One of the most common misconceptions about folks involved in MTGFinance is that we are constantly manipulating the market and feeding players misinformation to help fuel achievement of our personal goals.
It recently occurred to us here that though we dole out a good deal of advice, most of you ultimately have very little insight into when we actually put our money where our collective mouths are pointing. As such we’ve decided to run a weekly series simply breaking down what we’ve been buying this week and why. These lists are meant to be both complete and transparent, leaving off only cards we bought without hope of profit, where appropriate. We’ll also try to provide some insight into our thinking behind the specs, and whether we are aiming for a short (<1 month), mid (1-12 month), or long (1 year+) term flip. Here’s what we were up to this week:
Buying Period: March 15th -21st, 2015
Note: All cards NM unless otherwise noted. All sell prices are net of fees unless noted.
I have mentioned publicly that I believe few specs make more sense right now than simply accumulating Abrupt Decay. Snapcaster Mage has amply demonstrated that the gaining potential of a Modern/Legacy staple rare is still excellent, even in the post-growth curve era of Magic: The Gathering. Both Snaps and Decay are auto-includes in the next edition of Modern Masters, with the only debate being whether that set shows up in summer of 2016 or 2017. My bet is on 2017 so far, but Wizards left the door open by naming this edition 2015, so you may only have a year to see upside. I’m looking to out my Snapcaster Mages in Sep/Oct around their likely peak.
On the sales side, I’m following through on unloading regular Tasigur, looking to reacquire if he drops enough during the inevitable summer lull. I think this card could easily hit $12 next fall, so this is more of a tempo play. Living Plane and Scion of the Ur-Dragon were opportunistic sales with margins too good to pass up. I’m also looking to sell my last box of Modern Masters at $360 shipped if you’re interested.
“I picked up 4 foil Plasm Captures on Pucatrade at 414 points each (basically $4.14). The card is powerful in Commander, and was from Dragon’s Maze, a very poorly opened set that was overshadowed by Modern Masters. I don’t think foil Plasm Captures should be the same price as a pack of Dragon’s Maze, especially considering the power level of UG colors in the Commander format.
I also bought 118 copies of Battlefield Thaumaturge for $35.66, totaling approximately $.30 per copy. While it’s a bit of a risk and I might end up bulking out for $.12 each several years down the road, I believe this is one of those enablers that only needs one more combo piece to suddenly be viable in either Modern or Standard. While I don’t think Descent of Dragons from Dragons of Tarkir is neccessarily that special combo piece, $.30 per copy was just too cheap to pass up, especially when I was able to condense my order down to three sellers on TCGplayer.com to minimize shipping costs.
An interesting note on Fleshwrither: While I originally wanted to try it out in my Savra deck, I don’t think that it’s a bad pickup for the long-term in foil. Transfigure was one of the weird Future Sight mechanics that we might not see again, and this guy will only get better with every creature printed at 4CMC.
As for the foil Necrotic Oozes, I’ve always had an obsession with the card. I feel like all it takes is one more creature printed with an absurd activated ability that puts it over the edge and makes it a contender in Modern instead of fringe playable. Dying to Lightning Bolt sucks a lot, but I can hope… At the very least, I think he’s a slow gainer over time because of EDH appeal, thanks to the words “all graveyards”.
A note on using Pucatrade:
“If you’re reading this article, you’ve probably already heard of Pucatrade. While I mainly use the site to ship out random cards that are either hard to get rid of, things I have a many extras of, or cards that I expect to decrease in value, there aren’t a whole ton of cards I actually *need* at any given time, due to the fact that I don’t play competitively anymore. There’s the occasional EDH foil that I’ll point out in a binder, and sometimes I’ll try to save up my Pucapoints to power, but otherwise I tend to sit on a lot of Pucapoints. As the main singles dealer in my area, I get a lot of requests for cards that can’t be found locally. Recently, I had a request for a bunch of EDH playable commons that I didn’t happen to have in my boxes of picks; Things like Eyeblight’s Ending, Rend Flesh, Cloudgoat Ranger, and Lignify. This person was willing to pay me cash for these random cards, and didn’t want to/was unable to go through the trouble of buying them online and paying for shipping. Thankfully, Pucatrade comes in very handily here. Instead of turning the guy away or paying cash for them myself, I was able to put a bunch of these cards on my Want list on Puca, and have them be sent to me in a matter of days. I’ve found that this is an excellent way to turn a type of “store credit” into real cash, that I can put elsewhere. That being said, here’s the list of EDH cards that I picked up this week, most of which I’ll be able to sell for $.25 or $.50 each: If you happen to stock up on a lot of Pucapoints like I do, and you’re the go-to guy for singles, consider using those points if someone in your area offers to buy a card that you don’t have.”
“The value of the singles [in each set] is greater than the sealed product by at least $80. With nowhere to go but up on these, I’m happy to either let them grow in the long term, or flip them for $50 profit in the short term should the opportunity arise.”
So there you have it. Now what were you guys buying and selling this week and why?
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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The clock struck twelve midnight. The sound of hundreds of Dragons of Tarkir booster packs being cracked rippled through the room as players began to open the contents of their clan packs. The first wave of Tarkir dragons have arrived. You join the throngs of Magic players around the world in being the first to get a taste of Dragons of Tarkir.
As you open you Ojutai clan pack, you were mildly stoked that your seeded booster rare is Ojutai’s Command. Not exactly an expensive rare nor the Elder Dragon you were looking to use as a Commander, but at least its playable in your sealed pool.
You pop open your first Dragons of Tarkir pack. Obscuring Aether. To the bulk stack. Second pack. Dragonlord’s Perogative. Not exactly a money card, but it may be playable in your pool. Third pack. Volcanic Vision. Dammit, is this going to be another sealed pool with not a single money card? You began to wonder if you should have just saved your money to buy singles instead.
Of course you would not open money cards. The odds are always against you when you are opening packs. If they are not, everybody would be cracking packs instead of buying singles. You berate yourself for that lapse in judgement. Oh well, at least you are supporting your local game store.
As you crack your fourth and last Dragons of Tarkir booster pack, you decided to slowly reveal the card on the rare slot. You slide the card to unveil its top left corner. It’s a gold card. Could it be another Command?
You slide it a little further to reveal the mana pips. Blue and white. Could it be another Ojutai’s Commande? Or perhaps a Pristine Skywise, who would be sweet in your Ojutai deck. You take out the card.
Bam. It’s this bad girl:
Narset’s planeswalker spark ignited after she mastered the notorious Flying Crane Technique.
You are overjoyed. It looks like you would not only make back your prerelease entry fee, but you have a good chance at taking down the prerelease too, having opened one of the best bombs in the set.
The question that pops into your head right now is this: Do you keep your Narset Transcendent after the prerelease, or do you trade her off at the next available opportunity?
What to Do With My Narset Transcendent?
A question that inadvertently pop up the week after a prerelease is “Do I keep the chase mythic planeswalker I opened at my prerelease?”
I wrote this piece as an answer to the question that would undoubtedly arise regarding Narset Transcendent, currently the most expensive card in Dragons of Tarkir at $42. However, the content that follows would also apply for whatever chase card you pop this weekend that you think are overpriced and would like to get rid of.
First off, congratulations if you are one of the few lucky prereleasers to open a Narset Transcendent. If you are planning to play with her frequently over the next month or so, it would not hurt to just keep that copy for your own use. Look at your prerelease fortune as having saved you some cash off your quest to acquire the Narsets you need for your deck.
Personally, I fall under this camp. I am looking forward to get back into control and there are a couple of brews I am keen building for a PPTQ next week: William Jensen’s Narset Control or Shaheen Soorani’s Esper brew, which I would probably end up building. Sweet as Jensen’s build look, I am not willing to splash for four Narset Transcendents on release weekend. Plus Soorani’s deck runs Dragonlord Ojutai as a finisher, a card I am really bullish on.
However if you do not plan on playing with her right now, the best thing to do is to trade her off as soon as possible. While the planeswalker tax may not be as ubiquitous as before, Narset Transcendent does not have the makings of Ugin, the Spirit Dragon, who after nearly two months, is still $5 – $7 more than his preorder price.
Narset is undoubtedly a powerhouse in Standard, but multicolored planeswalkers have a lower theoretical ceiling compared with their single-colored counterparts. Call it the multicolored ceiling, Magic Finance’s variant of the glass ceiling.
Narset’s situational, build-around-me abilities do her price no justice as well. They limit her potential homes in all formats and as an extension her price.
Those factors combined convinced me that Narset is overpriced right now at $42 and if you have no intentions of running decks that would want to play her, it may be best to cash out on her inflated value.
So what cards are good pick-ups to trade your Narset Transcendent into?
Khans of Tarkir Fetchlands
Flooded Strand: $14
Polluted Delta: $14
Windswept Heath: $11
Wooded Foothills: $10
Bloodstained Mire: $9
We have hit peak supply for Khans of Tarkir. In a week’s time, the supply of Khans of Tarkir would grind to a trickle. I can’t say for sure if we are at the price bottom for the the Khans fetches as the Return to Ravnice shocklands bottomed out only at May and the Theros temples during July and AugustThe difference of a few months could also be attributed to the different draft structures of the sets.
However, the fetchlands should be pretty damn close after their dip in the middle of February.
Fancy taking a dip in a strand or delta?
If you have yet to complete your playsets of fetchlands, there are not many things better to trade your overpriced Narset Transcendent into than helping you complete your playsets of fetches.
If you are looking for fetches as long-term investments, the appreciation you stand to gain from the fetches, especially the blue ones, far outweigh that of Narset Transcendent.
Seeing that we are at the peak supply of Khans of Tarkir, what other Khans of Tarkir cards are worth picking up with your Narset Transcendent?
Foil Non-planeswalker Narset
In this timeline, Narset’s planeswalker spark was shaken, but not stirred.
It’s easy to see why: in a format that revels in resolving grand spells with prohibitively high mana cost, the possibilities are endless for a card that allows you to play spells without paying for them. It’s even better when you can play up to four of them.
Taking extra turns is one of the most popular thing to do with Narset. The Beacon of Tomorrows spike last November was attributed to Narset’s popularity. Narset also cheats in planeswalkers, which mean players could jam in all the best white, blue or red planeswalkers, including the new kid dragon planeswalker on the block, Ugin. Taking extra turns and manifesting a board of planeswalkers at the same time is one of the most fun thing to do in Commander, for the Narset player at least. Personally, I prefer to Long-term Plans for an Omniscience with my Narset, Enlightened Master trigger on the stack.
Narset has also been gaining traction in the Duel Commander scene.
Foil Narset, Enlightened Master is only $12 at the moment. With her popularity as a commander, foils at $12 would not be a bad investment. It definitely has more room to appreciate compared with Narset Planeswalker at $42.
Speaking of Khans…
Foil Anafenza, the Foremost
First and foremost, in Tiny Leaders and Duel Commander.
Now this is a more controversial pick. $14 seems steep for foil Anafenza, the Foremost. But I think she has a lot of potential to grow for the following reasons.
Anafenza is an immensely popular leader in Tiny Leaders. The majority of Abzan decks run Anafenzas their leader. Her +1/+1 counter has a wide range of synergies, and her second ability hoses a myriad of other popular leaders like Alesha, Who Smiles at Death and Grenzo, Dungeon Warden (running Anafenza against them felt close to cheating. True story).
On top of her popularity in Tiny Leaders, Anafenza is also the most played aggro commander in Duel Commander.
On the other hand, since Birthing Pod got the axe in Modern, Anafenza had all but disappeared from the Modern scene. Nevertheless, Tiny Leaders and Duel Commander demand should be sufficient to boost her price beyond her current $14. While she would not hit the $60s heights of foil Zur the Enchanter (whose foil price continued on a gradual hike even after Zur was banned in Duel Commander) as the supply of Khans of Tarkir is substantially higher than Coldsnap’s, it would not be hard to imagine foil Anafenza to hit at least $30 in the long run, especially when she has higher demand than Zur.
Foils Grand Arbiter Augustin IV, the most popular control commander for Duel Commander on top of being a popular fun police casual commander spiked up to $75 before he was reprinted in Modern Masters.
$14 is a safe entry point for foil Anafenza, the Foremost as her foil price is likely to be remain around that through her life in Standard, buoyed by tremendous casual demand.
Foil Dragonlords
Courtesy of the seeded prerelease packs, there will be plenty of players opening foil Dragonlords during the prerelease. As of writing, foil Dragonlord prices have yet to settle. Major retailers either do not stock them yet, or have sold out of them and eBay winning bids ranged from $10 to $20 per Dragonlord.
With the exception of Dragonlord Kolaghan (and I may even be wrong about foil Kolaghans), I would be happy to trade my $42 Narset Transcendent for a couple of foil Dragonlords.
I do not know if that exchange would yield profit in the short-term, foils of Dragonlords who does not see Standard play within the month may even drop in price when more Dragons of Tarkir hit the market. However, Narset Transcendent’s short and long-term trajectory are very likely to be downwards and even though foils of the Dragonlords-not-played-in-Standard may tank in the short run, you can bet they would be spike in the long run driven by casual and Commander demand, as I’ve advocated in my analysis of the Dragonlords. After all, they are the only foil Elder Dragons besides the From the Vaults: Dragons Nicol Bolas.
Finally, you reach for your single Fate Reforged pack, still giddy from ripping that Narset Transcendent. You have already covered your prerelease entry cost and ‘made a profit’. It doesn’t matter what you get in your last pack.
You tear the Fate Reforged pack open with abandon. Straight to the rare slot, no slow reveal this time.
Dragons of Tarkir has no shortage of awesome cards. Some of these are build-around-me additions to a Cube, others will make waves in Tiny Leaders, and several seem to be designed for the kitchen table crowd. I am going to talk about a few of these, along with the price I’m comfortable getting in at. If something blows up in Standard or other Constructed format, my pricing will undoubtedly be off.
Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit – Sure, she’s amazing in Tiny Leaders, but she’s also an enabler in all sorts of White Weenie strategies. Her mana cost is probably the biggest thing holding her back, as it’s not easy to get double white on turn two. Pick her up for $1 or less.
Hidden Dragonslayer – The rule about Morphs in EDH or Cube was this: it’s either Exalted Angel or Willbender. Khans block has given us some amazing morphs, and this cycle of cheap, powerful Megamorphs might be among the best of all. Singleton formats are where you really want flexibility, and you have a range of useful things to do here. That said, I think this is another dollar rare.
Profound Journey – I had Obzedat’s Aid in my Kaalia deck for the longest time, and it’s…serviceable. It has been cut, and while this is potentially twice as powerful, it costs even more. What’s really going to bother you is how often you spend seven mana and get back something that costs a lot less. Bulk rare.
Radiant Purge – I think this might be one of the sneakier cards of the set. Two mana for an instant-speed exile effect is not to be undervalued. It’s true that it would be better if it said “Exile target multicolored permanent” but we just got Utter End for such universal applications. I think this will hold a price due to being a popular sideboard card in Standard, so around $2.
Secure the Wastes – Believe it or not, while we’ve had numerous versions of this effect before, we’ve never had one this cheap, especially as an instant! This is an auto-include in any EDH token strategy, and I think it’s good enough for Cube too. I’ll be especially interested in foils around four or five dollars.
Clone Legion – In case you forgot, Wizards R & D plays a lot of EDH. This is a neat way to either win more on your own awesome board, or play catch-up with just one card. This is not a Standard card, this is absolutely a haymaker, battlecruiser, giant Commander effect. This is going to be better than you think it is, no matter if you’re ahead, behind, or at parity. It’s not going to be bulk, but I’ll be surprised if it’s ever more than $2 in nonfoil.
Living Lore – Some people are going to try and make this good. Don’t be one of those people. Bulkiest of bulk, until some weird Legacy combo pops up.
Stratus Dancer – I think this card is good enough for Standard, though to be honest, I’m not someone who plays a lot of that. Nonetheless, every mode on this card seems good. A 2/1 flyer for two is a good starting point, and if you have the time and mana, holding up an uncounterable counterspell for their sweeper is pretty amazing. I like this a lot in Cube and Commander too. This might be the priciest of the cycle, at around $3.
Hedonist’s Trove – This basically gives you a second library to play cards from. There’s a lot to be said for effects like this, but the problem is that you have to do a lot of work to fill their graveyard. I love it, but I’m not going to try and play it. Bulk.
Blood-Chin Fanatic – Kresh the Bloodbraided has a new best friend. So does Hamletback Goliath. The pieces are there on a decent body for the price, but this will struggle to be more than a dollar or two.
Damnable Pact – There is a lot of fun to be had with these two modes. With a little mana, it’s a way to get a couple of cards. With lots of mana, it’s the finisher against people with low life or small libraries. It’s a surprisingly versatile spell, and should be considered in most decks. The card I’d measure it against is Diabolic Revelation, except that Revelation is a terrible card at less than seven, whereas there’s plenty of games I’d be happy to cast this for two or three. I think this will have a nice home around $2.
Virulent Plague – Hear me out. You should be giving serious consideration to playing this in most of your Commander/Tiny Leaders games. There’s very few tokens that can survive this without help, and mostly those are 3/3 Beasts and 4/4 Angels, which need to be cut down in size anyway. This is also an intriguing sideboard card in Modern, at least until Splinter Twin gets banned. I’ll be looking for foils of this around $1.50.
Descent of Dragons – I know that lots of people have fooled around with this, looking for combos that generate all sorts of advantages, but I’m thinking about how if I already have a bunch of creatures, I should be winning anyway. This is a mana less than Devout Invocation, and that’s a dollar mythic.
I think Descent’s price is going to open high on assorted hype and will trickle downward. I won’t be trying to get these until they fall to $5 or lower.
Impact Tremors – If you see someone lay this down on turn two in a Commander game, your target is acquired. This is half of the cost of Purphoros, for half the damage, so you’ll need twice as many tokens to be generated. Very doable. I’ll be watching for foils under $1.
Lightning Berserker – This card might be the real deal in mono-red decks. It also might not be. It’s not quite as durable as Monastery Swiftspear, but is there a better late topdeck? Perhaps the question is, would a red deck play this over Crater’s Claws? Some combination thereof? I think it’ll be worth picking these up in trades throughout the draft season, just in case.
Rending Volley – This might as well say “Best Sideboard Card Against Twin” on it. Spellskite can’t touch it, and it’s got Combust beaten by a full mana. I’m going to be looking for these around 50-75 cents, and I’m game for $5 foils. This is a very Cube-able card as well.
Roast – Yes, the damage can’t hit a flyer, and that’s a big mark against it. But everything else is amazing. Two mana! Who cares if it’s a sorcery, just get in there! Tasigur, Siege Rhino, you name the wingless problem and it’s solved. I feel good about this being about a dollar, and the foils should be around $5. This and Rending Volley might well be some very premium foils if eternal red decks decide it’s worth it.
Zurgo – He is who he is. He’s certainly not who he was. Poor guy. Stay away.
Assault Formation – Even in foil, I’m not interested. Rolling Stones has been a card for a long time, and neither of its foils can crack $5.
Inspiring Call – I meant to add this to last week’s piece, as this is something my Experiment Kraj deck wants very very badly in foil. I expect I’ll pay about $2 for that.
All Foil Commands – Be very wary of picking these up without having a specific plan in mind. Some of the multicolor modal cards are very high in foil, some are not. I want a foil Silumgar’s Command, and others will be wanting these in foil, but the key is in their eternal playability. Boros Charm is the best example, but even Golgari Charm is getting good mileage and expensive foils. I’m going to let the metagame sort the commands for me before I move in.
Hello! For those of you who don’t know me already, my name is Ross. Before we begin, I’d like to share my philosophy on Magic finance. I am not a store owner or vendor (although I have worked in the business before), and I have more than a decade of tournament experience. I have observed firsthand all of the changes that have influenced the course of Magic finance in the last ten years, and I prioritize teaching over telling. If I am able to give my readers a more firm understanding of what to look for and why, then they will be able to have continued success over the course of their gaming careers.
I believe strongly in long-term speculation rather than short-term targets (which is something we will discuss today), as well as catering your targets to your best fit, rather than attempting to mimic the successes of others. I also believe that the key to educating someone is by entertaining them as well, so I try to approach my writing with a light and approachable manner. Professionally, my work is in commercial insurance and risk assessment/management, so I typically identify loss potential as a major (if not the primary) factor in determining the potential of an investment. But enough about me, let’s get to work.
Magic writing (any kind of content on it, really) is often very ephemeral in nature. Cards rotate, formats phase in and out of popularity, players (and even writers) come into and out of phases of their life where the game is a priority. The reason why I personally enjoy the writing (and podcasting) of Mike Flores is that he has a wealth of background knowledge to help make comparisons between Magic‘s present and its past. Being able to anchor your present mindset with past experience makes for more structured and informed decision making. That is, of course, just one piece of the puzzle. Magic has changed drastically in the last several years, both in how the game is played, and who is playing it.
KEY CONCEPT: THE ZENDIKAR BOOM
I’d like to quickly explain what is perhaps the most important factor in Magic finance in the last several years. Beginning in 2009 (around the release of Magic 2010 and Zendikar), the active Magic player population began to grow at extraordinary numbers. This dynamic increase has continued ever since, and has created both increased demand for cards, as well as higher print runs for newer releases. We will synthesize this information later, but I wanted to get the definition out of the way now, because this is a crucial topic for financiers.
Even though Magic is over 20 years old, Magic finance is largely a new phenomenon. The early days of Magic writing were a mix of fascinating, if imperfect, ideas (“The Schools of Magic” is a personal favorite) and extremely rudimentary grasps of what was actually good (Do you realize Giant Trap Door Spiderwon a pro tour?!).
In the years since, Magic writing has improved exponentially, but much of Magic finance remains woefully underdeveloped by comparison. My goal over these next few weeks is to help explain and develop upon things that may not be overly apparent to those who are new to the game, as well as solidify the understanding of the more advanced.
I want to spend the rest of today discussing the Zendikar Boom, so that you can broaden out the scope of it to inform your decisions. It should be mentioned upfront that Wizards very rarely releases any type of solid numbers on things like player population or print run— the latter for various reasons, and the former because even their internal figures are rough at best (DCI numbers track active tournament players, but what percentage are they of the Magic-buying public1?). When numbers are released, they are typically percentages, showing the increase or decrease in measurable metrics like sales or event participation.
Most of the population figures prior to Zendikar hover around the six million range. This number was thrown out in advertisements (and likely in early Hasbro acquisitions talks) as, “Join the game with over six million players worldwide!” Sometimes the number is seven million, sometimes five million, but the impression was that it was largely a static total number. Beginning in 2009, however, Magic suddenly began to show double digit growth, with percentages increasing around 25 percent annually. This means that by 2010, there were 7.5 million Magic players, definitely on the higher end of the fluctuations from 2000 until then. A 25 percent increase from there brought the population to roughly 9.375 million, the highest it has ever been.
It is important to understand how much of WOTC’s work is done in advance. Things like a set’s design begin more than two years in advance of its release, and even though printing happens much closer to getting the product on shelves, it is often determined on numbers arrived at much earlier. Many stores ran out of Zendikar product between the first and second printings. This indicates that there was insufficient quantity at the distributor level, not that a bunch of stores did really well.
Once can be a fluke, but twice and thrice may indicate a potential trend. In the Hasbro shareholder conference call for 2012 (fiscal year), they indicated that Magic had 25 percent growth for the last four years (2009, 2010, 2011, 2012). By just doing the same math we were doing before, we can guesstimate that Magic was at 11.7 million players in 2011, and beyond 14.6 million in 2012. In four years, the player population has added nearly ten million new people. Even if these numbers are fuzzy, the impact is not. If Zendikar was printed for six or seven million people, but now there are almost 15 million (other sources show “only” 12 million), what does that do to demand?
Now, when a set is in print, Wizards can always run more off the presses—even though the entire process is outsourced, the company is still able to get a few extra waves of product out after the official release. Any set that was no longer in print at the release of Zendikar, however, was done. Those sets, by the standards of the next few years, were extremely under-printed. Return to Ravnica, which had a much higher printing than Zendikar, had the same problem with running out of product before the release of the second wave (although not to as noticeable a degree). The annual percentage Hasbro has shown have all remained positive (showing growth), although if I recall correctly, this year’s was below double digits for the first time (six percent). That percentage increase is small, but the overall number behind it is still a massive amount of new players.
The most immediate impact this has is pressuring on the supply-side of any card printed before the Boom. Even if the percentage of demand stays the same (say, nine percent of all Magic players want a playset of Guttural Response), the actual number behind that percentage may have doubled. Not all of those players are going to transition into Legacy (or even sanctioned play), but how many of them want Underground Seas? The before and after on popular commons and uncommons from Modern Masters shows the impact an increase in supply can have on cards that fit our interests. It’s also why cards like Sleight of Hand (which had multiple printings!) are able to get high prices even at common. If you are looking for smart buys, they should most likely be from before the Boom impacted printing. Of course, unlike Guttural Response, which I mentioned just a minute ago, it should be a card people actually want.
The flip side, of course, is understanding what things to actively stay away from. While I would not say that newer cards are worth avoiding all together, you have to have a good reason and a better price. My personal baseline is $3 (the price of an in-print booster pack at my LGS). I like Rest in Peace as a card that sees play in both Modern and Legacy (as well as Commander, Vintage, Cube, Tiny Leaders, and whatever weird format has been invented since I sent this to my editor), and I can get two for the price of a booster. When considering cards from the last two or three years, you really have to have a clear idea of future potential to offset the huge amount of supply compared to cards from six or more years ago.
That’s all we are going to have time for today. Let me know what your thoughts are in the comments or on the forums. and I’m excited to be a member of MTGPrice!
Best,
Ross
1We will definitely talk about what Rosewater and company call “The Invisibles” next week.
MAGIC: THE GATHERING FINANCE ARTICLES AND COMMUNITY
