Accumulated Knowledge

New World Offers

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Magic, ultimately, is a game of leveraging imperfect information. You know what cards are in your hand and deck, you know what cards are in play, but the rest is a slowly revealed logical puzzle. You know nothing about your opponent’s deck when you sit down to play1, and your most immediate goal is to deduce his or her strategy in order to best counter it. Failing to use every shred of information to your advantage, while concealing as much of your own as possible, is only making your goal—winning—more difficult. Should trading be the same way?

For much of Magic‘s life, trading was also a game of imperfect information. For the first few years, Wizards kept a staggering amount of set information private. The company didn’t disclose the rarity of cards, nor print public set lists.

BRIEF ANECDOTAL ASIDE: Did you know there was a basic Island on the rare sheet for Alpha and Beta? Wizards didn’t want people to “figure out” what the rare card in the pack was, so they made one of the rares an Island. Awesome. Thanks, gang.

It was up to players and collectors (remember, prior to Chronicles, there were a lot of purely dedicated collectors) to know what cards were rarer than others, which ones were valuable, and what they could afford to trade away. You’ll often hear stories of people trading away dual lands for Shivan Dragons, or people giving up commons for rares—even Mark Rosewater himself traded his Fungusaur for his father’s Mox Emerald (both of those cards are rare, but which one would you rather have?). The resources available were woefully inadequate, and most traders determined value based on gut instinct. The internet, the great equalizer in information access, merely congealed this confluence of guesswork. It also looked like a hot mess.

portfolio_aol_main

Over the next couple of years, Magic trading developed some rudimentary tools, none more important at the time than pricing magazines. Players would carry around their copy of Scrye, Inquest, or Beckett, and those prices were gospel—at least until the next month’s issue arrived. It is staggering to think about now, but for the majority of players, prices were only updated about once a month, and that was on whatever schedule fit the publisher. Imagine if we only got “prices” once a month today: if prices were published based on pre-Pro Tour numbers, people would be trading Dragonlord Atarka at $7 for a month, only to see it bumped up to $20 a few weeks later.

The good news is that we no longer live in a world of imperfect information with regards to Magic pricing and finance. In fact, the access to up-to-the-minute information is so ubiquitous, that it may be hurting trading. Try to remember the last time you made a trade where both parties didn’t have their smart phone out looking up prices. It’s been a while, right? True or false: “How to Save a Life” by The Fray was playing in the background. …I knew it.

Recently, and this is a sentiment I’ve heard expressed by multiple others, it seems as though casual trading on the whole is down. My personal take on this is that people have become so concerned about trading away value to “sharks” that they are afraid to trade away something with potential value. I know that, based on my own experience (Yes, Reddit, I am using personal experience as the basis for my opinion), I have traded face to face only twice since GP New Jersey, and one was with a close, personal friend (I took a bit of a loss just to help him get a Modern deck put together)2. Trades at my LGS seem to be rarer than trades in the NFL3, and I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t even carry a trade binder most of the time. When I do take a binder to an event, it is with the understanding that most of it will get buylisted to vendors.

BRIEF FOURTH-WALL BREAKING ASIDE: I typically save this kind of stuff until the end, but I’m not sure how many people actually make it that far. If you have any experiences with trading recently, good or bad, I’d love to hear them. Have you noticed a decline in face-to-face trading opportunities? Are people more reluctant? Now, get ready for one hell of a segue…

Despite the (possible) downswing of face-to-face trading, there is another way, and it seems to be doing better than ever. PucaTrade is about to see its millionth trade (any time now!), and after its successful Indiegogo campaign, there are a lot of new features coming down the pipeline.

Even though I have not been face-to-face trading nearly as much lately, my Puca game has been strong. One is not a total replacement for the other, however, and I want to talk about my personal use of the service, and how to fit it into the larger framework of a trading system.

The most immediate difference between PucaTrade and face-to-face trading is the costs of shipping, both monetary and temporal. The latter is roughly the same as ordering a card from an online store: it will arrive within a week, and there is a very small chance your card(s) will get lost or ruined in the mail4. Do not expect a card that is confirmed sent to you on Wednesday to arrive in time for Friday Night Magic.

The cost of time is a cost you pay on cards coming in, the monetary cost of shipping (stamps and other supplies) is one that you pay on cards going out. If you are primarily sending cards within the United States5, the cost is going to consist of a 49-cent stamp plus an envelope, toploader, sleeve, and some tape—maybe 65 to 75 cents, total. With PucaTrade, there are some additional features built into that cost that few people acknowledge: you are also “paying” for the site’s infrastructure and exposure (also, you’re helping the USPS, if that’s something you’re into). I have had a small amount of issues with trades on Puca, all of which were resolved swiftly and fairly by the support team. It is also a great feeling when you are able to unload something that has been rotting away in a binder for months to someone who genuinely wants it, and will give you the full amount in trade for it. However, since you want to get the absolute most for your money, I suggest not mailing out any cards that are less than the price of postage (I personally don’t often send out anything less than around 300 points), and when possible, bundle trades so that you can put multiple cards in the same envelope. Every time I commit to a trade, I click on my partner’s page to see what else I can send to him or her.

Another great thing about PucaTrade is that the infrastructure I mentioned encourages more people to trade. Because you know you are protected, more people who wouldn’t trade in person are encouraged to send their cards out. They also don’t feel pressured by the person sitting across from them, and are more willing to send away something for it’s fair price today than fretting about its potential price tomorrow. I suspect that, psychologically, there is something at play in the sense that when you see cards coming to you, you want to send more out to guarantee more coming in. I don’t know, I’m not a doctor, I just play one on television.

PucaTrade is not for everyone, however. If you are someone who is established on eBay or the Magic Online Trading League (MOTL), it is probably more worthwhile for you to get a percentage of the card’s value in cash versus 100 percent in eventual trade.

Also, while PucaTrade offers a wide range of exposure, it is a different type than we typically expect. Rather than broadcasting what you have to everyone (like on eBay), it is really everyone else broadcasting what they want. Nobody will trade for your crimped foil Russian Godsire unless you write it in your profile and they happen to read it and they happen to want it. Those are the kinds of cards that you want cash for, and that’s the type of thing you are better off advertising on eBay, MOTL, etc.

Personally, I use PucaTrade as a way of filtering in and out specs and cards I don’t have long-term faith in. I’ve opened up about nine copies of Dromoka’s Command, and it currently has a best buylist price (so easy to find thanks to MTGPrice!) of $5.12. Considering that I would have to pay the same shipping costs to send it to either StrikeZone (in this case) or a PucaTrader, it is in my best interest to get 937 points in trade. Assuming I sent out a playset this way (let’s call the shipping cost an even buck, since we don’t need four stamps), I can expect to get $19.48 in cash or $37.47 in trade—almost double! I don’t expect non-foil copies of any of the commands to be higher than $5 to $7 in a couple of months, so either option is likely a smart move, but that trade credit can be turned into things that I do have long-term faith in (or foils for my derpy Modern deck). By sprinkling your want list with cheap spec targets, you can get into a card at its floor in trade, which can allow you to sit on copies longer. You can also just ramp into Power, apparently (congrats, Chris!).

So that’s all I have to say about PucaTrade. I tried not to repeat the “Puca is so great!” articles that have been thrown out ad nauseam over the last couple years, but I do genuinely like the service and use it daily.

As always, I’d love to hear what y’all think, and I’ll see you next week!

Best,

Ross

1 Most of the time, unless you’re in the Top 8 of a Pro Tour, playing a friend, or a sneaky sneak. Many bothans died to secure this decklist.

Mon_Mothma

2 The other trade was with a guy at my LGS who absolutely needed a card that we were out of stock on. That’s what it takes these days, apparently.

3 Philip Rivers will go to the Titans, and that team will still be terrible.

4 I always tell people to write “NON-MACHINABLE, DO NOT BEND” on their envelopes, but the US postal service is starting to charge more postage for non-machinable mail.

5 Sorry, friends in other parts of the world—I’m not familiar with how your national postal system works.

Corbin Hosler

Supply, Demand, and Dragons

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By: Corbin Hosler

The following is a common conversation you hear, sometimes even from me, in regards to Abrupt Decay:

“This card is so good. It’s the next major eternal player, and you’re finding it all over. It even pops up in Tiny Leaders! You’re crazy to not hoard these.”

And it’s true. The do-it-all rare from Return to Ravnica forms the backbone of many a Modern and Legacy deck. It’s an all-star and hasn’t been reprinted yet, and it has no obvious reprinting on the horizon. People hoard like mad because they expect it to be the next Snapcaster Mage (or whatever other staple you prefer) in terms of growth, moving well past $20.

Abrupt Decay is $12 according to TCGplayer mid and MTGPrice’s Fair Trade Price algorithm. You know what else is $12 today? Thunderbreak Regent. Both rares from large sets; both sitting at the same price point. One is an eternal powerhouse and one is a powerful Standard card and sure-to-be a casual favorite for years to come, but there’s also a (sweet) promo printing of this one, as well.

thunderbreakregent

What can we learn from this?

One of These Things Is Not Like the Other

If you had a copy of the dragon, would you trade it straight across for an Abrupt Decay? I sure would. After all, Thunderbreak Regent may be a good long-term hold, but it’s going to get much cheaper before it gets more expensive. Decay, on the other hand, has been a staple at its current price for a while, and the overall growth trend has been nothing but up over the last year.

This tells me one of two things: either Decays are massively underpriced right now or Thunderbreak is overpriced. While there’s some argument for both sides, I’m going to go with the latter.

Standard is a great driver of prices, but in Magic finance, we’re concerned not as much with what offers us the best chance to win in Standard right now, but what offers us the most upside financially. And as I look over Dragons of Tarkir, it’s hard to find many cards that fit that bill.

The reason? That topic you always hear bandied about but rarely examined in action in Magic: supply and demand.

Back to School

I don’t have a business degree (though I did get a few years into the program before ultimately being forced to choose between business and writing when I learned I would be unable to complete both). I’ll assume most of you don’t have a business degree, either.

1dondraper

Luckily, what we’re talking about today is taught in Econ 101 classes across the world, though it’s often ignored when it comes to MTG finance.

According to Wikipedia, there are four basic tenets of supply and demand:

  1. If demand increases and supply remains unchanged, a shortage occurs, leading to a higher equilibrium price.
  2. If demand decreases and supply remains unchanged, a surplus occurs, leading to a lower equilibrium price.
  3. If demand remains unchanged and supply increases, a surplus occurs, leading to a lower equilibrium price.
  4. If demand remains unchanged and supply decreases, a shortage occurs, leading to a higher equilibrium price.

Supply and demand is what is truly at the heart of the price of every card in Magic. It’s why Liliana of the Veil is now pushing $100 and a former all-star like Terravore is riding an extreme sled downhill financially.

goblinrocksled

So now that we are internet experts in supply and demand, let’s apply these principles to the two cards we’re comparing today.

First up, Abrupt Decay. Demand is fairly constant at this point, and so is supply. We haven’t had a huge push for Modern since Decay rose to its current price almost a year ago. People who play the decks it goes in mostly already play them, and everyone else is being held back not by Decays, but by stuff like Tarmogoyf. That creates a ceiling on demand for the time being.

Now let’s look at the Regent. Demand is huge right now. The card is great in Standard, and there’s dragon EDH and kitchen-table dragons and all other manner of dragon tribal to give this thing some love.

But the discrepancy comes on the supply side. Here, we see a card that is still being drafted and will be for another month or so. Magic Online redemption will also be impacting Dragons prices soon. Both of these things will continue to increase supply for the next month or two before reaching a point like Abrupt Decay, where supply becomes more or less constant.

Broken down like this, it’s clear that we have a case of the third tenet of supply and demand above, where demand will remain unchanged and supply will increase. And because Wikipedia never lies, I guess we have to believe that a surplus will occur and a lower equilibrium price will be reached.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: the cards don’t matter. It could be the dawn of Magic or the next Pro Tour, but what the card reads doesn’t matter at all. The only thing that matters in regards to price is supply and demand, and that’s one of the most important Magic finance lessons you can learn.

This isn’t rocket science to anyone following the financial side of Magic. But it is worth articulating as we move into what is going to be a very busy few months for Magic. Modern Masters 2015 is just over the horizon, and Origins waits beyond that. If we want to talk about Dragons, we’re quickly running out of time.

There’s another important tenet of supply and demand when it comes to Magic: peak supply. It’s that point where there will realistically not be much more of a particular set opened, but it’s still new enough that copies are abundant. Khans of Theros is at peak supply right now; Fate Reforged and Dragons of Tarkir are soon to follow.

But we’re not there yet. And that means all those juicy spec targets in Dragons of Tarkir are not yet ripe for the picking. Some of them, like Thunderbreak Regent, are a long way from it. Haven of the Spirit Dragon is another card I’m super excited about in the long-term, but the price is way too high right now.

Typically, hitting peak supply is enough to push these cards down low enough to pick up for the long-term, and that’s a strategy that’s worked very well in the past. But I think this is a unique circumstance where that may not actually be the case.

The Factors

  • Because of Modern Masters 2015, Dragons will be quickly forgotten and unloved, meaning many fewer packs opened than we might otherwise expect.
  • Many of the long-term “casual” targets are actually seeing play in Standard. That means peak supply may not actually represent the lowest price.
  • Because of these two factors, we may not see Dragons of Tarkir cards bottom out as hard as their counterparts from Khans of Tarkir.

So what does this mean for the two cards we introduced in the opener? Modern Masters 2015 is going to push more ‘Goyfs into the hands of players and drive up interest in Modern overall, and I expect Abrupt Decay will be seeing upward growth this summer.

Thunderbreak Regent, which will stay relatively high compared to other Standard cards, is on a completely different trajectory than Abrupt Decay right now. And that goes for basically everything in Dragons of Tarkir. Have some sweet Dragonlords? Trade them away while you can. With peak supply not here yet, they’re going to be cheaper before they’re more expensive.

I hope I’ve illustrated why I believe moving out of Dragons cards is a good idea right now, no matter how much they’re tearing up tournaments. But I do want to talk about the long-term outlook of the set before I go.

Looking Ahead

Remember when the set came out and everyone was jokingly calling it “Dragons Maze of Tarkir”? Okay, maybe that was just me applying (what I considered) a witty name to a set that many were underwhelmed by. The expected value of a box before the release was a pitiful $80 or $90, and people were panning the set.

Yeah, they were wrong. The EV is up to $130 and the set has been a hit in Standard.

hitrun

Frankly, I never cared about what it did in Standard. For me, this set is all about the long-term.

I’m not seeing anything like Liliana or Snapcaster Mage—cards that will define eternal formats—in the set, but I am seeing something similar to Rise of the Eldrazi. That is, a set filled to the brim with casual and Commander goodies. The Dragonlords are the best examples, but Thunderbreak is great, as is Haven of the Spirit Dragon and Sidisi, Undead Vizier and even something innocuous like Dragon Tempest (remember that Crucible of Fire was a $5 card before the reprinting).

And I was excited when everything was cheap. All these cards I loved as long-term specs were going to be pennies and we could all load up! Alas, it hasn’t worked out that way, and that means I’ve had to adjust my outlook accordingly.

While I believe it’s correct right now to get out of Dragons of Tarkir cards, I plan to keep a close eye on when that changes. If rotation comes along in a few months and everyone is so enthralled with Modern or Battle for Zendikar that they’re happy to move suddenly cheap Dragons cards, I will be happily snapping them up. With this set lasting through two rotations, that won’t be a shock to see happen at some point.

But even if that doesn’t happen and prices stay high, as they well could, I’m willing to be patient. This set will be a gold mine in three to five years. I know not many people look that far ahead, and certainly not many writers make that a basis of their writing, but the long term has always been my preferred outlook. If we have to wait for final rotation to lower the prices on these cards, I’m willing to wait. But rest assured, when the time comes, I’ll be picking these up in force, because dragons are second only to angels in casual appeal.

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Of course, we have plenty of time to see these things come to pass. But they will, so file this one in the back of your mind and be ready to pull it out again here in six months or a year.

In the meantime, prepare yourself for the upcoming Modern Masters 2015 spoilers we’ll soon be receiving. It’s going to be a wild ride.

 

Thanks for reading,

Corbin Hosler

@Chosler88 on Twitter

City of Traders

Rotating Rotations

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By: Travis Allen

Ice has finally began to melt from Lake Erie, with only a few chunks of snow left visible on the now mostly liquid surface. There’s grass in my lawn again, I finally switched from my snow tires to my summer tires, and I’ve even worn flip flops outside once or twice. You can even smell it in the air. Have you noticed it yet? Take a big whiff—it’s the smell of an impending rotation.

Battle for Zendikar is five months away, but the financial implications for Theros block are already being felt. Temples are beginning to look a little like dead weights in thin plastic sleeves, most of us writers didn’t speak much or at all about Theros cards that showed up at the Pro Tour, and nobody is recommending picking up Fleecemane Lions for a flip off recent tournament success. Years and years ago, impending obsolescence didn’t hit until maybe mid-summer, but we’re past those days now. As it goes for people it goes for Magic cards; it’s never too early to start planning for retirement.

Now is a good time to discuss how best to handle set rotations and what they mean for your inventory management. When should you consider selling? What shouldn’t you sell? What if you can’t sell? Should you be buying?

You’re Already Too Late

Sadly, it’s true. The best time to begin divesting yourself of rotating staples is around November and December, and the real drop-off happens after March. If you ever read Chas Andres over on SCG—which you should—you’ll know that he frequently refers to the seasonal tides of Magic prices. The cycles are well known at this point. Overall price indexes peak sometime in the first three months of the year, and decline through August. As school begins and new block excitement builds, prices begin to climb again as the year wanes.

Of course, individual cards are not at all beholden to these cycles, and Standard cards especially see price changes based on more immediate circumstances. Consider the seasonal cycle a good rule of thumb. Buy during the summer when everyone is out enjoying the sun and sell when it’s too cold to be outdoors. It’s thematically adjusted sage advice from Warren Buffett, “Be greedy when others are fearful and fearful when others are greedy.”

360_sl_buffett_0111

Not only are we well past the peak of many Theros-block staples individually, we’re past the peak of the index as well.

theros

It looks like Theros hit its stride right around November, shortly after Khans of Tarkir released. It has dipped since then, and the set will continue to lose value as we approach Battle for Zendikar’s release.

All is not lost, however. You still have time to move your Theros cards before they completely bottom out. Let’s check out Return to Ravnica, released one year prior to Theros.

ravnica

Return to Ravnica, like Theros, peaked just after the fall release of the following subsequent block. It dwindled from there, and some time between March and April it really began to slide. The set was worth the absolute least a few months after it rotated, which was when Khans of Tarkir hit the format. For Theros, that time period will be this coming November and December.

At this time last year, the RTR index was about $220, and today, THS is about $200. By the time KTK hit last fall and RTR rotated, the set’s index had dropped to about $165. A loss of  $55 represents a 25 percent drop from April to October. We are at that exact moment now, one year later. If history is to be repeated, that tells me that Theros still has a lot to drop between now and Battle for Zendikar; probably around $50 as a whole.

If for whatever reason you find yourself with a pile of Theros cards this July, you’re pot-committed at that point. Not only are those cards going to be worth almost nothing, there’s also the problem that nobody is going to want them. Rather than trade them away for pennies, just stash them someplace and revisit them down the road, when the Theros index begins to rise.

To sum up: we’re past the best time to sell out of Theros, but you still have time before we hit rock bottom.

Sell Everything, Except Not Everything

Generally you want to hang on to little from a set that’s on its way out the door, especially the banner Standard cards that haven’t made it into other formats. Stormbreath Dragon, and had it not been reprinted already, Elspeth, Sun’s Champion, would be perfect examples of this. Both cards are tier-one mega-staples in Standard, but just haven’t cut the mustard elsewhere. These are your “ship at all costs” cards. What you want to hang on to is the stuff that’s buoyed heavily by other formats, as those are the cards most likely to benefit in the longer term. From Return to Ravnica, an ideal example would be Abrupt Decay. While playable in Standard, it didn’t have run of the format like it does in Modern, and to a lesser extent, Legacy and Cube. It has fared well since rotation, and it’s a popular stock tip among many of the writers here at MTGPrice.

So what from Theros block do we want to hang on to?

thoughtseize

Thoughtseize was the topic of hot discussion a few months ago. It seems like it peaked late last year, having since dropped a bit. I’m seeing growth in the buylist again at the tail end though, so I think this is a safe hold. My expectation is that Thoughtseize will suffer little if any loss in price as rotation occurs. A small bump in stock will occur as a few Standard players move their copies, though many will be shrewd enough to know that they should hang on to them. Supply will dry up through the winter and spring months, and by the time we hit fall of 2016 it will ideally have gained 10 to 30 percent from where we are now.

I’ve got most of my gods stashed away, as well. They’re driven purely by casual demand at this point, an indicator of resilience through rotation. If nobody is playing the card in Standard, then losing Standard legality will have virtually no impact on a price. Copies will slowly dry up in the coming months.

Foil Swan Songs are way underpriced in the $5 to $7 range. Eidolon of the Great Revel is a great mid-term hold, as it’s absolutely absurd in Modern and Legacy. This time next year, I’m hoping to sell all my copies in the $15 to $20 range, just ahead of the Modern PPTQ season.

Other than that… there’s not too much exciting out there this time around. Temples are a real clunker in old formats. Courser of Kruphix sees mild play in Modern, but not nearly enough to warrant holding on when most of its demand is Standard-based. There’s probably some EDH and casual fodder in there that will appreciate over time, I suppose. On the whole, I like trading away anything than the small list of cards above.

At a more general level, your goal is to hang onto cards that do not hold value because of Standard demand. You want casual all-stars and eternal staples. When considering if a card will see a drop in price or a rise after rotation, ask yourself where most of the copies are showing up: SCG Standard opens, Modern IQs, or kitchen tables? That will inform your decision.

If You Can’t Sell ‘Em, Trade ‘Em

I sell most of my cards on TCGplayer. It’s a convenient avenue for moving cards for those of us that do too much to want to regularly deal with eBay, and who don’t do enough to warrant our own web storefronts. (Also those of us that aren’t lucky enough to live in an area where there’s only one or two local stores and both of them will let you run their cases, but screw those guys.) While I’m happy with this tool, I completely understand that it’s not the right fit for many of you out there. Even just selling on eBay requires more of a web presence than many may be inclined towards, which is fine. That leaves local transactions, which often takes the form of trading. (Look into local Magic Facebook groups, though. There are a few for the city I live in, and can be an excellent way of organizing the sales of smaller quantities.)

Drilled into all of us is the desire to extract maximum value from our cards. Every time we open another binder, we want to take cards out of it whose sum total is worth more than what we give away. After all, that’s the root ideal of all of this, the writing, the ProTrader, the entire website and subculture. But what if I told you that sometimes, that isn’t the right choice? What if I told you that something bad…is actually good?

Basically, you shouldn’t be afraid to take a small loss on soon-to-rotate cards today if it means dodging a major loss on them tomorrow. I’ll give you a recent example. This past Friday, someone flipping through my binder expressed a passing interest in my Courser of Kruphixes and Sylvan Caryatids I hadn’t managed to get rid of just yet. My eyes lit up when he asked about them. He wasn’t exactly sure he wanted them, and was waffling a bit. Eager to make the trade, I gave him a few dollars in value on a $35 trade, and I made sure to let him know that I was doing that for him.

“I’ll make you a deal. I really need these Rhinos. I’ll give you those Coursers and Caryatid for these cards. You’re getting some value out of me, but I don’t mind.” Bam. I got rid of ticking time bombs, and I scored Siege Rhinos.

Had I been a stickler and demanded maximum trade value for those Coursers and Caryatids, that trade may not have happened. In fact, I’m almost sure it wouldn’t have. If that had been the case, I would have had those cards this coming Friday, when they may each be worth just a bit less than they were last week. And so on and so on, for multiple weeks, until each was worth half of what it had been when I had refused to give up a few bucks in trade. When you’re in the market to trade away cards ahead of rotation, don’t hesitate to sweeten the pot a bit for the person on the other side of the table. You’d much rather trade your $40 worth of Coursers for $35 today than trade the exact same playset for $20 in a month. (The same principle exists for trading away a card with a price tag that far outweighs its current play profile. Narset is exactly the type of card I would trade away for less than book value right now.)

Okay, but When Can I Spend My Money?

I’ve given you a lot of information about selling and trading your rotating cards away. How about buying them though? That’s easy. It’s almost always right around the November and December after rotation. Check out Snapcaster Mage, whose price floor was right around that first red line, which was late 2013—right after Innistrad had rotated from Standard.

snap

A set’s price index is almost always at its lowest shortly after it rotates out of Standard. Everyone holding cards for Standard use, even the bad ones, is in the process of or have already traded them away. Markets are now saturated by these eternal staples and casual haymakers, and prices drop. As the respective markets begin soaking up the extra copies, typically by players who were patient and didn’t want to pay a Standard-legal tax, supply dwindles and prices rise as fewer and fewer liquid copies are available on the market. By the time you hit the spring set after rotation, e.g. Dragons of Tarkir when considering the 2014 rotation of Return to Ravnica, the index has already started to turn right side up. Here, take a look at that RTR graph again:

ravnica

Notice the slight upturn around Fate Reforged and how it has continued up through Dragons of Tarkir. A slow growth sets in, and for the most part, prices rise continually from there.

Occasionally sets find their floor the summer after their release. Innistrad’s absolute floor was in August of 2012, just four months after Avacyn Restored had hit the street. It’s hard to predict if a set will bottom out during it’s first summer or if the true valley will be found sixteen months later  in December, just after it rotates. Looking across all the indexes of the last few years, it seems that a big part of determining that is how strong the set is relative to other Standard sets, as well as how strong the cards are in other formats. That is to say that it’s damn difficult to predict only four or five months in whether a set is at its floor during the August immediately after its release or if you should wait until next winter. I’d say a good rule of thumb is to just wait until the December after the set releases. That would mean that this past December would have been the time to buy Return to Ravnica, and this coming December after Battle for Zendikar it will be time to buy any Theros cards you’re still missing.

Understand? Great, Now it’s All Irrelevant

Magic’s rotation schedule is about to undergo a sea change, and with it, the markets. Rarely in the last 15 or 20 years have we strayed from the formula of a new block in the fall which gets wrapped up in the spring. According to the wiki, the last two times we’ve seen much different was Lorwyn, which was still similar enough that it didn’t make a big difference, and Alliances, which is old enough to pre-date modern Magic finance.

How price cycles will be affected by such a titanic shift is anyone’s guess at this point. Cycles as we know them right now seem to be heavily influenced by two factors: the set’s temporal position to its lifespan in Standard, and the current calendar season. Under the new rotation, a set’s lifecycle will fall out of sync with seasons in a way that it never really has before. How will prices react with two new blocks each year instead of one? How will this interact with seasonal dynamics? Will this be enough to sustain demand through the summer? Will winter months buoy soon-to-rotate cards?

Capture

None of us know the answers to these questions, and the next two years are going to be a lesson for all of us. While I’ve spent this article speaking specifically about the current rotation model and how to approach it based on what month we’re in, the lessons will still be applicable to whatever the new rotation brings. You’ll still want to sell early, avoid getting stuck with rotating Standard staples, and pick up cards when they’ve recently rotated.

In the meantime, make sure you ditch Theros soon. Then go out and enjoy the warm weather. I’m going to go dust off my bike, pump up the tires, and bellyache about how uncomfortable my seat is.

Conjured Currency

Beaten by Kruin Outlaw and Kitchen Finks

By: Douglas Johnson

Everyone knows sequels are always better than originals, right? Right? There has certainly never been a time where the creator of a movie/book/article thought, “You know what? The second iteration of this will clearly be worse than the first. I should stop now while I’m ahead.” Do you know why? Because winners make sequels.

Here’s a sequel for you. Sequel to what? This right here.  There’s no time (or word count) to waste, so let’s get started!

 Red

redspec

What Gets to Stay?

Maybe I’m crazy, but I think Vicious Shadows is absolutely absurd in any R/B/X deck that causes lots of creatures to die. You can insta-kill someone for playing a Wrath effect, assassinate planeswalkers with ease, and create a political nightmare just for having a Wrath or sacrifice outlet of your own at the ready. Sure, it’s a seven-drop, but it’s seen zero additional printings and is from Shards of Alara, which stopped being opened quite a while ago.  Normal copies are definitely less attractive than foils, but it’s something that I’m setting aside whenever I get additional copies.

Aggressive Mining might just be a symptom of my addiction to Loam, but this card has got to be broken eventually, right? Maybe it’ll be a dumb combo enabler in five years, or maybe it’ll help mono-red decks fire off those last few points of damage… I don’t know. Nobody’s going to pick them out of my bulk rare boxes for the moment, so I might as well hoard them until I get to be that mad scientist who runs through town screaming, “I TOLD YOU SO!!!”

laboratorymaniac

Meanwhile, Crucible of Fire is anything but a crazy longshot. This card is pretty much everything I ever want in a spec: cheap, consistent, and proven. It managed to creep up to $5 before getting shot down to bulk rare status after the reprint and has been slowly climbing up ever since. I can definitely see this hitting its previous ceiling, and maybe go even higher with the new influx of dragon players. You’ll be waiting a little while for this one to take off, but you don’t have to cross your fingers and hope you’re right. These are easy trade targets at a dollar, and I mental fist pump every time someone else bulks them out to me.

What Has to Go?

Alright. The time has come. I’ve been waiting for this for a few  years now. I’m finally taking these stupid werewolves out and jamming them into my $.25 boxes. When they  first dropped down to near-bulk rare status back in Innistrad Standard, I correlated these to the recent trend of vampires that had increased in price due to casual appeal, like Captivating Vampire. Surely there would be a number of players who start playing in a couple of years who want to go back to the days of werewolves in Magic, right? Well, maybe not. I’m finally willing to face reality after seeing these for the first time in about a year, and I’m ripping off the scab. I hope these make some casual player happier for $.25 than they made me for $.50 to $1 each.

I definitely thought that Slobad would be a lot more popular than he appears to be, especially with how easily he slides into the relatively popular Daretti deck.

Aside: I just looked up Daretti on MTGPrice.com in order to link the card page to this article. I saw that a certain vendor that rhymes with Schmoll and Schmoad had thirteen copies in stock for $2.89, and ships for free if the value of singles is over $25. I just bought all of those copies, because the only planeswalker who should sit under $5 is named Tibalt.  If you can find cheap copies of Daretti, buying in now is probably not as bad as buying thirteen copies of Tibalt.

Foils of Kurkesh probably aren’t too bad at $2, but you have to expect to sit on them for a while. If I had to choose between those and foil Vicious Shadows, I’d go with the seven drop that can win the game with a small bit of assistance. On the other hand, the ship already sailed with foil Slobad. I definitely wouldn’t buy in now.

Green

greenspec

What Gets to Stay?

Alright, so maybe I’m wrong to judge the financial applicability of cards based on how much they destroy me in my casual games of EDH. Then again, I’ve lost almost every single game where Bane of Progress has been cast, either because it destroyed all of my permanents or it wiped someone else’s entire board and then got thrown at me for a ridiculous amount of damage. While I would love a foil copy, I think this is one of the few cards from Commander 2013 that is worth looking into as a single-card spec. If you can still find these for under a dollar or need them for your decks, I think they’re a fine pickup. I feel like I’m losing out every time I sell one out of my case for $1.50.

See the Unwritten used to be available for bulk mythic pricing, until Battle for Zendikar was announced. It shot up to $4 to $5, and has been hovering there ever since. Personally, I see no reason to get out now. If it can jump by $2 just from the set being announced, I’m willing to take the risk of holding onto them until the spoilers start coming in. If we get Eldrazi reprints, there’s no way this doesn’t go to $10 on hype alone. I’ll be glad to sell for $8 into that hype and cash out as soon as I see the opportunity. I still think these are excellent trade targets, and I’d buy in under $4.

You looked at Realms Uncharted on that list, and you knew what this paragraph was about to be composed of. It’s a Gifts Ungiven, but for lands. As WOTC tests the waters and continues to print interesting non-basic lands for us to play with, I continue to hoard these up at bulk rare prices with the hope that the card is one day broken by a brewer in Modern.  Battle for Zendikar is also more likely than most other blocks to have silly non-basics, thanks to the land subtheme. I actually wanted to buy a ton of these from the SCG Spring Sale, but someone else had beaten me to it and they were all sold out.

If Birds of Paradise doesn’t end up being included in Magic Origins, then we have a shot at Rattleclaw Mystic going up. If BOP does end up being included, then, well…. let’s not talk about that. It makes me sad. Either way, I’ve been trading for these at $1 when my partner wants the hot Standard staples (and when there’s not any nice Crucible of Fires to take off of his or her hands). It’s not my optimal choice of spec due to the Standardness and unreliability, but it’s better than nothing.

What Has to Go?

Creeping Corrosion managed to creep itself out of the “Pure Bulk rare” pile, into the $1.50 pile. GET HYPED. I don’t think this is as universally applicable as Torpor Orb  as a sideboard card, though, so I’m comfortable selling out after effectively doubling up after I buylist these. Anyone need Creeping Corrosions?

creepingcorrosion

I picked up a large number of Scavenging Ooze promo packs a couple of years ago as part of a deal for buying out the inventory of a failed LGS, and I didn’t manage to sell all of them before they hit rock bottom at $5. I’ve had them in here ever since, hoping that they made a slow climb upward. Unfortunately, that never happened. I’m going to try and start liquidating some of these, as Ooze’s time in the sun for Legacy, Modern, and Standard has passed for now.

Eidolon of Blossoms and Trail of Mystery were both obvious failed and meager attempts to shoot for the moon and wish that a keyword themed deck appeared in Standard and became tier-one. The difference is that while G/B Constellation was actually a deck, Eidolon did practically nothing, and the G/W Morph/Manifest deck didn’t care about searching for land as much as it cared about gaining four hundred life with Mastery of the Unseen.  Look away before your eyes burn out from my shame.

Pulling up the rear, we have Thelon of Havenwood, or as I like to call him: “Another card that I should have picked up foils of instead of regular copies in order to sell into the currently intangible Tiny Leaders hype.” Foils would have been a very nice play a few months ago, but I don’t think the non-foils go anywhere. Into the bulk boxes they go.

Multicolored

multispec

What Gets to Stay?

Alright, there’s lots of stuff in here that I haven’t looked at in several months. Let’s get cracking at the easy ones of Beck // Call and Breaking // Entering. I picked up all of these during the Dragon’s Maze fiasco, while everyone was complaining that the set was utter garbage. Thankfully, they were mostly throw-ins, but I’m still firmly in the camp that maybe these will eventually be broken in Modern (or scarce enough when the nuclear war starts and destroys 99 percent of the Magic cards on the planet).  However, there is at least one Dragon’s Maze card here that I think has potential. My fellow writer Ross Lennon convinced me to go in on foil copies of Plasm Capture, which can be found for less than the cost of a pack of Dragon’s Maze.  Mana Drain comparisons aside, I really like this as an EDH foil pickup.

Speaking of EDH foils, am I the only one who considers Deathbringer Thoctar to be absolutely absurd? He keeps the board clear of X/1s by himself, while providing death triggers and being capable of machine gunning the board (or a player) down when things start dying. While the non-foil got reprinted in the Commander 2013 set, I don’t think this card deserves to be a bulk rare foil. If you try him out in your R/B/X Commander deck, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. In fact, I think you’ll want to go out and get a foil one.

Other than Keranos, I like the rest of the gods with the new tuck rule for EDH. While Ephara and Iroas are probably the two worst of the ten to lead a deck, selling UW gods for $1 still makes me wince. Phenax seems like he would normally be ahead of his brethren (and… sistren?) due to the fact that he has his mill casuals helping to buy him, but I’m liking these as trade targets that won’t be dropping anytime soon. Turning Standard cards into gods seems like a smart move, especially since these can still be found in binders.

The low for Sliver Hivelord was $4, which was where I picked up my copies. I’m going to hang on for a little while longer, and wait for them to hit $12 to $15 before I sell.  Every other five-color sliver lord is at least $15, and I don’t think Hivelord deserves to be half the price of his buddies.

Even though Treasure Cruise got hit and the metagame has shifted a bit, I refuse to quit making money on Jeskai Ascendancy. It’s drifted back down to $1.50, which I think is a fine place to start buying back in. It’s an enabler in such a wide variety of decks that I don’t think we’ve seen the last of it in either Modern or Standard, and it could definitely jump back up to $4 on a new list that proves itself in a higher level event.

Lastly, Angel of Despair is three times more expensive than Ashen Rider. Just think about that for a minute. I’ll concede the point that Angel of Despair is an angel, but other than that? I really like Rider at bulk mythic pricing here. I don’t see where you can lose very hard.

What Has to Go?

I have literally no idea what I was thinking when I put Mishra, Stonebrow, and Impromptu Raid in here. Maybe I was hoping there would be silly Modern decks at one point? I don’t remember, but I certainly think that my head is clearer now, and they don’t deserve the space. I can’t imagine a list where it’s worth it to Raid in an Emrakul instead of just using Through the Breach.  Into the quarter box with all of you, with no supper.

Savage Knuckleblade, Deathdealer, and Lotleth Troll are all migrating into the $1 bin. I actually bought copies of Deathdealer before the spike, but didn’t manage to move them in time before the hype died down. If I sell for $1 then I technically broke even, but that’s still losing money in my book. As for Knuckleblade, I’m still shocked that a 4/4 for 3 with those abilities couldn’t swing it in today’s Standard. It just goes to show that no matter how good a card is, it actually needs a deck.

My Geists and Dorans have finished appreciating, but I was too busy “forgetting” about them to maximize on my value, so I missed out on selling into the hype. I can still jam them onto my TCGplayer store for a nice profit,  but it’s not as nice as it could have been.  As for Kitchen Finks, I thought it would be a fantastic idea to buy a bunch of these for $2 each from someone who was selling off a relatively large Modern collection. While it was a nice deal, I’ve had trouble liquidating all of the copies for a decent profit. I can only move so many Finks, so I jammed some copies in here to forget about. I should have just buylisted them and saved the space and cash for other exciting opportunities.

End Step

I’m glad I did this exercise. First of all, I learned that I should actually check the status of the cards in these “spec” boxes more often. While it’s great that Geist, Doran, and several other cards jumped while they were in the box, I only make money if I actually take them out of the box, and then put them in someone else’s hands while taking money for them. Every time I put something in or take something out, I think I’m going to do at least a quick skim through to see if anything’s changed or if I need to do some adjusting to the contents of the box.

Secondly, I fixed the organization method of my spec box. While the majority of my collection is sorted alphabetically, my spec box was primarily sorted by color, similarly to the pictures above. I broke down and took the time to alphabetize all of the cards in the box, utilizing my new sorting tray that I got from BCW Supplies. This will make it much easier to categorize things and keep track of quantity instead of just jamming new copies of Necroplasm into the black section of the box, and having a rough estimate of how many foils I have left.

You’ve certainly noticed by now, but my favorite types of specs are the ones like Realms Uncharted, Aggressive Mining, and Plunge into Darkness. There’s such a low buy-in and such a potentially high payoff. You literally can’t lose when you buy bulk rares for $.10 each, and these are the gems to set aside and keep your fingers crossed over.

So what are your thoughts on these two articles? I’ve talked my hands off about what I’ve been letting go of and holding onto, and I’m interested to hear if there’s anything that I could have missed or should just be letting go of. Thanks as always!

MAGIC: THE GATHERING FINANCE ARTICLES AND COMMUNITY