In Magic finance, there’s always the next thing. Up-to-the-minute pricing, smart phones, Twitter, and daily articles are all things in Magic that have given us access to a knowledge base that would have made the Magic financier of yesteryear a fortune.
Before smartphones permeated local shops, we could gain an edge by watching prices go up on SCG and take advantage of the analog lag time for that new information to reach the stores. Now we just log onto MTGStocks every morning and check out the interests page to find out every card that’s moved more than two percent.
These days, we’re forced to look to the future to gain an edge. We evaluate cards in a vacuum. We test cards to evaluate them in context. We predict what cards will do if X,Y, or Z are true in a given format … but at best, most of what we do is make educated guesses based on historical trends.
Modern Masters 2015
Modern Masters 2015 is just over a month away and the speculation at the treasures inside is already rampant. We’re mere days away from spoilers—there’s just another week or so of articles featuring Mark Rosewater and friends patting themselves on the back for the resounding success of Dragons of Tarkir before we get to see the contents.
But the fix is in.
I’ll go ahead and block quote that for dramatic effect:
“But the fix is in.”
–Derek Madlem, 2015
On a level playing field where everyone has access to the same information, the guy with access to hidden information reaps the greatest rewards.
Khans of Tarkir
But first, let’s go back in time to summer 2014. A friend of mine told me, “Hey, a friend of mine knows a guy that works at Wizards and he said that the Onslaught fetches are getting reprinted in Khans of Tarkir.”
I didn’t really think much of it, as I bought in on my playset of Onslaught fetches at the $15 mark years ago, so I could absorb any price crash without taking a loss … and then other friends told me that they knew a guy who heard from a reliable source that fetches were getting reprinted. I took a look at the card values and saw that Polluted Delta was over $100 at the time so I decided to “short sell” my Onslaught fetches, keeping only the copies I had in my Commander decks, and left the funds in limbo in case I had to rebuy.
Obviously, I did not have to rebuy.
Holding Pattern
At this point, you should already be in a holding pattern with your Modern staples. Now is not the time to be buying Tarmogoyfs or Dark Confidants, or anything expensive for your Modern Deck, for that matter.
Most of you know not to be making any big moves right now, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still move out of vulnerable positions if the opportunity presents itself.
The Fix is In
Just like before, a guy that knows a friend of an uncle of the gal that works out with someone that is married to a guy at the factory that has friends at Wizards has heard some stuff and that information has come to me through multiple channels. If there’s any guarantee in life, it’s that as soon as you swear someone to secrecy, that person will tell at least one person as long as they promise not to tell anyone.
Wink-wink, nudge-nudge, say no more. Well, maybe a little bit more: it’s not like any of these cards are a surprise to anyone … except maybe Kiki-Jiki, not sure what that guy’s doing here.
The Rising Tide
There’s another phenomena associated with Modern Masters that I want to talk about—the rising tide. As the saying goes, a rising tide floats all boats.
A few months after the first Modern Masters release, we saw a sudden surge in price for many of Magic‘s most expensive cards. Dual lands, Power 9, and other Legacy staples all surged upward in price in the winter of 2014. Many theorists think there is a direct correlation.
What Does That Even Mean?
Glad you asked. So with the first iteration of Modern Masters, players were essentially able to spend $7 to get a pack of cards that had a high likelihood of being worth significantly more than $7. Other players had the opportunity to buy sealed product by the box or case at or below retail from unwitting shop owners. Months later, many players and collectors were flush with”new money” from these gold-stuffed boosters and stockpiles of appreciating sealed product.
Then the trade-ins began. As a retailer you notice when your customers are flush with cash, whether that be actual cash or virtual dollars like we see in the value of Magic cards. When you have more and more customers trading their virtual dollars in for your high-end inventory, you adjust that price upwards. The mountains of trade inventory that was being thrown at dealers from the release of Modern Masters and the infinite wealth contained in Return to Ravnica caused a groundswell for high-end card prices.
Or maybe it was just a coincidence.
I know that at the time I plopped down a mountain of trade stuff for a sweet Mox Sapphire at a pretty reasonable price and did not wait long for it to appreciate substantially in value.
Even at $20 or more a pack, you still see players throwing money at packs of Modern Masters for a chance at hitting that $200 Tarmogoyf. Most of us have seen these savages… and most of us know someone that hit it big opening a ‘Goyf or two among their winnings. What did they do with their new-found wealth?
Dual lands have settled back down a bit—they’re still up significantly from the time of the Modern Masters release, but they’ve cooled a bit as the pressure from all that “new money” being spent combined with a slight humbling of Legacy at the SCG Open series.
Strategy
So what’s your strategy going forward?
First of all, you shouldn’t be buying any Modern staples until the spoilers for Modern Masters 2015 come out. Is everything you need for your deck going to be in it? Unlikely. Is every rare in the set going to be worth the big bucks? Unlikely. But you can virtually count on some of the cards you need showing up and experiencing a subsequent price drop.
If you’re able to “deleverage your position” on any cards that you are certain will be reprinted, now’s your last chance. I wouldn’t recommend trading all your expensive cards to your best friend and laughing when they get reprinted, but there are still people that “just want to finish the deck” and don’t really care if a reprint is coming. Besides, we don’t know what artwork is going to come with the reprinted cards and some people just prefer the first editions, so don’t feel guilty. Keep in mind that no information other than what has been publicly spoiled by Wizards is 100 percent.
Be ready to buy the cards that don’t get reprinted. There are already rumors circulating that Serum Visions is being skipped over in this printing, a common that is already seeing significant play and floating around $8. Cards like this will jump in price almost immediately if they dodge a reprint because that very risk is keeping a number of these cards’ prices in check. Once that risk is gone, people are going to take action.
For those that are trying to complete their Modern decks, there’s a good chance that many of the cards you need will plummet in price with a reprinting. For every card price that takes a brief hit and recovers like Tarmogoyf, there’s going to be a Keiga, the Tide Star that drops 40 percent and never regains an inch.
If you’re trying to complete your Modern deck, be ready to trade with a lot of people. Because the retail of these packs is starting at $9.99, the packs are likely going to be bought in smaller numbers by more people. Drafts will be upwards of $35 instead of the $25 we saw last time. Psychologically, it’s a lot easier for a player to lose $50 on drafts than it is $70, so expect the more casual players to draft this just a single time or not at all.
Be ready to watch many of your other Modern, Legacy, and even Vintage staples see some renewed growth. Once the risk of immediate reprint is removed and combined with an influx of players that all have parts of Modern decks, we’re sure to see a few new players at the weekly Modern events. Players that already have everything they need from Modern will push this wealth towards something bigger. Maybe that’s Legacy … maybe it’s the last piece of power … maybe it’s a big dumb foil for their Commander deck. If you are sitting on the cards that people are going to desire, bide your time. Being the first seller is often great, but being the last seller can often yield far greater rewards.
With a bunch of the Dragons of Tarkir cards finally taking up their positions as dominant standard cards, we have now officially entered the age of the Elder Dragons. Let’s have a look at what’s up with Magic cards that are moving and shaking this week:
Fifth Dawn is certainly an aged set at this point, but the sudden motion on this card is almost certainly related to some Tiny Leaders speculation that is better off ignored. If you have these lying around, feel free to sell or trade into the hype.
In a format where the metagame is constantly shifting between control, aggro and mid-tier archtypes at the top tables, a relatively cheap threat that can answer Siege Rhino and make removal more costly is proving to be a reasonable 1-2 of in a few different decks. The Esper Dragons build has the most momentum, but Jeskai Dragons, UB Dragons and even some weird Temur builds have been pushing this guy into the red zone lately. This is close to his natural limit as a rare seeing moderate play, so it’s time to unload if you are holding these.
This Elder Dragon sees less play than Dragonlord Atarka, but has the tailwinds from being played in what many feel is the best deck in the format, aka Esper Dragons. At $13-15 I unloaded the copies I got in at around $5 during pre-order season this week, but if the deck stays popular, or the card enjoys a favorable metagame shift in the fall, it’s possible this card pushes past $20 at some point while legal. With the metagame being as unpredictable as it has been, my call was to exit, but you’ll need to decide for yourself what comes next.
Having gotten in on this king of the beat down at $6, I was likewise happy to exit around $18 this week, net of fees. That’s a truly great return, and you should be happy to exit in similar fashion even if this card could push $25-30 on steady play into the fall, since you should be able to find better returns on fresh specs around the time of Modern Masters 2 release events. There is no denying the power of the card and foils are especially tasty as long term holds if you can snag some at good prices during the upcoming summer standard doldrums.
Format(s): Standard/Casual/EDH
Verdict: Sell/Trade
5. Wilt-Leaf Liege (Dragons of Tarkir, Mythic Rare): $23.26 to $27.84 (20%)
I’ve been seeing this card pop up more often in Modern lists lately, especially with Liliana back on the prowl. It’s in some danger of a reprint in Modern Masters 2015, in which case it falls back to $4-5 in a hurry, so I’d be taking profits here if I was holding any.
Originally hyped as a great finisher for RG and Temur brews, this guy has largely fallen off the radar in Standard and his price tag is suffering accordingly. If it falls into the $3-4 range, I may start considering an entry point, but so far I remain unconvinced on his potential for big gains regardless of what happens in the metagame.
Tasigur is close to his natural supply peak, and as a card basically never played as a 4-of, he may have some more room to drop heading into the Modern Masters focused events of early summer. He doesn’t see play in most Esper Dragons builds, nor in RG Dragons or RG Aggro, so his Standard future largely hinges on the prospects for Abzan Control, a deck that is still well positioned against the field. I’ll be all over the card in the $4-5 range, because even if he doesn’t find a $10 price point this fall, he will eventually on Modern and Legacy play as a long term hold. Short term specs are a lot more interesting when you have a solid backup plan. The foils are also under-priced at $25, and I’ll be acquiring additional copies shortly.
Temur focused Standard lists abound, but most of them aren’t winning tournaments. As a result, this objectively powerful planeswalker is testing new lows, and could get as far down as $10-12 if he doesn’t put up big results before summer. I like getting out of this card for now, looking to get back in later on when we hit rock bottom.
Verdict: Trade/Sell
James Chillcott is the CEO of ShelfLife.net, The Future of Collecting, Senior Partner at Advoca, a designer, adventurer, toy fanatic and an avid Magic player and collector since 1994.
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I know the title doesn’t really matter in articles, but I’m proud of this one. Shut up, I get to be happy about the little things in life. Seriously, don’t ruin this for me. Magic players are cynical and too-cool-for-school and I’m not going to let negativity mess this one up. I’m genuinely proud of this title.
What does the title have to do with anything? Well, basically I want to talk about trash and how to pick it. But this is very specific trash. I mean, specific to the point that “Treasure From Trash” is a better title for the article than something like “One Man’s Trash” because we’re talking about most people’s trash, especially finance people.
Now, we’re taught to use every part of the buffalo in MTG Finance, so how could we be possibly considering anything “trash”? I sold empty Revised deckboxes on eBay. Literally. The empty box that used to have cards and a rules insert. I didn’t include the rules insert. People will buy anything. Is this going to be an article about the finance of empty booster pack wrappers or something like that? No, calm down.
I was really excited about this title because for like one second I thought the card Scrap Mastery was called Trash from Treasure but I was wrong. Trash for Treasure is a card, but it’s a card that you should buy to jam in the deck with Scrap Mastery. So while I didn’t get everything I wanted here, I’ll live. But if the fantasy didn’t line up with reality quite the way I wanted, why bring this up at all? Well, Scrap Mastery is a card in the Built From Scratch precon and I want to talk about those precons specifically. This is going to be fun. Let’s talk trash, but first, we can talk treasure.
What’s the Treasure?
Treasure is a card that is worth more than you paid for it. If you buy a card for a certain amount and sell it for more, you win. You found treasure. This is why I love to buy collections: collections are full of treasure. Ideally, I can pay the bulk rate on a collection and pay individually for every card they pick out. Those are my favorite. I pay below buylist on the big cards and then dig through the bulk and see what in there is worth more than half a cent. Even if I have to pay buylist on the big stuff, they usually miss a few things and the bulk is always worth picking. People who make sure they provide you with a spreadsheet of every single bulk rare and how much it is at TCGplayer mid have shipped me “bulk” that had foil Dazes and Cabal Therapys. Treasure hunting in unpicked bulk is the best.
But underpaying due to those circumstances isn’t the only way to find treasure. You can also find cards that are just mispriced in stores. You can find cards in a box that you forgot you had. Yes, I bury treasure constantly and I’m always stoked to find it. But another way to get treasure is to pay MSRP and have MSRP be too cheap.
What’s a good example of this? We all know one, and maybe this is the one you thought of.
Sweet, sweet Mind Seize. You gave us Nekusar, you gave us Jeleva, and you gave us True-Name Nemesis, which was a very, very saucy way to get some value from MSRP. This isn’t the earliest example of this phenomenon, obviously. My first real foray into MTG finance was at the expense of the too-cheap MSRP assigned to another preconstructed deck.
Awwwww, yiss.
Remember the $12 deck with the $25 Umezawa’s Jitte inside? I bought so many of these decks that I was able to build a Vintage deck (minus the power) just from the value. But these didn’t just contain a Jitte, they also had a Patron of the Nezumi and a foil basic land. The rest of the cards had value, but not much. So many Rat’s Nests were popped that the market was awash with the common and uncommon rats. Besides, if you weren’t selling on eBay back then, and I wasn’t since I was just a Spike/college student, you had no real chance to make any money off of the rest of the “chaff” in the decks. You pulled out the Jitte and the foil basic and tossed the rest of the trash in a box.
By the time Mind Seize came around, people had mechanisms in place for selling cards at retail prices and the idea was more widely-accepted. TCGplayer, PucaTrade and CardShark, in additon to eBay, were all outs for average players to get some value back and for financiers to really benefit from getting a large volume of cards at buylist prices. This outlet was pretty bad for the non-treasure in Mind Seize decks, and that turned out to be about 98 cards.
What Became of the Trash?
If you’re like me, you bought some Mind Seizes and flipped the Nemeses (Nemeses is the correct plural form—just ask this guy:)…
…and pocketed the rest of the trash. Too lazy to immediately list a bunch of sub-$1 cards to try and recoup on my investment, I sat on the chaff from the Mind Seize decks. That is, until I really thought about what I was doing.
There are actual cards here! First off, Sol Ring is a card! It took a lot of printings for Sol Ring to stay below $5, and the threat of an impending reprint in every future Commander deck is attenuating its growth as much as anything else.
Decree of Pain is my favorite wrath. It’s expensive, but it doesn’t have to be. Besides, EDH is a format full of expensive spells, and drawing half of your deck pantsing a tokens player seems fine to me.
Look at this. This was a $6 card before the reprinting. Sure, Commander’s Arsenal hurt its upside as much as Commander 2014 did, but this is a solid card and if it’s essentially free. How upset are we?
Even the new cards were money initially.
However, being lazy and sitting on these cards wasn’t going to work out in the long term. Even the best cards in these decks went down eventually.
Nekusar was a deck archetype in and of itself but its price tailed down in the short term even before its reprinting was announced. We are still quite a ways away from seeing some of these prices head upward. What can we expect?
Years after its printing, we’re seeing steady growth in the better commanders from the first Commander sets. Now, those are much more rare and people have had a lot longer to realize they want these cards. Also, the loose copies have largely been concentrated in the hands of few dealers buying aggressively. Still, even though Nekusar got a foil printing, it’s not like he’s the only target.
True, a lot of these cards are depreciating right now as more and more of the sets were printed and supply just completely overwhelmed demand. However, it’s pretty likely we could see a recovery, especially since EDH as a format is growing. We’re not risking a lot by buying in now, or even a bit later as the cards continue to depreciate. But how do we do even better financially than buying in now?
Be the Garbage Disposal
Once I realized that there was actual value left over in the chaff from busting a bunch of copies of Mind Seize, I thought about the other people busting them. I knew guys locally who had beat me to Walmart and Target when they restocked and had snagged quite a few on their own. I decided to offer them cash for the 98 cards that were not True-Name Nemesis or Baleful Strix. They were happy to get a non-trivial amount of cash on top of the nearly $20 profit they made snagging Nemesis and I was glad to buy cards they undervalued for cheap.
It wasn’t just about dumping the stuff while I could, either. There was no hurry to sell stuff like Sol Ring and Command Tower because while reprints hurt these cards and will continue to do so, there is something to be said for having copies on hand to trade to players.
Buying a ton of chaff is a very inexpensive way to stock a trade binder full of Rings, Towers, Cruel Ultimatums, Eyes of Doom, and a dozen other saucy cards. Players appreciated having access to those cards the first few weeks because the average player wasn’t as eager to stake out Walmart and Target as the average financier, so a lot of them didn’t ever see a Mind Seize in the wild. Since True-Name Nemesis is pretty underwhelming in EDH, the players were more interested in the other cards in those decks. Guess who had them because he bought that chaff cheap? Dis guy.
Future Plans
So how likely are we to see another Mind Seize in the future? I’d say pretty likely, considering we had a similar situation surrounding another card: Containment Priest. Check out the deck it came in.
Once again, we have some value here and we have a card that was worth more than MSRP. You better believe I snagged a bunch of cheap copies of Skullclamp, Masterwork of Ingenuity, and every other saucy card in the deck. Can we expect that from the next Commander offering?
I really think so. With WOTC not really printing cards in Standard with Legacy in mind, if they want to shake up Legacy at all, they are using Commander product as a way to introduce cards to the format, make sure the decks sell well, and generally build hype. It’s working! Everyone is super jazzed for the EDH decks when they come out because the spoilers always reveal spicy cards that are desirable outside of EDH.
Put yourself in a position to snap up a ton of that “chaff” next time around. It will take a bit for the prices to normalize, and some of them may even correct upward. In the meantime, you stocked your binder for almost nothing, got a ton of stuff to turn into cash or Puca Points, and best of all, you didn’t have to be the one to pay MSRP on that sealed product, driving around at midnight to find a Walmart that hadn’t been hit up yet or stalking the guy who restocks the shelves. Let someone else find all those sealed decks for you, then convince him you’re doing him a favor.
Say what you want about trash—sometimes it’s pretty nutritious.
What happens when you print a powerful pre-Mending planeswalker in all his or her godlike glory? What happens if you make that said planeswalker a colorless battlecruiser who is able to carry games all by him or herself? What happens when you bolt on the most popular creature type onto that said planeswalker?
Where is your Ugin now?
Ugin, the Spirit Dragon defied conventional Magic finance theorem on the price trajectory of planeswalkers. Planeswalkers often command a premium on their preorder price, better know as the planeswalker tax, ever since Jace, the Mind Sculptor shot up to more than 500% of his preorder price.
Most planeswalkers would have tanked in price when their hype died down upon a set’s release (Narset Transcendent wasn’t really that good after all) or experience a short-lived spike when it saw play in the StarCityGames Open or Pro Tour following the set’s release before dropping in price once supply of the card increased. The accepted norm is that planeswalkers would be nowhere near their preorder price by the time the next set hits the shelves.
Vertical bars denote Pro Tour weekends.
Ugin, the Spirit Dragon was preordering for $30 to $35. He retained a price of $35 for the first month of his release, on the back of the success of Sultai Control, Green Devotion and Abzan Control, all of which ran Ugin in their 75. Ugin’s price hiked to nearly $40 for the month of March, before returning back to the low $30s early April and spiked back to the high $30s again briefly over the Pro Tour weekend when control decks sported a spectacular performance at the Pro Tour.
As of writing, the next set, Dragons of Tarkir is already a month old and Fate Reforged has been drafted for three months. Ugin, the Spirit Dragon stubbornly remains at $33, the same price as his preorder price. Had you been one of the prescient (or lucky) few who preordered Ugin, you would have acquired Ugin at no planeswalker tax.
Ugin’s Future
Sarkhan may have traveled 1280 years back in time and secured Ugin’s fate, but what lies in store for Ugin’s financial fate?
Ugin, the Spirit Dragon is a one-of-a-kind in design and by extension, financially. My fellow MTGPrice writers, Sigmund Ausfresser and Travis Allen wrote briefly about Ugin in their Pro Tour Dragons of Tarkir review last week and both offered different stances on Ugin’s current and future price. Jared Yost offered an insightful analysis of Ugin based on Ugin’s spread last week. I would highly recommend checking out their articles to get their opinion on Ugin on top of reading this one.
This article aims to explain Ugin’s current trend-defying price and formulate a rough prediction on Ugin’s potential price in the future. This article casts a Deep Analysis on Ugin’s financial fate.
Analyzing Ugin’s fate, Bolas style.
Let’s start by having a look at the factors that kept Ugin, the Spirit Dragon at his preorder price three months after Fate Reforged’s release.
Ugin, the Ubiquitous
Below is a table of the mythics that saw play at Pro Tour Dragons of Tarkir in the decks that finished 18 points or higher in the constructed portion of the Pro Tour.
24 - 27 Points
21 - 23 Points
18 - 20 Points
Total
Elspeth, Sun's Champion
12
28
36
76
Whisperwood Elemental
11
20
33
64
Nissa, Worldwaker
9
22
32
63
Xenagos, the Reveler
13
29
21
63
Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
6
20
23
49
Deathmist Raptor
6
8
35
49
Polukranos, the World Eater
9
14
25
48
Dragonlord Ojutai
14
13
18
45
Dragonlord Atarka
7
17
13
37
Sorin, Solemn Visitor
5
10
12
27
Dragonlord Silumgar
8
8
5
21
Chandra Pyromaster
4
8
6
18
Soulfire Grand Master
0
4
9
13
Warden of the First Tree
4
2
5
11
Narset Transcendent
0
4
4
8
Shaman of the Forgotten Ways
0
3
1
4
The fact that the Ugin was the fifth most played mythic among the top decks even though he was mostly played as a one-of in the mainboard with the occasional second copy in the sideboard is a testament to Ugin’s pervasiveness in Dragons of Tarkir Standard. As with Fate Reforged Standard, Ugin saw play in multiple archetypes as a top-of-the-curve finisher. Or a Get Out of Jail Free card as Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa called him in his Team CFB Esper Dragons deck guide.
Out of the total of 116 decks that finished 18 points or better in the Pro Tour’s constructed portion, 42 sported Ugin. Ugin, the Spirit Dragon was played in 36% of the top decks at the Pro Tour. The demand for Ugin is low per player, but there are a lot of players looking for their one or two copies of Ugin. Players running Abzan Control, Blue-Black or Esper Dragon Control or the various flavors of Devotion would need access to at least one Ugin, the Spirit Dragon.
Is that low-per-person but widespread pattern of demand sufficient to keep the price of Ugin at his preorder price even when the supply of Fate Reforged has never been higher after three months of drafting and nearly two months of redemption? Furthermore a full set of Fate Reforged is appallingly cheap on Magic Online. As of writing, Goatbots is selling a full Fate Reforged set for just $44.99.
Let’s take a look at the other Fate Reforged mythics on the high end of the set’s price spectrum to see if they follow Ugin’s price traction or if Ugin is the exception to the norm.
Captured on 21 April 2015.
Monastery Mentor remains the second most expensive card in Fate Reforged even though he saw minimal Standard play. He is making waves (or rather, 1/1 prowess tokens) in Modern, which explains his stubborn price trajectory. Nevertheless, Monastery Mentor’s price is half that of his preorder price as of writing.
A little side note about Monastery Mentor. The trend reversal at the last part of the graph could be attributed to the Mentor adding Legacy and Vintage (thanks for the tweet, Sigmund) to his repertoire over the last couple of days. He was found as a playset in the Stoneblade list that finished second at Asia’s largest Legacy Grand Prix and was present in multiple copies in five of the top 8 decks at a recent 71-person Vintage tournament in Europe , including three copies in the deck that took down the event.
Soulfire Grand Master‘s popularity waxed and waned in tandem with Red-White builds in Standard. At $14, her current price is half that of her $25 preorder.
After peaking for a month, Whisperwood Elemental’s price began a descent even though the elemental started seeing play beyond Green-White Devotion and was the second most played mythic at Pro Tour Dragons of Tarkir.
You get the gist. Every other Fate Reforged mythic have tanked from their preorder price, or peak price in the case of Whisperwood Elemental, except for Ugin, the Stubborn Dragon.
Could Ugin’s price trajectory be attributed to the individually low but widespread demand from Standard players? Perhaps. After all, every self-respecting control deck would run at least one Ugin in their 75 and control seems to be king these days.
However, I suspect there is another demand that kept Ugin’s price unusually high. I think we may be witnessing the power of casual demand in action.
Ugin, the Icon
Ugin may be colorless and is the father of all colorless magic, but he is Vorthos gold. Ugin is one of the most iconic character in Magic’s lore. Since time immemorial, the ancient planeswalker Ugin has been alluded to on many occasions by flavor texts, card name and stories, and he plays an integral role in the modern Magic plotline. But yet, we have never seen him in card form until Ugin, the Spirit Dragon was unveiled in Fate Reforged.
Ugin, the Spirit Dragon is the culmination of everything the casual and collector crowd love. First and foremost, he is a planeswalker. What is better than a planeswalker? A dragon planeswalker. In particularly a high casting cost dragon planeswalker who rewards its player with an insanely powerful effect for resolving him.
The Spike crowd’s initial reaction to Ugin may be lukewarm due to his prohibitive casting cost, but I can imagine the Timmies, Johnnies, the kitchen table players who comprise of the majority of Magic’s player base, jumping with joy when they saw Ugin unveiled on Christmas Eve.
Ugin, the Spirit Dragon is your very own Death Star. Ugin grants you the ability to do an Alderaan on the board:
Best of all, Ugin, the Spirit Death Star is colorless, which means every single Commander deck could run Ugin. All is Dust is cool, but not planeswalking dragon cool. All is Dust is just a board wipe, that’s all. Its not a win condition. Ugin is.
As expected, Ugin was an instant hit with the Commander crowd. And he is the Fate Reforged card that has been included the most in Commander decks, as scoeri’s monthly database illustrates below:
The numbers indicate the number of decks that included Ugin, the Spirit Dragon in the monthly count.
It is difficult to get accurate quantitative data on the popularity of cards in the Commander crowd as the majority are not as vocal as players who post on MTGSalvation and Redditors on r/EDH. Furthermore, the Commander metagame differs from area to area. Nevertheless, until we figure out a method to quantify the popularity of Commander cards, if at all possible, those are the next best litmus paper we have to assess a card’s popularity in Commander quantitatively.
If we adopt a qualitative approach to evaluate Ugin’s popularity among the casual crowd, we can compare Ugin to other high casting cost, splashy, colorless casual all-stars like Karn Liberated and the three Elzdrazis.
As of writing, the three Eldrazi titans are the most expensive cards in Rise of the Eldrazi.
Extremely popular among Commander players and the casual crowd, the Eldrazis also see play in Modern Tron and Reanimator variants and Legacy Omni-Tell and Twelve Post. The combination of kitchen table demand and eternal play contributed to the rise of the Eldrazis’ price since they rotated out of Standard. The gradual increase over the years depicted in the Eldrazis’ price history supported that.
The Eldrazis exude a huge Vorthos appeal. They are the big antagonists (in every sense) in contemporary Magic storyline and the events that occurred and will be occurring in future installments of the Magic plot were instigated by the Eldrazis’ awakening.
Karn Liberated was the first colorless planeswalker to be printed and is another iconic Magic character (or was, until we return to the Mirrodin New Phyrexia arc).
Karn Liberace.
While Karn hovered at $15 during his Standard life before spiking twice on the back of Modern and Commander demand, I do not expect Ugin to mirror Karn’s price history.
First off, Commander was not as popular as it is today during New Phyrexia Standard. Secondly, Modern was a fledgling format during 2011, and Tron was not a viable deck back then (what good is a turn three Karn when you were dead on turn two). Lastly, Karn Liberated barely saw any play in Standard besides Ali Aintrazi’s Blue-Black Control which he used to take down the final US Nationals. All those factors allowed Karn to drop to a paltry $15 during his early years. Unfortunately, Ugin was printed in a very different age of Magic finance and I highly doubt we would see Ugin stoop to $15.
However, Karn Liberated gives us another clue on what the future holds for the Spirit Dragon. Karn is one of the most popular planeswalkers in Commander. He serves as an answer to difficult permanents that could fit into all color identity, very much in the vein of Ugin.
Karn’s current price is sustained in part by Commander demand and Ugin’s future price could be as well. Actually, I think that outcome is given, seeing that Ugin’s current price is probably already being driven by Commander demand. Commander demand could explain the flat trajectory of Ugin’s foil price over the past few months,while most other Fate Reforged foils were gradually trending down (except Tasigur, the Golden Fang who is baring his fangs in multiple formats).
Based on the price history of Karn Liberated and the Eldrazis, we can assume there is a good chance that non-foil Ugin, the Spirit Dragon would be worth at least $30, the same level as his current price, in the long-term, buoyed by casual demand. I am not sure if Ugin would be able to sustain a price much higher than $30 on top of casual and Commander demand alone. The price of Karn and the Eldrazis were propped up by Modern and Legacy demand on top of those from the kitchen table demographic.
Does Ugin, the Spirit Dragon has what it takes to break into the eternal formats and demand a price tag beyond $30 years down the road?
Ugin, the Eternal
Although Ugin, the Spirit Dragon cannot be summoned on turn three with the assembled Tron lands in Modern, Ugin nevertheless snuck into Tron’s mainboard. Karn Liberated is one of the best threats in Modern due to the dearth of answers to planeswalkers, and Ugin is the same.
Here’s Ugin in Green-Red Tron, the combo version of Tron:
And here’s Ugin in Blue-White Gifts Tron, the control version of Tron, which has been putting up the occasional result on Magic Online:
Granted, Tron is nowhere near tier one at the moment. If the Modern metagame shifts to favor Tron, it would exert a little bit of additional upward pressure on the price of Ugin. But a bit is not enough.
How about Legacy? Can Ugin find a home in the ruthlessly efficient format that is Legacy?
Where better to slot in Ugin than decks that generate a licentious amount of mana? Justin Moss made the top 8 of a 230-player StarCityGames Invitational Qualifier piloting a MUD deck with two Ugin, the Spirit Dragon in his mainboard. Running Ugin in Metalworker was no fluke. Hayaki Hirokazu made the top 8 of an 80-player Legacy event in Japan the week before with a Metalworker deck that sported a singleton Ugin.
It seems that Metalworker was not Ugin’s only home in Legacy.
Ugin, the Spirit Dragon do have a place in Modern and Legacy, albeit in fringe or tier two decks. And he is at most ran as a two-of. Based on those statements, we could postulate that Ugin would probably not hit the heights of $60 to $70 enjoyed by Karn Liberated who is often a four-of in Tron, but rather he would follow the price pattern of the Eldrazis, with a long-term price tag of $50, driven by eternal demand in a small numbers on top of casual interest.
An argument could be made that the supply of Ugin outstrips that of the Eldrazi titans, on the merit of being printed six years later in an era where sets have a significantly larger print run. Without access to Wizards’ print run and sales data, we could only make deductions based on public information and I think there are a few factors to consider when comparing the supply of Eldrazis to Ugin.
Emrakul, the Aeons Torn was a prerelease promo, which bumped up its supply significantly. Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre was reprinted in the limited edition From the Vaults: Legends. Emrakul is $50 even though the flying spaghetti monster is banned in Commander. The Modern and Legacy demand for Emrakul is sufficiently high to warrant Emrakul becoming one of the marquee reprints in the the upcoming Modern Masters 2015. Ulamog is $38, the cheapest of the Eldrazi titans. Kozilek, the only Eldrazi with a single printing, is the most expensive at $53.
Based on Ugin’s presence in Modern and Legacy on top of his appeal in casual formats, it is reasonable to predict Ugin to hold a $50 price tag in the long run. I doubt Ugin would stay as low as Ulamog as Ugin offers more flexibility and utility compared with Ulamog.
Ugin’s Financial Fate
Hopefully by now, I have made my case sufficiently clear to establish that:
Ugin’s current $33 price tag is justified.
Ugin has the potential to grow to $50 in the long-term.
Now what do we do with Ugin, the Spirit Dragon?
Ugin may be a $50 card in the long run but he is already sitting at a lofty $33 today. The Eldrazis took years to cultivate their current price tag and it would be utter buffoonery to sink in money on Ugin hoping to make $17 in three years.
First of all, if you are waiting for Ugin to drop in price before grabbing your one or two copies for your Standard Esper Dragons, Modern Gifts Tron, Legacy Metalworker or just for your myriad of Commander decks, I would recommend grabbing your Ugin now. I doubt Ugin would fall much further, and indeed fellow MTGPrice writer Jared Yost offered another perspective on why Ugin may actually be undervalued even at $33, based on Ugin’s spread.
But beware of grabbing too many copies. There is one wildcard that could ruin the price of Ugin in the short run.
The 2016 spring Duel Deck.
There is a possibility that Ugin will appear alongside another planeswalker in a Duel Deck a la Elspeth vs. Kiora, Jace vs. Vraska and Ajani vs. Nicol Bolas. If there is an event that could tank the price of the financial fortress that is Ugin, the Spirit Dragon, a Duel Deck appearance would do it.
The announcement of next year’s spring Duel Deck happens late October or early November. Looking at the price history of Jace, Architect of Thought and Elspeth, Sun’s Champion, they both experienced a second spike in the October following their set’s release, only to have their price drop a month later when the following year’s spring Duel Deck was announced. And their price never recovered.
Could the fate that befell Jace and Elspeth happen to Ugin? After a Twitter discussion I’ve had with fellow writers and financiers, I am convinced that there is a good chance we would see an Ugin Versus X Duel Deck in spring 2016.
Furthermore, the fact that Wizards already has an alternate art commissioned for Ugin increases the odds of as Duel Deck reprint. It makes business sense for Wizards to utilize the art they have already commissioned (plus we have not seen the foil version of the alternate art Ugin, which I’d imagine would be drop dead gorgeous). On the other hand, recycling Chris Rahn’s art for a Duel Deck Ugin would royally screw collectors and players who have fogged up anywhere between $100 to $200 for the Ugin’s Fate Ugin. I imagine we would see the foil alternate art Ugin as a judge foil rather than a lowly Duel Deck foil.
Regardless of whether Wizards comes up with an Ugin Duel Deck, I would still recommend grabbing your own copies of Ugin right now if you intend to use him. The announcement of next spring’s Duel Deck would happen in late October or early November, giving you a whole six months to play with your Ugin before the possibility of his price dropping. You may even get to flip your Ugin for a slight profit in September and October, if Ugin follows the trend of Jace, Elspeth and Kiora and sees a September to October spike.
While the price of Ugin would drop due to the Duel Deck, I am confident that Ugin would be a $50 card within a few years. Even if Ugin drops to $20 (the lowest I could imagine for a planeswalker of Ugin’s stature) you would have paid and extra $13 per Ugin for a full six months of play, and in a few years time you would probably not regret getting in on Ugin at $30s.
If you are looking to speculate on the next Eldrazi, it may be prudent to wait until this fall to see if there is an Ugin Duel Deck next year. I would buy my speculation copies of Ugin instantly if we do not hear an Ugin Duel Deck by this December, of if the Duel Deck turned out to be Sarkhan vs. Sorin, Sarkhan vs. Narset (aww) or Sarkan vs. Sarkhan. If there is an Ugin Duel Deck after all, I would buy into my speculation copies of Ugin upon the release of the Duel Deck.
Sigmund Ausfresser illustrated in his article yesterday how the price of Modern, Legacy and/or Commander playable foils have a strong staying power in the light of reprints. I would highly recommend reading his article if you are looking a compelling reason to invest in the right kind of foils.
I am of opinion that Ugin falls in the right category of foils to invest in. Ugin, the Spirit Dragon is Commander gold and sees play in Modern and Legacy. I could not phrase it better than Travis did in his discussion of Ugin last week:
When was the last time we saw an iconic mythic character that pinged every single player demographic in every single format?
And I wholly agree with Travis’ statement. I can’t recall the last time we had a planeswalker that fits those criteria above.
I think we still have slightly more than a month to go before we hit peak supply of Fate Reforged. I admit I do not know how much foil Ugin would drop, with Ugin assailed by omnidirectional demand. The impact of a Duel Deck reprint on foils of a multi-format mythic planeswalker has yet to be recorded. Duel Deck reprints killed the price of foil Jace, Architect of Thought and Elspeth, Sun’s Champion because they were not eternal-playables. I am tempted to propose that the price of set foil Ugin would suffer from a Duel Deck Ugin reprint, but then again, how many Duel Deck needs to be sold to satiate the foil demand from the Commander and casual crowd, the Modern Tron players and the ramp fanatics of Legacy. Oh and Cube as well. Cube players fancy foils don’t they?
I can’t tell you when is the best window to acquire your foil Ugin because I do not know it myself. I would recommend at least waiting until the end of May, when Fate Reforged hits peak supply before buying or trading into foil Ugin. If you want to play it really safe, you can wait and observe the impact of an Ugin Duel Deck on the set foil, or even if it is in the pipeline. As for myself, I acquired my personal copy above from Magic Online redemption.
Thank you for going through the 3,600 plus words above about Ugin, the Spirit Dragon. Your thoughts and comments would be highly appreciated. Feel free to leave them in the comments below or catch me on Twitter @theguoheng.
Update: I’ve added a couple of sentences highlighting Jared Yost’s analysis of Ugin’s spread from his article last week, which provided important insights to the discussion of Ugin’s current and future price.
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