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Grand Prix New Jersey: Dealer Report

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By James Chillcott (@MTGCritic)


GPNJ_Brochure

With over 4000 players in the room, the card trading action at Grand Prix is hot and heavy this morning.

A survey of the 15+ vendors on site, confirmed that many of the expected trends for the weekend are in full effect. With the heavy turnout of U/R Delver decks, many dealers are reporting that cards both for and against the expected metagame pillar are moving briskly.

StarCityGames vendor booth reported brisk sales on Forked Bolt, Pyroblast, Chain Lightning and both Hydroblast  and their variants.

AetherGames

Kyle Lopez of Aether Games reported similar trends and stated that he thought Forked Bolt could come out of the weekend in the $5-6 range and hold it moving forward barring a reprint. He also indicated that his team was staying away from Treasure Cruise foils in expectation that the price is headed down this winter before it rises any further, as well as remarking that Delver of Secrets foils were likely too low in the $15-17 range. Given the prevalence of the U/R Delver builds, Lopez believes that Volcanic Island could soon eclipse Underground Sea as the top priced dual land. He also pointed out that at $2-3 Narset is almost certainly a buy, and suggested speculators take interest in foil Sidisi, Brood Tyrant and Narset for future EDH gains.

TrollandToad

Andrew Stokinger of Troll and Toad echoed the sentiment on Volcanic Island, noting that they were pricing the U/R dual at $250, just $10 below a similar quality Underground Sea in their case. Stokinger reports that Khans of Tarkir has outsold Return to Ravnica and Theros by “at least 30-40%”, though demand was starting to flag as the market for standard decks reaches saturation. At the Troll & Toad booth Kor Firewalker has popped from $1 to $5 on strong demand, likely in anticipation of Delver and Burn appearances en masse across the event. Forked Bolt is moving briskly at $5 and Price of Progress, a card that has strong chops against much of the field, was selling out at $10.

Across the floor the card mentioned over and over is Containment Priest. Originally priced at $15-20, the card is now selling in the $40+ range, if you can even find a booth with any in stock. Strikezone staff report that both dual lands and shock lands are moving well, with the shocks being used by budget conscious players to fill holes in slightly detuned versions of popular decks. Some players are even playing standard decks in the main event, largely driven by the desire to capture the Grand Prix Promo Batterskull, Brainstorm playmat, deck box and sleeves being handed out to every participant. At Strikezone, Energy Storm and Elemental Tokens were also moving briskly.

CoolStuffInc also noted Price of Progress, Stoneforge Mystic, Monestary Swiftspear, Pyroblast and Hydroblast were moving well and noted strong demand for the 2013 and 2014 black foil planeswalkers.

MTGCardMarket

At MTGCardMarket, Containment Priest, Null Rod, Forked Bolt and foil Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time were hot sellers, and the booth was one of the only ones to have the Harmonic Slivers in stock I needed to finish my deck.

Adam Hotza of HotSauce games highlighted Smash to Smithereens was moving strongly at $6 and predicted that the floor on fetchlands would arrive in January 2015 in the $10-12 range. Other dealers disagreed, with one staff member explaining that “fetches will hold steady above $12. It’s the other rares, even good ones like Mantis Rider and Siege Rhino, that will keep falling.”

MagicStronghold

Magic Stronghold outlines that Dimir Charm has been moving well, as a flexible answer to multiple issues in the metagame, and also reiterated strong demand for cards from Lands, Deathblade/Stoneblade variants and U/R Delver.

Stay tuned later today as we keep an eye on the top tables for developing trends and check back in with the dealers Sunday morning.

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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Grand Prix New Jersey: On Site Coverage

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By James Chillcott (@MTGCritic)

This weekend marks an exciting landmark in the history of Magic: The Gathering. At last word, Grand Prix: New Jersey, being run by Star City Games in Edison, NJ, from Nov 15-17th, was now likely to feature 4000+ players!

For context that makes GPNJ the third largest Grand Prix of all time, and the largest Legacy Tournament ever run!

With so many players gearing up for the main tourney and the plethora of alternate format side tournaments, it should come as no surprise that some cards have seen price hikes this week.

Tune in all weekend as we blog live from the floor and share info as it appears. All of the largest MTG vendors are on site and we’ll be interviewing them all weekend long to see what cards are selling out. But for now, let’s take a look at some red hot cards heading into one of the largest MTG gatherings ever.

Hot Cards Heading Into GP New Jersey

  1. Forked Bolt (ROE, Uncommon): $.50 to $2.50-$3.50 (+500%)

By now you’re probably aware that both Modern and Legacy are bowing to the might of Treasure Cruise and the return of U: Draw 3. This in turn has led to the advent of U/R Delver in Legacy and the need to kill multiple dangerous 1-toughness creatures like Delver of Secrets, Young Pyromancer and Spirit of the Labyrinth in the same turn with limited mana. Forked Bolt fits those needs perfectly and the spotlight has resulted in a 250%+ increase in price over the last couple of weeks. I could see the card grabbing another $1-2 in price before Treasure Cruise gets banned in Modern, at which point it could settle back toward the $3 range. This card is easy to reprint, so if you haven’t already won the lottery on it, I’d steer clear.

Verdict: Hold/Sell

2. Monastery Swiftspear (KTK, Uncommon):  3.50 to 2.50 (-31%)

Here we have another long term red role player that’s making a splash after it’s recent debut in Khans of Tarkir. It’s playable in Standard, Modern and Legacy and likely deserves to hang out in the $2-3 range despite the massive rate of copies being opened right now. There’s not much beef left on this bone, but I love foils as a mid-long term profit machines as we’re not likely to see a red creature this good for a while and Treasure Cruise’s likely banning in Modern won’t prevent this from finding a home in other decks.

Verdict: Hold/Buy Foils

3.  Price of Progress (Exodus, Uncommon): $5 to $8-9 (+60%)

Short of a reprint, this non-basic land hoser may have some more room for growth. There aren’t that many copies in circulation and with Legacy far from dead, the demand may be there to see this hit $10-12 within the year. It’s a great card in U/R Delver and against many of the decks that will try to prey on it this weekend, so the jump isn’t that surprising.

Verdict: Hold/Buy

4. Leyline of Sanctity (M11, Rare): $20 to $25 (+25%)

In a metagame where burn is going to put many a player to sleep, and TEPS and Storm variants are still skulking in the shadows, a card that can play guardian angel in your opening seven is a very good friend to have. With very few alternatives offering the same level of protection, we can expect this one to keep creeping up unless it sees a reprint in MM2 this summer.

5. Chains of Mephistopheles (Legends, Rare): $320 to $355 (+10%)

Sure this is a pretty expensive addition to any deck, but it’s also a pretty sweet answer to decks like UR Delver and Storm that want to draw a ton of cards in a given turn. Forcing them to discard as they draw can be back breaking and I’ve heard whispers of Maverick and Hate Bears variants likely to be running these showing up this weekend. As a Reserved List card there’s plenty of upside here in the long term, and renewed interest outside of the collector community could easily see this top $500 within 18 months.

Verdict: Hold/Buy

Watch for late morning updates on floor action straight from the mouths of vendors! If you’re on location, ping me on Twitter at @mtgcritic if you’re interested in joining our BringYourOwnPacks Draft Sat night at 8:30pm at the Courtyard Marriott.

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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Casual Fridays

Price Surprises (pt. 1)

By: Cliff Daigle

I’ve been playing Magic on and off since 1994. I’d sold out and walked away, came back, repeated the process. I spent a couple of years only playing MTGO, but paper is where I’m happiest.

Every so often, I have had double-takes and spit-takes when I see what a card has gotten up to. I think that the biggest one for me was when I got rid of more than 100 Hymn to Tourach, which were buylisting for $1 at a GP. Fallen Empires cards that were worth something?!

I’ve gone through the sets and I’ll be presenting some casual cards to you, along with their surprising price of $5 or more. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but intended to help you sort out your bulk rares or assist with pricing cards better.

Keep in mind that Reserved List cards will not be reprinted and have often been looked at as ‘safe’ investments. I’ll let you decide how safe cardboard is.

Legends: Pretty much everything.

I’m not even kidding. This set is from so long ago, and so rare, and so iconic, that lots and lots of the cards are worth more than you think they are. Willow Satyr is $15. Thunder Spirit is $18. Angus Mackenzie is $73. These aren’t being played in Legacy or Vintage, or even many Cubes. This is collectors, this is Commander, this is the casual market at work for most of this set.

The Dark: City of Shadows (RL)

I can’t tell you how many times this card pops up on ‘worst card’ lists. It’s slow and clunky and sort of terrible unless you have lots of crappy creatures laying around. Tokens, in other words. Being on the Reserved List means that this won’t get more copies lowering the price, and that’s fine. Not many people actually want this…but just enough do, to get this price.

Mirage: Shallow Grave (RL)

It’s instant-speed reanimation, which is very important for getting around those pesky ‘shuffle me into your library’ triggers. It’s a 4-of in Tin Fin Legacy decks, and is on the list. $8 is almost low for this card.

Visions: Undiscovered Paradise (RL)

This gets played in Dredge decks, as it can be used for any color of mana and then discarded to Putrid Imp or the like, hastening Threshold. I’ve seen it used to good effect with Exploration or Azusa, Lost but Seeking.

Weatherlight: Lotus Vale, Winding Canyons (both RL)

Lotus Vale is kind of amazing. It’s acceleration and fixing all at once, for the low cost of putting two untapped lands into the bin. It’s terrifying to play if there’s any bouncing going on, or nonbasic lands getting destroyed. Winding Canyons needs to be in more players’ hands, but more copies wimply will not be entering circulation.

Tempest: Mirri’s Guile, Coffin Queen (RL)

I had no idea Mirri’s Guile was so expensive. It’s not on the list, though Coffin Queen is. Guile isn’t in any top decks that I can find. It’s all about cheap card selection for green decks. It’s not as good as Sylvan Library, but it’s half the price in mana and in dollars.

Coffin Queen is a Zombie! I have four of her in an old casual deck built around the Visions Chimera cards. She’s not on the list, so maybe one day I’ll have her in foil. She’s another instant-speed reanimation method, but is more fragile than Shallow Grave. She’s pretty amazing for what she can do repeatedly, especially in EDH and its legions of enter-the-battlefield abilities, and I wouldn’t mind picking up a few spares for the long haul.

Honorable mention to the uncommon that is Horned Sliver at $3.50, two and a green to give trample is just silly. We love our casual Sliver decks!

Stronghold: Grave Pact, Mogg Infestation

Grave Pact has seen six printings, three of them in foil. All of the nonfoils are $10 or so, and the foils range in price depending on the art. This is pretty crazy, and if I ever have time, I’ll look up and see if there are other cards that come near to this number of printings while maintaining a price. Mogg Infestation is a two-way card, for doubling yourself up or for turning someone else’s board from value plays to a token horde.

Exodus: Hatred (RL)

I played Standard in the days of “No blocks? Tapped out? Ritual-Ritual-Hatred.” Pretty fun, especially when this was the same block as Shadow creatures. It’s a tough card to use in Commander, and that’s the primary consideration for its casual price.

Urza’s Saga: Contamination

This makes waves occasionally as a sideboard card in Legacy. It’s very good at locking someone out once it lands and stays, but it’s not hard to tap for mana in response and have it dealt with that way. Having a creature per turn is a big drawback in Constructed play.

Urza’s Legacy: No Mercy

Twelve dollars! For a card not on the list, seeing zero tournament play, and allowing something to hit you, it’s not a good deal for me. Interesting that this wasn’t used as a way to deal with True-Name Nemesis, since it gets around the protection by not targeting.

Urza’s Destiny: Yavimaya Hollow (RL)

Regeneration is a great ability to have, even with high-powered casual sweepers like Terminus or Toxic Deluge around. This is a sweet pickup for any green Commander deck, and you know that it’ll never be reprinted. Looking at this graph, I wouldn’t be surprised if it continued a slow upwards trend in price.

That’s part 1, to be finished next week.

For those of you attending GP Jersey this weekend: Stock up on worn dual lands. Get that MP Plateau and bring it back to your FNM, and watch as casual players feast their eyes. A surprising amount of Cube/Commander/Casual players could not care less about the condition of a card, as long as it’s sleeve playable. Trade/buy accordingly.

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Legacy Hero #3

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Welcome back everyone for this weeks Legacy Hero.

Last week we went over a few things, including: the deck I’m going to build (Stoneblade Variant), touched on the legacy format pillars, how to free up some value for the trade binder by switching standard decks, and maximizing the resources at my disposal.

 This week I want to go over what Pucatrade is, what to do with Sealed Product, showing the finalized legacy build that I will be working toward, and what to do with our standard stuff we added to the binder from the Jesaki Aggro deck I was playing last week.

 I have only recently got on the Pucatrade banaaat is a great way to pick up cards. It is an even better way to turn the small stuff that is worth a little bit more than you would get on a buylist into big ticket items or the oddball cards that are cheap but hard to find like a Foil Children of Korlis (399 points). Basically, I’ve been listing the casual/EDH stuff, that is worth more than $3 and less then $10. Good example is the Foil Kaerveck the Merciless (839 points). Then there are the slightly more than worthless uncommons like Timely Reinforcements (47 points) or Essence Warden (96 points). I went through a bulk 1000 box that has been laying around my basement since the Gatecrash Prerelease, if I were to guess by the stickers on the box. I thumbed through it really quick, all the common, uncommon cards I thought that was worth more then bulk, all the foils and rares. The highlights of the box were Garruk, Primal Hunter, Teferi, Mage of Zhalfier, Cabal Coffers, and playsets of both Jorga, Treespeakers and Rite of Flame. To start my Pucutrade account I added all of these separated out items, a few emblems, and some tokens that I had.

Pucatrade also gives you a total of 600 points(one point is equal to one penny) once you do all the little things involved with setting up your account and shipping your first card, but remember that you are responsible for postage when you send something out, so I always try to trade multiple things to the same person. I have 743 points for shipping out 3 Portal Three Kingdoms Islands and requesting a Vision Charm to be sent to me. I’m saving points on here because I’m going to get a dual land out of this. I want to see how long it takes, and how much it costs in real dollars (shipping and materials) to get something that expensive. The Tropical Island from Revised is 21106 points ($211.06) and is supposed to be NM. Again, I am new to this concept, but I am excited to try it out for this project.

 Next we have the deck selection. I have been researching the Stoneblade/Deathblade archetypes, trying to find the one that stands out the most to me. Most of the sources suggest that the Delver variant is just better. I’m not sure if that is true, but I haven’t played a Delver variant or a Stoneblade variant since Treasure Cruise was printed. With all of the UR Delver running around lately, I’ve been playing either The Epic Storm, Show and Tell, or my own personal favorite,a Stifle-naught Delver variation. That is the beauty of the legacy format. There are SO many decks you can play. I keep a stack of proxies laying around to test different decks before sinking a major investment in to an idea. I can’t have plain, sharpie proxies like a normal person since I found these http://zeerbe.blogspot.com/. The Proxy Guy’s stuff is absolutely breathtaking.

 I have decided to build the UWr Stoneblade deck. This is mostly based on my personal play style, but also some research I have done, which I’m going to go over. The access to Pyroblast and Lightning Bolt outweigh Deathrite Shaman and Abrupt Decay in my mind. However, I will pick up a set of Shamans just in case the meta slows back down and lets the Deathrite Shaman build have the edge again. It does make some sense to snag a playset as a long term hold. The price has been steady and there is always the possibility of it being unbanned in Modern

.Deathrite

 

The other advantage of going with the UWr version is the cost of the mana base. Not having to get a couple Underground Seas and 4 Polluted Delta is huge. That is going to save at least $550.

Here is the base build I have settled on:

UWr Stoneblade W/Containment Priest (1st place SCG Legacy Open Columbus Rudy Briksza)

 4 Flooded Strand

3 Island

3 Scalding Tarn

3 Tundra

3 Volcanic Island

2 Plains

2 Arid Mesa

1 Karakas

1 Mountain

4 Stoneforge Mystic

2 Containment Priest

2 True-Name Nemesis

2 Vendilion Clique

1 Snapcaster Mage

4 Brainstorm

4 Swords to Plowshares

4 Force of Will

3 Lightning Bolt

2 Dig Through Time

2 Pyroblast

2 Counterspell

2 Spell Pierce

1 Treasure Cruise

1 Council’s Judgment

2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

1 Umezawa’s Jitte

1 Batterskull

 

This deck lets us play with all of the new legacy toys like Treasure Cruise, Dig Through Time, and Containment Priest. Khans is as close to the bottom in price as it’s going to be,so anything Khans is worth getting now. The set as a whole is around $250, and 35 cards in the set are worth more than a buck. This is just a little more than the set of Theros, which has a about the same amount of cards worth more than a dollar.I can also build three different decks from the base of this one, so this another huge advantage to choosing this base.  Those three decks are: UWr Miracles, UWr Stoneblade, and UWr(Patriot) Delver.

Let’s take a look at core of the decks.

 

UWr Stoneblade Miracles UWr Stoneblade

 

4 Flooded Strand (4)

4 Scalding Tarn (3)

2 Tundra (3)

2 Arid Mesa (2)

1 Volcanic Island (3)

1 Karakas (1)

 

4 Stoneforge Mystic (4)

Containment Priest (2)

True-Name Nemesis (2)

2 Vendillion Clique (2)

Snapcaster Mage (1)

4 Brainstorm (4)

4 Swords to Plowshares (4)  3

4 Force of Will (4)

2 Pyroblast (2)

2 Counterspell (2)

Spell Pierce (2)

4 Counterbalance (0)

4 Sensei’s Divining Top (0)

3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor (2)

1 Batterskull (1)

Umezawa’s Jitte (1)

 

To turn it into the Delver deck I would just have to add some number of Lightning Bolt, Ponder, and Delvers. For Miracles, I would just need to add some tops and miracles.

 

I already have the Flooded Strands from my standard deck I parted out. As for the Brainstorm, Swords to Plowshares, Pyroblast, Spell Pierce, and Counterspell, they are readily available and fairly inexpensive coming in around $25 for the lot. I will be looking to get these cards as throw ins whenever possible. Your trade partner won’t usually walk away from a trade if you push for him to toss in that beat up counterspell he has.

 

What cards, out of the high end needs like the dual lands, force of will, etc, do I need to prioritize? You can’t count on the kids that need to sell some of their legacy stuff to pay some bills to find the best deal. You have to look at all the options. The option that I like the best is to focus on whatever is the cheapest to get. The best deal, to me, is to trade for the beat up Tundra out of my trade binder instead of buying the one in the case. As it stands right now my trade binder is ill equipped to get anything except for a few Force of Wills and that would leave things a little thin. I’m more than happy to get the cheapest sleeve playable option. Once the deck is built, then I can worry about a NM FBB Tundras or Japanese foil Stoneforge Mystics.

 

Speaking of trade binders, let’s look at what I was able to add to it by switching to the Jeskai Heroic Combo deck instead of the stale Jeskai Aggro deck I was playing. (trade value followed by best buylist prices per mtgprice.com)

 

+4 Flooded Strand 15.97/10

+1 Battlefield Forge 9.31/5

-1 Shivan Reef 8.18/5

+1 Temple of Triumph 5.46/3

-1 Temple of Epiphany 10.40/6

+1 Temple of Enlightenment 5.76/3

+2 Dig Through Time  8.71/5.01

+4 Stoke the Flames 5.26/3.40

+3 Brimaz, King of Oreskos 31.13/20

+4 Goblin Rabblemaster 16.17/10.64

+4 Mantis Rider 3.52/1.92

+1 Stormbreath Dragon 17.53/10.80

+1 Chandra, Pyromaster 7.62/4

+1 Elspeth, Sun’s Champion 32.72/18

+2 End Hostilities 2.31/1

 Out of those cards I’m going to keep the Flooded Strand and the Digs for the legacy deck. Stoke the Flame and Goblin Rabblemaster should move really quickly. I’ve been able to trade out any copies of those cards I’ve had for the past month or so. Temples have been slow but steady movers for me but great to have in the binder. Planeswalkers are another great staple to have in the trade binder.

I went to play FNM this past week but we didn’t have enough people show up on time to get anything going. Saturday was better since I got to play in a standard event that was offering the new Commander 2014 decks as prizes. 1st place got the first pick of the decks, and so on for the top 4. I really like the new Heroic deck. I was able to claw my way to 2nd place and I picked the white one. I’m going to wait until after the legacy GP to see if I need to part it out right away. I have my monthly  EDH game with friends this weekend. That will be a good place to look for some legacy stuff. These are mostly casual guys so I will be able to move a lot of the abstract stuff I have. I will make sure to take pictures of any trades and hopefully have enough time to upload my Legacy Hero trade binder online.

 Thanks again guys! mtglegacyhero@gmail.com

Follow me on twitter  @somethingsays

 Shout out to  The Proxy Guy. He has this really cool Community Binder Project and is a master of his craft. I would kill for some of his stuff for my cube. @TheProxyGuy on twitter. http://zeerbe.blogspot.com/

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