in this number in the coming weeks, though don’t expect it to stray far south of that. Don’t feel bad trading into a set at this point if you need them.

One last dragon worth noting is the big kahuna himself, Ugin. Five of the top eight lists had at least one copy, and six of the sixteen top-performing Standard decks ran at least one as well. That means that 38 percent of the best Standard decks in the room had Ugin in them. Taking a quick peek at Modern statistics, the only cards played in more decks than Ugin is are Lightning Bolt, Island, and Spellskite. Standard has five or six cards that show up in more decks than Ugin, but still. His presence is impressive. Add to this that he’s desirable in nearly every single other format—Modern, Legacy, Cube, EDH, and casual—and you have the makings of possibly one of the most expensive cards in Standard since Jace, the Mind Sculptor. Ugin is comfortably over $30 right now, and I think it’s more likely than not that he reaches $40 while still Standard legal, with prices north of that entirely possible. I’m willing to trade for him aggressively, and if you can get foils in trade for under $100, take those deals. When was the last time we saw an iconic mythic character that pinged every single player demographic in every single format?

Halfway down the mana curve is Surrak, the Hunt Caller, who is certainly worth watching after this weekend. While not every deck capable of generating GG was running him, plenty were. It seems as if he’s going to be a frequent member of the green party in the coming weeks. With copies available below $3, I’m happy to trade for him all day. At the very least, you aren’t likely to lose any value in that transaction, and over the next few weeks we may see him quietly creep up to $5 to $6 or more.

As for cards that play especially well with Surrak, I’m a big fan of See the Unwritten. We already saw a taste of it in the top eight at the Pro Tour, with Ondrej flipping Atarkas into play off of it. Surrak turns on the ferocious trigger, and putting just about anything into play will turn on his hasty formidable trigger. It’s a match made in heaven. With dragons running rampant and Eldrazi on the horizon, I feel like you can’t miss buying into this at $2 to $3 a copy. When the first Eldrazi gets spoiled this September, this is going to hit double digits. I’m in for sixty or seventy copies right now, and I’m looking to pick up more during the summer lull.

Sticking to cards red in cost and spirit, I don’t see much beyond Zurgo Bellstriker worth discussing. As is often the case, the format’s burn decks are often comprised heavily of commons and uncommons. It seems as if Zurgo was a two- or three-of most of the time, which doesn’t surprise me. While UB control may not mind getting stranded with an extra copy of Silumgar, or Abzan midrange with an extra Elspeth, a small red decks is really going to feel it when one of its cards is legend-locked in its hand. His price is currently around $3, which feels about right. There’s upside here in the $5 to $6 region if it turns out that cubes and casual players alike take to dash, but without that additional demand, he should stay at $3 and below.

The top eight composition tells a story. While that story is one many will read, it’s not the whole story. Only one player in the top eight had a top-performing Standard deck; the rest got there in no small part due to their draft records. If these eight decks weren’t the best Standard decks of the field, then what was?

Six of the top sixteen were various flavors of Abzan. The breakdown leans in midrange’s favor, though both aggressive and controlling builds were represented. Siege Rhino, Anafenza, and Tasigur were the cornerstone threats of these decks, with Dromoka’s Command making a healthy showing as well. Both Siege Rhino and Tasigur being as cheap as they are is an anomaly and every single time I sit down to open another’s binder these days, I’m scanning for them. Getting them at $5 and $6 in trade is going to pay off this fall unless Wizards decides to totally hose me by putting them at uncommon in Origins or something. I also don’t really understand Anafenza at $4 or $5 right now. She’s a premier threat in Abzan Aggro, which I guess we’ve decided is a real deck. I’m happy to trade for her as well right now. I don’t think you stand to lose much here, and there’s a definite upside near $10 as a mythic.

Dromoka’s Command is showing up in lists all over the place, from Abzan Aggro to Bant Heroic. Tom Ross wrote a well-deserved love letter to the card last week describing that it seems to do far more than it reasonably should. With copies pushing $10, I can’t advocate acquiring any at all, though if you need them to play with, you shouldn’t feel bad about it. The ship has basically sailed here: sell ‘em if you got ‘em, and stay away otherwise.

The rest of the top sixteen was a mix of UB control, various similar types of green devotion, and a clever Collected Company brew out of Bram Snapvendragoners that looked to flip Avatar of the Resolute and Reverent Hunter into play. It seems like everyone and their brother wants Collected Company to be good right now. I’ve seen it floated as an engine in more Modern decks than Heartless Summoning already, and even in wacky UG Standard decks with Shorecrasher Elemental and Silumgar Sorcerer. That $4 price tag is going to hang strong for a while as people try their damndest to get it to work in every format imaginable. There’s a possible jump to $8 on the horizon if it really does get cracked, though that level of success seems remote at this juncture.

Den Protector had a solid showing on camera this weekend, which drove it upwards of $5. It plays well as a method for combo decks to Gravedigger lost components, midrange decks to buy back Downfalls, and aggressive lists to keep up the threat density while presenting a semi-evasive clock. Overall, it’s a very reasonable creature, though I think we’ve found its price ceiling. The effect is useful, but morphing is a high cost, and it’s not splashy or exciting as “just” a two-for-one. I’m selling my spares.

On lands: fetches should stay steady and rise down the road. I take them in trade anywhere I can get them. It looks like the pain lands started dropping off recently, which is to be expected. Get rid of them soon. Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth is just going to keep rising. Trade for it. Haven of the Spirit Dragon’s price remains intransigent at $4. That’s a nut I expect to crack this summer.

One of the juiciest parts of Pro Tours always comes in the two weeks after, when pros begin discussing the decks they landed on, but more importantly, what they didn’t land on. Some of my favorites to watch include Sam Black and Zvi Moshowitz. While the Pro Tour does an excellent job of fleshing out a metagame for the rest of us, it’s easy to forget that it’s only a single event on a single weekend. Decks that were not viable at the Pro Tour may be excellent two or three weeks later.

For instance, with the success of control this past weekend, expect to see a lot of Foundry Street Denizens in the near future. As red decks beat up on control, midrange strategies such as GW Devotion lists will rise in strength, and then combo decks like Jeskai Ascendancy will be able to beat up on a midrange-heavy format. Lee Shi Tian and MTG Mint Card were on the deck this weekend, and while he tweeted that the format took the wrong turn for them, it doesn’t mean we won’t get there eventually.

Knowing what decks just missed the meta is good, especially when they’re new brews. Maybe Sam will tell us that his team was on a Sarkhan Unbroken list right up until the night of the Pro Tour, when they realized it just couldn’t beat UB Control. That type of information is excellent—we get confirmation of cards and interactions that are definitely strong enough for Standard but that just didn’t have the weekend they needed. Insights into decks that weren’t chosen and why they weren’t chosen gives us a crystal ball through which to see into the future. We can’t be sure that our supposed Sarkhan Unbroken deck will assuredly take over Standard at one point, but we can at least know that it’s capable of it. Watch for “almost played” lists for insight into what may take over the next Standard GP.

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Putting the “U” Back in “Obvious”

April 14, 2015 Jason Alt 9 Comments

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

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?

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.

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.

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.

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?”

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.

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!

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On Pro Tours and Booster Boxes

April 13, 2015 Sigmund Ausfresser 43 Comments

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.

**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).

Whisperwood Elemental ($13.13) – 8 copies
Dragonlord Atarka ($13.48) – 7 copies
Ugin, the Spirit Dragon ($33.04) – 6 copies
Dragonlord Silumgar ($7.88) – 4 copies
See the Unwritten ($4.11) – 4 copies
Dragonlord Ojutai ($17.99) – 2 copies
Shaman of Forgotten Ways ($6.14) – 2 copies
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.]

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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 Gilded Goblin

The Spread on Fate Reforged

April 13, 2015 Jared Yost 13 Comments

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?

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