UW Miracles is the most popular control deck in Legacy over the last month and it is putting up the most Top 8 results to back up this popularity. It is doing 33% better than Canadian Threshold, 50% better than Death and Taxes, and 67% to 83% better than the rest of the field.

One card that sticks out to me right away is Counterbalance, the focal point of the deck. Outside of Dark Depths and Zur the Enchanter, Counterbalance is the third most expensive card from Coldsnap sitting at around $9 retail. Sensei’s Divining Top, the other piece to the lockdown, is priced around $28 retail. How can Counterbalance be a $9 card when Top is more than triple its price? Clearly, Counterbalance only has demand in competitive eternal formats but what if one day Wizards decides to unban Top from Modern? Counterbalance could possibly be a real force in Modern in addition to the Legacy play it sees. Even outside this potential unbanning (which is really just a pipe dream at this point) I feel that it being a key piece to the deck means that we should be keeping a close eye on the card.

The next cards that stick out to me are the namesake of the deck, Terminus and Entreat the Angels. Terminus probably has the most growth potential as it clearly is a good sweeper in casual formats like Commander in addition to being included in Miracles lists as three or four copies. Non-foils are currently priced at $4 which I believe is lower than the demand it is seeing. Foils are $25 and even though this is a high entry point I also think foils are a good pick up right now. Terminus has a good chance of seeing another price increase within the next year.

Entreat the Angels has already jumped up in price earlier this year, doubling from around $5.50 retail to its current price of $11 retail. This makes me less hesitant to go after it like I would Terminus, yet the potential for another price increase isn’t out of the question as Avacyn Restored ages like a fine wine.

While this card is not as awesome as Terminus in casual formats and is included in fewer copies than Terminus in UW Miracles (mostly two copies per deck is the norm), I still would keep a close watch on Entreat the Angels for any further movement. Casuals do love angels, so maybe I am even underestimating the casual appeal of the card. Foils are around $40 which aren’t moving downward any time soon – if you want your foil copies get them before they go up even more.

In addition to the key elements of the deck, I think the following cards should be watched closely moving forward:

Jace, the Mind Sculptor – The deck usually includes three copies and this is the best planeswalker ever printed. The FTV hype has died down a bit, and I remember before FTV:20 was released he was around $125 retail. I would expect non-foil WWK copies to go up again to this price and eventually surpass it.

Flooded Strand – Until a reprint, this fetchland could trend up and match Polluted Delta’s price of around $120 retail. It is currently sitting at $95 retail. Not a lot of growth and very risky considering the imminent reprint of fetchlands to make Modern more accessible, however for a short term flip it could be possible to make a profit if Miracles keeps seeing a ton of success.

Vendilion Clique – Along with its popularity in Modern, Clique has a good chance of going up in price during the summer. It may already be too late yet if you haven’t I would suggest picking up your copies of Clique if you want to play UW Miracles. Modern will only continue to drive the demand for this card moving forward.

Rest in Peace – Both foils and non-foils of this card will continue to be in demand as time goes on. Though it is a very reprintable effect, I can still see this going up in time until that reprint happens. Pick up foils if you want a card that will keep its value over many years.

Wear // Tear Foils – These are hovering around $9 right now. Fuse cards are extremely hard to reprint, so getting in on foils of these will be especially good for your portfolio a year or two down the line. Between Modern and Legacy this is a very widely played sideboard card so I foresee it continuing to be in demand. Even non-foils of this card under $1 are a good pickup in my opinion.

Canadian Threshold

A Legacy classic. Canadian Threshold has been around in some form or another in Legacy ever since Nimble Mongoose was printed and Threshold became a mechanic. It has gone through various changes over the years however the backbone of the deck is still the same – an aggro tempo deck that utilizes cheap spells to manipulate the library and out-tempo the opponent.

Unfortunately, since it has been around in Legacy so long there aren’t many financial opportunities within the deck. Many of the cards are commons or uncommons, and their foil prices are already outrageously expensive. Let me give you a breakdown of these common and uncommon foil prices:

Delver of Secrets – $16
Nimble Mongoose – $55
Daze – $124
Lightning Bolt (M11) – $9
Brainstorm (FNM) – $125
Ponder (M12) – $19
Spell Pierce – $47
Spell Snare (MM) – $13
Gitaxian Probe (FNM) – $12
Fire / Ice – $8.50

Not a lot of opportunity there considering Bolt and Ponder both have several printings in foil. Delver of Secrets foils, however, have room to grow. $16 is rather cheap compared to the rest of the foils in the deck and I can only see them getting more valuable as time goes on. Being a double faced card means that it will be harder to reprint than other cards which makes it even more awesome to pick up your foil Delvers sooner rather than later.

Other than foils the deck doesn’t really have anything that stands out to me. The rest of the deck’s components will continue to be affected by the popularity of the Legacy. Legacy has been very popular over the past several years, and I foresee it continuing to be popular for quite a while yet.

Death & Taxes

Death and Taxes has been talked about quite a bit before but there is still opportunity. It is the second most popular aggro deck in Legacy behind UR Delver and has already had a substantial impact on prices in the Legacy format. Cards like Rishadan Port, Karakas, Wasteland, and Stoneforge Mystic have all seen incredible price increases due to the popularity of this deck (Wasteland and Stoneforge also being bolstered by their general utility in Legacy).

The card that sticks out the most to me in this deck is Phyrexian Revoker. Its currently around $3.50 retail and foils are going for about $22. For now, I don’t think there is much opportunity with foil copies though regular copies will most likely see a bump in price soon. It is an important component to the deck that you can cast off of colorless lands and allows the D&T player to shut down many important activated abilities in the format.

Outside of Revoker, I see that Spirit of the Labyrinth has become an important component to the deck at least at the Bazaar of Moxen tournament where two D&T decks placed in the Top 8 running copies. Regular copies aren’t moving in price for a long time, since she is in Standard and not that great in that format, but foils are currently sitting at $15 which is pretty appetizing to me. At Bazaar of Moxen, one D&T player had four Spirits in their deck – a clear sign that it could become a staple in Legacy’s future.

Eventide Flickerwisp foils are $10 each, which is a pretty decent price for a card that is played as usually three copies in the deck. Leonin Arbiter made a showing as a playset in one D&T player’s main deck. In addition to his popularity in Modern Hatebears, for $3 nonfoil and $13 foil it could be a good pick up either way. There were three Serra Avengers in the winning deck at SCG: Cincinnati and at $1.30 retail for M13 copies and only $13 for Time Spiral foils this could also be a juicy pickup.

Other cards to watch from D&T include:

Aether Vial – Since this is already at $25 non-foil and $40 foil, I don’t think there is much room for growth. It does see marginal Modern play in about 7% of the decks yet I’m not sure if this is enough to make it spike during the Summer PTQ season. Picking these up in trade is always good but I would be hesitant to go too deep on them.

Thalia, Guardian of Thraben – I still think Thalia will continue to go up in the long term. She has already doubled in price since January, though without a reprint this year I think she could go higher still. Don’t buy these in cash; I feel that similar to Aether Vial they are good trade targets. Foils are already at $40, which is rather high but I wouldn’t want to be that guy who wished he would have bought the foils one year from now at this time.

The Field Outside the Top 3

In this section, I want to talk about outlier decks that you can see in the bar chart above that put two copies in the past month’s Top 8’s to see if there is potential for a card to see a substantial price increase.

Painter – This deck put two people into the Top 8 of SCG: Knoxville. One version opted for Imperial Recruiter while the other opted for only Goblin Welder and Painter’s Servant and instead went for the Intuition package win.

First off, Imperial Recruiter will have a hard time going up any more in price. The judge foil is already approaching $200 so unless you’re Rich Uncle Pennybags this “investment” is best avoided. Imperial Recruiter will continue to go up in price due to sheer collectability, especially the P3K version, but judge foils are mainly impacted by the popularity of Legacy. Only pick this up if you are seriously considering playing Painter. You won’t make too much money sitting on these for a year and there is the slight chance it could be reprinted in a supplemental product.

On the other hand, Painter’s Servant, Goblin Welder, and Intuition could all go up in price suddenly over the next year. They are sitting at $12, $9, and $35 respectively at retail value. If the non-Imperial Recruiter version of Painter becomes popular due to its recent success than all three of these cards could see a substantial bump. However, I would caution that this is more a pet deck than a really popular deck at this point. It may be hard to offload the cards at the new price if there isn’t a surge in popularity of the deck.

In addition to the card’s mentioned above, Grindstone could also take off if Painter rises in popularity. Its price history has fluctuated and it currently stands at $18. The demand of the card waxes and wanes with the popularity of Painter. With the resurgence of Painter, though, it could see the $25+ highs that it was at two years ago.

One caution against this is that Grindstone is not on the reserved list, so it could be reprinted in a supplementary product at some point. However, Intuition is on the reserved list and is played in more decks.

Shardless BUG – Shardless BUG has been talked about a lot, but I want to mention that the deck’s namesake Shardless Agent is sitting around $15 retail right now. That price could easily go up past $20 if the deck becomes more popular. Liliana of the Veil and Toxic Deluge should be watched for any price changes – I can see these going up more and more as time goes on as they are both great Legacy cards.

Also, don’t forget about Deathrite Shaman and Abrupt Decay – the popularity of these two cards can’t be stated enough. Like Stoneforge Mystic, I feel that once Deathrite and Abrupt Decay rotate out of Standard and become harder to find their price will only continue to creep upwards.

Elves – Elves is another deck where I expect cards in the deck to rise. Glimpse of Nature, Natural Order, Wirewood Symbiote, Heritage Druid, and Green Sun’s Zenith are all on an upward mobility path in regards to price. I’ve already talked about elves before so refer back to my other article to understand why I feel this way.

Community Input

I’ve harped plenty in this article on Legacy staples I’m focusing on – which ones are you focusing on and why? Are you looking to pick up foil or non-foil versions of cards? Let me know in the comments.

People say that Legacy is dying. These prices seem to say otherwise. I’m looking forward to the exciting future that is in store for Legacy, both through cards released in Standard sets and supplementary products. Will Dack Fayden become the next big thing?

Casual Fridays

Judge Foils I’d Like to See

May 16, 2014 Cliff Daigle

By: Cliff Daigle

With the recent spoiling of some special-edition judge foils, it became clear to me that there are more judge foils that need to be released.

I leave it to others to speculate on the price of the promo Force of Will (ALL THE DOLLARS) and instead I’m thinking of my experiences buying foils that are given out in judge packs at high-level events for a while. Judge foils usually follow a pattern of being at a very high price on their release, and that price slowly comes down over the duration of the card being given out.

For example, a friend of mine bought a Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed when it was first printed as a promo for the price of $120. Eight months later, it could be had for $60.

First of all, two cycles:

Sword of War and Peace & Sword of Body and Mind (old frame) – We’ve gotten three of the five swords in the old frame, and Wizards knows we like our cycles. Expect these as a when, not an if. WaP and BaM are the weakest of the Swords, and would probably end up in the $30 range.

The other Praetors in Phyrexian – Again, this is a cycle begging to be printed. The Phyrexian Elesh Norn is sick, and I’d love to have this same effect applied to the other four colors. Since the other four see less play and are arguably weaker, their prices will be low too, probably down to $20.

Kozilek, Butcher of Truth – There are three Legendary Eldrazi, and Ulamog and Emrakul have each had a special edition. Set foil Kozilek is surprisingly expensive, and the judge foil wouldn’t make it any lower than $60, I’d say.

Iona, Shield of Emeria – As a reanimation target, Iona is super-popular for her ability to shut out an entire color. She’s popular in Cubes for this reason, and there are polite disagreements about her use in EDH, when a reanimation/Kaalia/Bribery can put her in play early and lock out some players. A judge version of her would be around $30 once the initial demand was met.

Mana Drain – If Force can finally make it, this is the other one that Eternal players are eager for. It’s enormously powerful, a card that hearkens back to the days when counterspells we not only undercosted, they gave significant advantages. I suspect that this would be a limited edition as Force is said to be, and therefore I’ll say the price here would be around $600.

Vigor – This would be an attempt to goose the supply of Vigor for casual players. It’s a really great effect for a wide range of decks and players, something I try to put in as many decks as I can. It dates back to right before Magic started to explode, and would be welcome in lots of formats. It’s never seen much Constructed play, so I’d expect these foils to be around $25.

Yavimaya Elder – Hear me out. This is a card that isn’t worth much in nonfoil, but there’s only been one foil printing. This could use the superior Matt Cavotta art, and be a very pretty upgrade in nearly every green deck ever. It would carry a price around $15-$20, and I would be delighted to pick those up.

Mikaeus, the Unhallowed – This is a card that frankly people in casual formats don’t play enough. It’s not only Wrath insurance, you’ll also get a re-use of all the sweet enters-the-battlefield effects on the creatures you play with anyway! this would not be a high-value card, but it would be a lot of fun. $15.

Sensei’s Divining Top – It was a mainstay of so many decks that it’s banned in Modern due to sheer logistics. It’s an old uncommon, it was in FTV: Exiled, and it doesn’t matter because so many decks like having this effect. Judge foils on this would never be below $50.

I imagine that I left out some fun ones. (Remember, judge foils can no longer be from the reserved list, despite the presence of Survival of the Fittest and Thawing Glaciers promos) and I’d like to hear what you want to have. I’m excited that Terese Nielsen’s Hanna, Ship’s Navigator will be available, and more Commander-only cards are sure to be printed too! Let me know what should be here, in the comments or on Twitter @WordOfCommander

Think Twice

Knowledge as Power

May 15, 2014 Camden Clark

By: Camden Clark

As financiers, we gain the power that we have from communication.

Communication is social media.

Communication is Twitch streams.

Communication is talking to Magic players like you and me.

But above all, communication provides you with the information to make wise decisions.

Kind of like organization, communication is an abstract concept in Magic finance. We all have personal expectations for what it means and how we utilize it. However, most of us fail to see deeper. We fail to analyze whether the information we are gathering is useful and where it is produced from. Even more dangerous is receiving information and archive it but never use it.

What does this even mean?

It means we have to analyze the sources of our information.

The first level (and the most basic) is the finance level.

Twitter – Finance

If you are not on Twitter, sign up for an account now. It is almost no hassle to install on your smartphone and just follow the people who are very established and know what they are doing.

Chas Andres
Corbin
Sigmund
Jason
Travis
Also you can follow me – http://twitter.com/CamdenClarkMTG

The #mtgfinance hashtag is also an extremely valuable source of information. It can give you an ear to the ground on how people in the finance community are feeling. There are few other places where you can get random blips like this that you may have not been aware of.

I use Twitter because it is an easy and time-efficient way to interact in the MTGFinance community. There are millions of people who have accounts on this website for a reason. It provides really easy blurbs from people that are well respected.

Twitter is good for what it is but there are some inherent limitations. The 140 character limit prevents extended analysis of picks. Moreover, most of the information is not very relevant to speculation. There are simply so many people here that it becomes hard to distill valuable content from just some guy on his iPhone. Another issue with Twitter is the community centric aspect. With so many people posting it is difficult to have one tweet to have a major effect.

My advice for using Twitter is as follows: watch, but take everything with a grain of salt. It is a fun and easy way to keep an ear to the ground but following the mtgfinance people exclusively is dangerous.

Twitter – Players

The Twitter Magic community is quite similar to the Magic finance community. There are major moguls who constantly post about their records at major tournaments and talk about specific cards and decks.

There is even more information than in the Magic finance community so it becomes hard to discern what is useful and what is not. Most posts from ordinary people should have no bearing on your financial decisions or learning. In contrast, the tweets from professional players and major people in the community should have a major impact on how you think about certain cards.

A couple of pitfalls to avoid is that pros sometimes joke about certain cards or decks. There are also some professional players who tweet nothing but their records at a tournament and provide little value for finance.

/r/mtgfinance

This subreddit has a lot of potential. Recently, the community became a dung-throwing festival where posters accused the moderators of being in cahoots with content writers on a few different sites. However, I find these accusations to be untrue and most of the community feels the same way. It seemed to be a very vocal minority who believed that /r/mtgfinance was only trying to shill certain websites.

Nevertheless, after that situation the subreddit picked up steam again and seems to be back in working order.

The good things about Reddit are similar and magnified. The voting system allows content that the community feels is valuable to get more airtime while content that is not so good gets voted down. Everything in this subreddit is submitted by community members and it is extremely transparent who is submitting the content and what they hope to achieve. Discussion is amplified because each post usually gets at least three commenters who have good and unlimited analysis.

The downfall of Reddit lies in the voting system as well. Opinions outside the majority may get voted down in controversial topics, resulting in certain people’s thoughts being given little visibility. However, adopting a holistic view on reading comments and even reading those that have been downvoted will dissuade this. Another issue with this community lies in the “pump and dump” mentality of many of its users. They often post a discussion or “speculation” thread and attempt to create a buyout for the card they open a discussion post for.

The best way to use this community is similar to Twitter. It is a valuable source of legitimate discussion and can foster very good debates. The posting system creates a pseudo-filter to get rid of garbage content. Still, take everything with a grain of salt and make sure that you are making educated decisions by doing your own research

Moreover, use Reddit to ask questions and create decent dialogue. That is where you can get the most value out of this subreddit. People there have experience and you can get a variety of opinions on whatever you post. I highly recommend utilizing this subreddit not only for reading but also contributing. You will learn a lot.

/r/spikes

The subreddit for people who grind PTQs is also a great resource for determining good investments. These are the people who spend hilarious prices to buy the cards they need for their deck that they want to take to their PTQ. It is literally like being in the mind of the people that you are trying to predict.

Tournament results that get a major nod here are probably significant. They should provide you with the foundation for determining what decks are likely going to become more popular. As we approach Modern PTQ season this gets more and more important. I always talk about how open Modern still is. There is a lot of potential for specific cards and even overlooked staples to rise in major levels.

I have no doubt that if you pay some attention to /r/spikes you will be able to profit a little bit. You will also be able to pick up staples for Modern before they skyrocket if you just want to play in PTQs. This is even relevant if you don’t want to invest but just want to play Magic and not have to spend as much money.

Content Sites

There are a whole host of websites out there that push content of varying quality. A lot of it is valuable. Some of it is not. That is the double edged sword of content: it is top-down.

However, if you are reading content by people who know what they are doing it will be quite obvious. Many of the people above who are major personalities on Twitter also have corresponding content on websites. That makes them automatically very good people to track and at the very least skim through their content.

Analyzing the utility of such content is a different story. There are very useful articles posted that go over fundamentals and examine merits of different investments. Many also examine the history of the writer’s picks or recommendations and does a self-evaluation.

These are the best type of articles in my opinion. When we go back and examine what we did and our decisionmaking process we learn new things that we wouldn’t have learned had we chosen not to examine.

I have gone over the content that comes from the financial sector. Although it is very valuable to read content and be a part of the MTGFinance community, most picks are gone by the time MTGFinance people get turned onto them.

This is why it is also useful to follow the players’ communities as well. They are the ones who buy the cards. They are the ones who build the decks that the speculators end up speculating on.

How has knowledge meant power in your experience? Leave it in the comments.

City of Traders

Only God and Forsythe Can Judge Me

May 14, 2014 Travis Allen 11 Comments

By: Travis Allen

I only wish I had put a finer point on it.

Wizards has announced new judge promos, and they’re a doozy. In celebration of breaking 5,000 active judges we are getting some pretty sweet promos. Well, I shouldn’t say “we.” Roughly 1,000 to 1,500 people are getting some pretty sweet promos.

Yes, that’s right. It’s finally happened. We’re getting a foil Force of Will. Think of how awesome your Legacy deck is finally going to look. The only foils missing will be the duals!

Oh, you didn’t think you’d actually be able to afford them, did you?

Before we figure out exactly where these are going to land, let’s step back a bit and examine judge promos at large. I want us all to know what’s possible. I’ve compiled a list of every judge promo that’s been printed and its (rough) price. Some of these may be a surprise to you if you’ve never looked. For instance, did you know Stroke of Genius was a promo? Tradewind Rider?

I separated the list into three categories because that will be the metric I am most interested in examining. I lumped all the exclusively currently-competitive promos together, all the strictly casual/EDH ones together, and then all the cards that blur those borders.You may have some disagreement about what column some of those cards fall into, but overall I think that’s a pretty reasonable separation. What immediately jumps out to me is how much more valuable the competitive cards are than the ones that are currently only playable in casual formats. Even if you cut the earliest six casual cards out of the equation as hailing from a bygone era of Magic, the casual cards are still barely half the value of the competitive ones.

Also interesting is that the cards that appeal to both markets are worth slightly less than strictly competitive cards. Part of that may be how I defined “both.” I’ve got things like Goblin Welder, Entomb and Mishra’s Factory in the both column that may be more appropriate in a different category. Still, that wouldn’t change the lists too much depending on where you moved them. If you shuffle some cards around the average of the both column may catch up in average price to the competitive ones, but they wouldn’t overtake them by much of anything.

Let’s make that point a little more clear: Cards that are strictly competitive in nature are overall the most valuable promos. The average price of cards only playable in casual formats is about half that of the competitive cards. The cards that are desirable for both formats are worth roughly the same as the cards only valued for competitive play.

That last sentence tells us that on average, competitive play is by far the biggest indicator of value. Is card X playable in Legacy? Then the promo is going to be worth about $100. Is it playable in EDH too? Well, it’s still going to only be around $100. Apparently casual demand doesn’t push the price much higher on already-playable competitive staples.

Another aspect of all of this is age. Take a look at the last two years; 2013 and 2012. All five competitive cards are well represented in Legacy, and all five are $90-$200. All six casual cards are $15-$40 each. That’s a huge gap. But as you move further back, the lines start to blur a bit. Moving into 2011 and 2010 the average value of the competitive cards gets even higher, but the casual cards are gaining too. The outlier of Mana Crypt comes in at an absurd $250, and we get Wheel of Fortune pushing $100 as well.

Once you get into 2008 and earlier, the distinction is gone. You’ll notice less and less cards in the competitive column past 2009, and only three or four are nearly as heavily represented as the cards from 2010-2013. What’s going on here is the changing face of Legacy. Judge promos from 2007 were from a different era. Orim’s Chant, Exalted Angel and Living Death may have been constructed playable at some point in the past, but those days are behind us. Meanwhile the casual cards are all over the place. Staples like Demonic Tutor and Sol Ring command $200+ price tags, while cards from days of Magic past are $10 and $15. I’m also noticing that the cards that belong to both formats hold their overall value much better as we move back in time. Even a cards like Mishra’s Factory or Yawgmoth’s Will, which are only barely competitive, are still maintaining respectable price tags.

This is another valuable lesson. Competitive cards are worth a lot while they’re competitive, but formats are fickle and subject to the ravages of time. If a card drops out of competitive play and into the realm of kitchen tables it stands to lose a lot. Meanwhile, casual all-stars are only going to gain as time goes on. They have to be true staples though. Additionally, a mix of demand will help keep older judge promos afloat quite well, even if they’re not hot tickets in any particular format.

One thing to keep in mind is quantity. Those older judge promos were printed in much, much smaller amounts than the newer ones are, just as with current Magic sets. If Magic plateaus around 20 million active players you’re going to see the old promos settle at much higher prices than promos like Bribery or Genesis, even if they see comparable play, simply because of the quantity available. Another quick point: any good judge promo from pre-modern borders is going to be the safest of safe investments. Of course they’re mostly absurd already, but you absolutely cannot lose on them.

What have we learned from all of this that we can apply to our new promos? Competitive play is far and away the major impetus behind price on new promos. Casual play can’t keep newer promos up, not for the first year or two at least. Top tier casual staples will rise in price, but anything below the upper 5% should settle in the $20 to $50 range.

So how about those new promos?

Casual Only

Four generals and a premium green enchantment. The generals are a bit of untrodden territory, as Wizards has only really started pushing Commander in the last few years. If we take a look at the Commander’s Arsenal Kaalia we see she’s around $30, which should be a fair benchmark for these guys. Nekusar may end up the highest simply because he seems to be capable of driving the prices wild on many ‘draw extra’ cards, but then again the people playing those decks may not care much for a $50 foil general. Meanwhile, Greater Good is reasonably well represented in EDH according to metamox. It looks like it is just about as popular as Genesis, which is currently $20. Both of those will tick up over time, but I’d be surprised to see them more than double in the next five years.

Mixed Play

Now THOSE are some promos. That Elesh Norn is quite possibly the coolest promo we’ve seen out of Wizards in years. That writing is Phyrexian if you are unaware. She’s awesome as heck, and people have taken notice:

This will absolutely come down, as she should reach typical levels of distribution. I’m not exactly sure when she’s going to be hitting judge packs though, so her price may be kind of nuts all the way out through the end of next year. She’s a bit different than our other competitive promos in more ways than one. You’ll notice that in the list above not a single card with competitive demand was strictly Modern playable. Elesh Norn is mostly unrepresented in Legacy, so all her competitive demand will be from Modern. At the end of the day I don’t think it’s going to matter though. If she was just another foil copy with a different set symbol her price wouldn’t be noteworthy, but that Phyrexian script is going to keep her high. My guess is that she’ll probably dip towards $90-$150 at her lowest. It could be a very long time before her effect is upgraded, and even if it is the promo is going to retain demand based simply on the uniqueness. Hold off for now, but when it gets close to $100 make sure you grab any you need.

Sword of Feast and Famine is roughly as played as Sword of Fire and Ice in EDH, Modern and Legacy. Expect it to start high at release, dip as the judge packs are released, then start climbing once its run is over. The judge Sword of Fire and Ice is currently $120 and it’s about three years old, so that gives you an idea of what to expect.

Grand Poobah of Legacytown

Let’s understand the facts first. We know it was sent to somewhere between 1,000 to 1,500 judges. The announcement read as if a single copy was sent to each judge, but I’m hearing reports that people got playsets. That means we’re most likely looking at a maximum of 6,000 copies on the market right now. While there was initial panic about the scarcity, Helene Bergeot confirmed multiple times that night that they would be available through other avenues in the future. Nobody is entirely sure what this means yet. Are they going to be the mythic rare of judge promos? How many more will we get? It’s very hard to say.

Let’s say we end up with roughly 10,000 copies of Force. That’s 2,500 playsets or so, depending on what the actual distribution ends up at. How scarce is that? One way to think of that is fifty playsets per state. Montana probably doesn’t need fifty sets, but California and New York sure as heck will.

The Forces are selling for around $1,000 right now, and that will come down. A bit. I think the absolute lowest they could possibly hit is $300-$400 unless there end up being many times more copies on the market than I’m predicting. Once they’re done distributing, the price is just going to keep ticking up and up and up. Force of Will is one of two banner cards of Legacy, and the other one already had a MM foil and an FNM promo. There is no other Force foil, and the original card is murky and just plain ugly. Any tier one Legacy card released in this capacity would have a hefty price tag, and this one is just going to get multiplied by status, lack of prior printings, and typically being run as a playset. Once the run is over, there’s no telling what this could reach. I would not be surprised whatsoever to see this north of $1,000 again a few years down the road.

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