By: Jared Yost

Currently we appear to be in the doldrums of the Magic finance sea. The trade winds haven’t yet guided our course towards buying into Theros staples, as the floor on most cards hasn’t been found yet. The winds also aren’t quite right yet to pursue other avenues of Magic financial interest, such as starting to acquire recently rotated Innistrad block staples or future Modern prospects. (Seriously Wizards, you stuck Modern season in the middle of summer?) Nothing is at the point where I feel comfortable acquiring or selling. It seems no matter which way I hold my compass I can’t find my way back to shore.

At times like these, some retrospection is a good idea. Looking back on past successes and failures may be a great way to find a path forward.

 

Success!

Jace, Architect of Thought

Some background – I started to seriously get into Magic finance back when Return to Ravnica first hit Standard. I wanted to know what was up with the crazy price swings of cards that at the time I didn’t fully understand.

Earlier in my Magic career, I never kept track of prices very closely – I just picked up cards when I needed them for decks. Over the years, due to dumb luck and the massive influx of players, the demand for the old cards that I never got around to trading away skyrocketed. I suddenly found myself with many cards that were two, three, sometimes four times more than what I originally bought them for. I found myself asking “What is this wizardry?”

I started researching Magic finance more earnestly because I wanted to understand what was going on and why these newer cards that I owned seemed to be going through such large price swings in such a short period of time, and also why my older staples seemed to always be trending upwards. Ever since, I’ve always kept up with the most recent trends on card prices because it fascinates me to no end. I stumbled upon a few websites like MTGPrice, and the rest is history.

Back to Jace – This is one of the first cards that I decided to acquire as many copies as I could rather than just one or two for collection purposes. I was able to pick up several Jace’s back when they were as low as $8.

After Jace’s huge crash, nobody wanted him – I was able to pick up copy after copy. I recently cashed out on half my stock for $23 each. I didn’t pull the trigger on selling off all of them because I felt that maybe I could get more for the remaining Jaces if they became really popular. I still may yet have that chance, however the recent duel deck announcement certainly makes that less likely. I’ll be looking to move the rest in the near future.

 

Blood Baron of Vizkopa

I also did well when I decided to target this card. I got in on Blood Baron when it was $8 this summer, and recently buylisted all my copies for $14 each. That is $6 profit per, which is fantastic as far as I’m concerned. I used the same logic here as I did with Jace, and this card also payed out welcome dividends.

 

 

Deathrite Shaman & Abrupt Decay

Both of these cards screamed “LEGACY!!!” to me, and I started grabbing them up as soon as they were spoiled. I was very bullish on Deathrite Shaman – so bullish, in fact, that I was preordering Deathrite Shamans at $4. I liked Deathrite so much that I was still picking them up when they already doubled to $7-$8 each. Both decisions turned out positive for me. As for Abrupt Decay, I waited for it to drop in price after the initial hype died down and then became bullish on it when it was $3-$4. My only regret is not picking up foil copies of either card when they were low.

 

Other Notables

   

Ash Zealot – Buy in $1.25, Buylist @ $2.45
Wurmcoil Engine – Buy in $7.00, Buylist @ $10.50
Batterskull – Buy in $6.00, Buylist @ $9.50
Burning Earth – Buy in $1.00, Buylist @ $3.00

I wasn’t as bullish on these picks but they still paid out pretty well for me. I was able to get fairly good cash prices for these cards when they spiked (Ash Zealot & Burning Earth), or I held onto them for a while and then decided to buylist for a profit when it came time to liquidate (Wurmcoil Engine, Batterskull).

 

Failures, Misses, and Bad Calls

Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx

I had an idea about the power of this card because it reminded me of Cabal Coffers and how good that card is in a black deck. I decided to hold off because I didn’t know if devotion would be a thing or not in Standard.

Well, it was. I missed big with this land. I might still be able to buy in later after more product is opened, though I can’t foresee Nykthos ever dipping as low as $4 again.

 

 

Heliod, God of the Sun & Underworld Cerberus

I was bullish on both of these cards shortly after the release of Theros. They have both gone down since I bought into them, and so far I am in the hole. At this point, I think my best bet is to continue sitting on them and hope they spike.

 

Voice of Resurgence

I thought that there was a lot of potential when Voice was first spoiled, and I spent a lot of time thinking about at least picking up a play set. I talked myself out of it, and suffice to say missed out.

 

Beck & Call

I was bullish on this card when it was $4. I started picking them up at that price, was astounded when they continued to drop, and started picking up even more once they hit $2. They are now less than $1, making this my biggest flop.

 

Epic Experiment

I started picking up a lot of these at $2 each because I felt that it had a lot of potential in Modern, with a possibility of also being good in Standard later on. My prediction so far has not come to pass, and I’m sitting on a lot of copies that are lower than what I got them for.

 

Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius

Now at a measly $2, I was very bullish on Niv-Miz when Return to Ravnica prices had bottomed out. I bought in when they were $2.50, so I haven’t lost too much. At the end of the day they’re all still sitting in a box though, making this a loss, even if it isn’t a big one.

 

Lessons Learned

So, what have I learned about my endeavors with a year of experience? I’ll try to summarize for you:

Success Lessons

• The common theme of my successes is that I carefully studied each of the cards and made notes of all the potential upside and downside that each had. Once I felt that I understood the pros and cons, I made an informed decision that each had a positive outlook and started picking them up accordingly.

• One thing I want to be doing in the future is paying more attention to mythics rather than rares. Mythics provide the largest gains over time when their peak has been reached. I made some decent profits from Deathrite Shaman and Abrupt Decay, but those types of success are harder to realize.

• When looking at rares, the card’s eternal playability is an important factor. When I saw Deathrite Shaman and Abrupt Decay, I knew that they could be good Standard cards and at the same time they would be even more amazing in other formats. I now take this heavily into consideration.

• Capitalizing on format shakeups – When a format is being “shaken and stirred” so to speak, I’ve relied on my research and past experiences to help make the most of a changing format. This is why I recommended targeting aggro cards right before Theros released, because I knew cards like Ash Zealot would likely see an uptick in price due to the typical increase in aggressive strategies shortly after rotation.

Mistake Lessons

• More research is required before diving too deeply into any given card. I bought into a lot of cards that weren’t proven and that didn’t have a power level that, in retrospect, I’ve noticed is clearly lacking.

• While occasionally missed calls end up working out for other reasons, in the meantime I am stuck with cards that no one wants. I was taking on quite a bit of risk with some of my picks. I’m going to stay with more liquid cards in the future to try to mitigate risk.

• I’ve learned the hard way about which factors actually make a card well-positioned. that isn’t to say that I won’t ever miss again, as surely there will be other errors in judgment in the future. Today though, I can say I am a much better evaluator of a card and its potential.

• Crowdsourcing is a powerful tool. I need to learn how to better realize the many tools that are available for Magic finance in order to understand card trends and what the community chatter is about a card. It can be good to pick up a few copies on the advice of others who have much more experience with Magic finance, you know?

Still stuck at sea with my sails unfurled hoping for a breeze, I’ve used the time to learn about myself and a bit more about the workings of Magic finance. I hope that my personal musings on my own successes and failures will provide some guidance for you as you set your own course.

*Correction – In the comments for my article last week, it was noted that I incorrectly associated Hasbro with Wizards of the Coast in respect to my writing of Chronicles. Hasbro acquired Wizards in 1999 (from the Wikipedia page), whereas Chronicles was released in 1995. My reference to Hasbro was only in passing however it was an oversight on my part and I wanted to make sure I set the record straight. Sorry for any confusion! Hasbro did not influence Wizards choices in regards to Chronicles.

This week I would like to delve into a topic that I feel hasn’t been discussed much lately – Modern Masters.

History

Modern Masters was released June 7th of this year and was a special edition set similar to Chronicles. Unlike Chronicles, this time Wizards wanted to get it right and provide us with a set of all reprints without tanking the prices of the cards. The reprints chosen not only resulted in a great limited environment where players were eager to buy boxes to draft, but also released into the world more copies of Modern staples like Vendilion Clique, Tarmogoyf, Dark Confidant, and other powerful cards that are the backbone of the Modern format.

Chronicles had a much bigger impact on the game than many of us realize. Not all players may recall exactly what happened (or have been around for it), so I will try to lay out the basic events that helped shape many decisions Wizards would make regarding Modern Masters.

In 1995, Wizards was succeeding greatly with marketing and selling their Magic: The Gathering CCG product. They realized that a lot of newer players existed that wanted to be able to play with cards from the early releases on since 1993. Unfortunately, the print runs for the first sets were very small because Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast did not know if Magic would be a successful card game or not. In order to appeal to this ever growing market of the game, Wizards decided to release another set with a considerably larger print run.

Chronicles only appealed to newer players because it did not have cards such as Mana Drain, The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale, Maze of Ith, or Mishra’s Workshop – imagine if it had! The price of these cards would be VERY different today if they had been included with Chronicles. They did not want to include Alpha or Beta cards with this release either – those sets were strictly for collectors who bought into the first run of the game and helped to get the game off the ground. Only specific cards from Arabian Nights, Antiquities, Legends, and The Dark were included.

Following Chronicles release, there was a huge backlash from collectors. The secondary market value of cards reprinted in Chronicles was severely impacted. Many of the cards saw their value drop 60%-90% because they were reprinted in such large quantities. This upset quite a few collectors who had accumulated a great deal of the original printings, and consequently saw the value of their collections dashed.

In order to prevent further PR disasters like this from happening in the future, and to placate collectors who had lost a great deal with the printing of Chronicles, Wizards released the now-infamous reserved list as a promise to never again print certain cards in later expansions or core sets. A few years ago, the loophole was closed when the policy was expanded to include never printing these cards in any shape or form that is tournament legal (promos, duel decks, archenemy, etc.) To this day, Wizards hasn’t shown any sign of changing the policy, with staunch promises from several high-level employees that the reserved list is here to stay.

A common opinion is that the reserve List is a mistake, as Legacy will never be able to grow with it in place. Unfortunately, Wizards as a company cannot abolish the reserved list. There are many within the company’s walls that would like to change or remove it altogether, but their hands are tied.

Wizards created the Modern format as a panacea, which is free from the tyranny of the reserve list. Now they can go ahead and reprint any card in Modern-legal sets to resupply the market and make sure that there are enough copies of the cards floating around, since the reserve list only covers cards through Urza’s Destiny.

Modern Masters is the second experiment with reprints for Wizards. This time around, they wanted to make sure they got it right by establishing a few restrictions for how the set would be distributed, and at what price it would retail for.

Modern Masters was designed to have a limited print run to avoid a second coming of Chronicles, while still trying to appeal to both tournament and casual players by reprinting older cards that were beginning to increase in price due to their scarcity. The goal was to at least keep prices stable, or possibly even reduce prices slightly without completely cratering their secondary market value. Wizards did this by both limiting the availability of the set, as well as setting a higher-than-normal MSRP for boxes and packs.

I believe that we can all learn a lot about how mass reprints like Modern Masters will affect the market moving forward. The product was very popular and well-received, with the only public outcry being that there wasn’t enough product to go around (and also a few complaints about the sealed format).

I wanted to outline my longer term expectations for MM and which cards we should all look out for moving forward. I will delve into which cards Wizards was specifically targeting for price suppression, and see how Modern Masters has affected their prices. Let’s see if Wizards managed to accomplish their goal.

 

The Big Ones

Before Modern Masters release: $120
Four months After Modern Masters: $120

Tarmogoyf, the most iconic card from Modern Masters, has not seen a price decrease since Modern Masters has been released. Tarmogoyf never dropped in price – after the set was released, it even went up for a little while but has since leveled off to pre-MM levels. I think the price is an accurate reflection of the demand because Tarmogoyf is both a Modern and Legacy staple.

The reason that Tarmogoyf has not dropped in price is twofold. First, Tarmogoyf was reprinted as a mythic rather than a rare. This meant that it saw the least amount of new copies entering the market of any card in the set, on top of Modern Masters being a limited print run to begin with.

The second reason is that the player base of Magic as a whole, and the players getting into Modern and Legacy specifically, has only increased since Modern Masters was released. Wizards intended to not only reprint Modern staples for existing players, but increase the number of players in the format as a whole. This strategy appears to be working, as the price of other Modern staples like fetchlands have increased in price significantly. Tarmogoyf would undoubtedly have also followed this path if it was not reprinted.

The Future: Outside of a second Modern Masters or similar product, I don’t see Tarmogoyf getting any cheaper. They will retain their value and possibly even go up as Modern season approaches. They aren’t a target I would put cash towards unless you need to complete a playset, but if you can trade into extras with surplus stock it would definitely be a good idea.

 

Before Modern Masters release: ~$50
Four months After Modern Masters: $75

Dark Confidant is an interesting case study from Modern Masters. It is the only reprint card to firmly rise in value! This is because those same factors that helped buoy Tarmogoyf’s price actually managed to increase the price of Confidant.

The Future: Since the reprint, his price has spiked to $75 and I’m not sure if this is the ceiling. Could Confidant hit $100 by next Modern season? Ravnica was opened a fair amount, much more than Future Sight, so there are more Confidants floating around than Tarmogoyfs. This will help to temper Skillrex’s price, but I could still see Confidant rising even further as more players enter the Modern scene.

 

Before Modern Masters release: $50
Four months After Modern Masters release: $45

Due to the scarcity of Morningtide paired with heavy usage in Modern and Legacy, right off the bat Vendilion Clique commands a price much higher than is normal for a legend. In the time following MM, the price has indeed managed to drop a little bit because it does not see quite as much play as Tarmogoyf, Fetchlands, or other Modern staples. However the combination of rarity and the influx of players has prevented Clique from dropping too far. Demand remains high.

The Future: Similar to Tarmogoyf, I don’t see Clique getting much cheaper than it currently stands until the next reprint. A lot of people underestimated the amount of players that Modern Masters would draw towards Modern, so as the season approaches I can see these slowly ticking up in price.

 

The Swords

Before Modern Masters release: Fire and Ice $50, Light and Shadow $35
Four months After Modern Masters release: $30 and $25, respectively

Even though the swords still command a solid price of $25+, they are the first reprints I’ve mentioned to have a taken a significant hit from being reprinted. The Sword of Fire and Ice reprint is 40% less than prior to Modern Masters, and Sword of Light and Shadow is about 30% less if you pick up the latest printing.

Originally, the sword’s prices were mainly kept up by casual demand since Darksteel was a hard-to-find set. Sword of Feast and Famine and Sword of War and Peace are in my opinion better tournament-worthy cards than the original swords, though based on a particular metagame any sword could be favored over another for a period.

The Future: I don’t really see a big change in the price of the swords unless there is a demand in Modern for protection from particular colors. Green is an important color to have protection from due to Jund, so Sword of Feast and Famine will probably be the sword to watch out for moving forward. The only copies of Feast and Famine that exist are those from Mirrodin Besieged, so they could be a good pickup ahead of next Modern season.

 

The Rest

This next section is a list of cards that are worth watching, as they all have strong potential to see an increase during next Modern season due to their playability in the format.

Before Modern Masters release: $35
Four months After Modern Masters release: $22

The Future: What a drop! Almost a 40% decrease in price since the Lorwyn high, Cryptic Command could see a jump next Modern season. The cost to pick up Cryptic isn’t too high right now, and it is a good trade target. Any blue control deck wants them, and some slower combo decks like Scapeshift are in the market as well.

 

Arcbound Ravager didn’t see quite as big of a drop as Cryptic Command, and he is the cornerstone of the Affinity deck. This is another one to watch because as Modern season approaches this card could see an uptick in demand and therefore an uptick in price. This card also occasionally makes a strong showing in Legacy, which will help to keep the price moving upwards over time.

 

Blinkmoth Nexus, Maelstrom Pulse, Blood Moon, Engineered Explosives

I’m keeping my eye on all four of these cards because not only are they played in Modern but they also make an appearance from time to time in Legacy as well. Having the support of two formats is no joke, as Tarmogoyf and Dark Confidant can attest to. Being rare does limit the upper bound, but I expect all three of these cards to eventually crest $10 again, and possibly even more.

 

Academy Ruins, Glen Elendra Archmage, Kira, Great Glass-Spinner, Summoner’s Pact

These are another set of cards I will be keeping my eyes on that have dropped in price significantly but for a different reason. They are all strong causal cards in addition to being tournament playable. Casual demand has become a big part of predicting the price of a card. Kalonian Hydra and Archangel of Thune are good examples of this – they really aren’t even played in Standard and yet they are $20 mythics. I think the same could be true for several Modern Masters cards, since nearly every rare and mythic was $15 or higher at one point in their original printings. If I start seeing any movement in these cards as Modern season approaches I won’t hesitate to pick them up.

 

Path to Exile, Kitchen Finks, Spell Snare, Lightning Helix

I like speculating on uncommons from Modern Masters because I feel like these are the types of cards that have a lot of room to grow during Modern season next year. They’ve all experienced big drops from their original highs and can be acquired in trades as extra throw ins. Even purchasing extra copies of these for the right price could be a good call. Once Modern season gets going, they will all be seen across a variety of decks in the format. Any one of the uncommons could definitely spike. You won’t see a huge return on any individual copy, but doubling and tripling in price isn’t unfathomable. Jumping from $1 to $3 doesn’t sound impressive, but when you have 30 copies it will be. I’ve been grabbing extras anywhere I can.

Conclusion

It has been four months since Modern Masters was released. According to the raw numbers it looks like Wizards has achieved its goal of reducing prices overall while not crashing the market. Even though Tier 1 staples like Tarmogoyf and Dark Confidant have leveled off or increased in price, many of the other staples have taken quite a hit from the set’s release, especially uncommons and rares that derived part of their price from casual play and just plain scarcity.

Over the next six months and as Modern season approaches, I expect many of the cards I mentioned to start ticking up in price as they become harder to find and more players need them for Modern tournaments. Eventually, Modern will become the new Legacy. This won’t happen for quite a few years because the reserved list exists – it is basically unavoidable. Wizards now knows that they can create sets like Modern Masters in order to keep a successful eternal format alive by reprinting scarce cards every so often. Luckily for us, these sets also open up plenty of financial opportunities to gather reprints once they hit their low points in anticipation of the following Modern season.