Weekend Update for 9/6/14

By: Jim Marsh

Every week, some cards from Magic the Gathering increase and decease in value based upon a number of factors.

Let’s take a look at some of the cards whose values have changed the most and the factors behind why those changes have occurred.

This week we are going to shake things up a little. In the wake of Khans spoilers and impending rotation there have been a lot more cards losing value than gaining value. This week we will have 5 Big Winners and 10 Big Losers.

5 Big Winners of the Week

5. Leyline of Sanctity (M11)
From $20.48 to $22.80 (11.33%)

Leyline of Sanctity is a sideboard all star. It can protect you from burn and many types of combos. The best part is that you can begin the game with it on the battlefield without even paying mana.

It blanks Thoughtseize, Cabal Therapy, Lava Spike, Grindstone and much more.

It is used in RG Tron, Amulet of Vigor, Ad Nauseam, Bogles and UR Tron sideboards.

Legacy uses it in OmniTell and even Manaless Dredge.

This card will only continue to increase in price until it is reprinted. My best guess for that would be either Modern Masters 2 or the final core set.

4. Maralen of the Mornsong (Morningtide)
From $3.20 to $3.58 (11.88%)

Maralen turns long grindy games of commander into a shorter game of “Who can disrupt the combo?”

The pieces are not of her combo deck are not new or expensive. The entire deck can be put together for under $10 which is part of its charm. She has been losing momentum. She was recently a bulk rare but it looks like she may only make it to $4 to $5 dollars.

You can still buy her for as little as $2.00 and sell her for as much as $2.23.

3. Doubling Cube (Fifth Dawn)
From $6.33 to $7.26 (14.69%)

Doubling Cube has only been printed twice. The first time was in Fifth Dawn and them again in 10th Edition.

It is a fun inclusion in Commander decks that are looking to ramp for huge amounts of mana. It is a very nice inclusion in a Kruphix, God of Horizons deck.

Speaking of the God of Horizons you can buy him for $2.49 and sell him for $2.80. His price tag is just simply too low for a mythic rare god in a set that was so sparsely opened.

It can also work well in conjunction with sources that produce more than one mana at a time like Nykthos.

It is a unique and powerful effect. It has spent a long time bouncing between $5 and $6. It looks like it has broken its ceiling and I could see it finally getting to $10 which will be the new value.

2. Goblin Guide (Zendikar)
From $23.53 to $28.02 (19.08%)

What can be said about Goblin Guide that has not been written dozens of times before? It is one of the most powerful one drops in Modern and Legacy burn and aggro decks. Zoo wants it. Red deck wins wants it.

This price increase is the result of building demand rather than hype. It has been quietly shocking players every turn for years and has more than earned its new price.

There are still opportunities to profit from the sudden increase. You can still buy them for as little as $20.00 and sell them for as much as $22.22.

The foil copies are still only $30.41 which is absurd. These will soon be easily $50 to $60. Grand Prix copies can still be had for $35.00

I would target the premier versions and wait for the price to adjust on them as well.

1. Keranos, God of Storms (Journey into Nyx)
From $8.87 to $16.41 (85.01%)

Unlike Kruphix, Keranos has been taking metagames by storm.

He is going to be played in standard Temur (RUG) and Jeskai (UWR) decks. Free card draw and Lightning Bolts are powerful even if you never make him a creature.

He is already making his way into Modern Splinter Twin, Jeskai Control and Temur Delver decks. A lot of players are toying with them in the sideboard and some are already moving them main deck.

Legacy decks are running him in Jeskai Miracles.

This is to say nothing of commander and even some vintage play.

He is the a mythic rare from a third set that was barely opened before Conspiracy took over the drafting tables.

I had an arbitrage opportunity for you but it dried up in the time it took me to write this article. There are still a few $10 copies out there but I would hurry to get those as well. I think he will see $20 soon.

10 Big Losers of the Week

 

10. Glen Elendra Archmage (Eventide)
From $7.51 to $6.78 (-9.72%)

Glen Elendra Archmage was reprinted in Modern Masters.

It is used in modern Kiki Pod and UB Faeries as repeatable permission on an evasive threat or chump blocker that comes back asking for more.

It has even found its way into a Vintage Sultai (BUG) Survival Madness deck. It is trying to recover from the reprint but it may take a bit longer to gain any appreciable traction. This is a good long term hold but if you are looking for quick profits I would look elsewhere.

9. Thalia, Guardian of Thraben (Dark Ascension)
From $5.40 to $4.78 (-11.48%)

Speaking of good speculation opportunities here is a role player in Modern and Legacy Death and Taxes, Zoo and Hatebears.

She is a powerful aggressive creature and can keep control players a turn behind for as long as she is alive. She has recently $9 and I think she can go even higher. I would gladly trade for as many copies of her as I could find for under $5.

8. Ad Nauseam (Shards of Alara)
From $4.49 to $3.87 (-13.81%)

The other part of the Maralen combo deck and the namesake card for Modern Ad Nauseam and Legacy ANT and TES decks.

It is a draw card unlike any other. It can enable you to draw your entire deck in one fell swoop but requires very strict deck building limitations. It was a bulk rare until earlier this year when everyone collectively took notice of its place in metagame.

It needs to prove itself. The deck can be finicky and difficult to play. I love crazy combo decks that come out of nowhere and utilize cards that seem borderline unplayable but I would like to see this dip a little more before reinvesting in it. Try to see if you can get them at $3.

7. Amulet of Vigor (Worldwake)
From $4.16 to $3.56 (-14.42%)

Like Ad Nauseam the Amulet came of nowhere and created a combo deck that plays cards you have never worried about before. Hive Mind? Ravnica bouncelands?

Unlike Ad Nauseam it does see success from time to time which encourage other players to try out the deck.

A Bloom Titan deck made the semi finals in PTQ Khans of Tarkir in Roswell, Georgia on 8/23/2014.

I expect you will be seeing more Amulets untapping things soon. Six months ago it was over $10 which makes it a comfortable pick up at $3.

6. Rootbound Crag (M10)
From $2.68 to $2.28 (-14.93%)

The M10 “buddy lands” or “check lands” are undervalued. Any casual or commander deck can utilize these with shocklands which are about as low as you will ever see or fetchlands which are becoming cheaper by the hour.

They are usually perfect on any turn except the first.

Modern Temur (RUG) Tempo decks have even started using a copy main deck.

The M11 copies can be purchased for as little as $0.76 and sold for as much as $0.81.

The M13 copies can be bought for $1.00 and sold for $1.01. These margins are not meant to incentivize you to try to pinch pennies on your route to profit but to show that they are actively being bought and sold at the same price. This means they are a minimal risk and easy to liquidate. Any casual player would love to have more copies of these dual lands and any store will probably give you back your money.

They are as safe as you can get in modern real estate investments.

5. Choice of Damnations (Saviors of Kamigawa)
From $4.00 to $3.40 (-15.00%)

Choice of Damnation is only ever played in the most cruel control casual or commander decks.

There are ways to maximize the value of the card like It That Betrays or Exquisite Blood.

It can have a dramatic effect but even if you do run it you will not want many copies.

I expect that this will continue to decline in value. Wizards keeps printing more mana sinks and demons that create board presence while antagonizing your opponents. This may make for a hair raising moment or two but it is not worth building your deck around.

4. Mirrorweave (Shadowmoor)
From $2.34 to $1.95 (-16.67%)

This johnny card is another one near and dear to my heart. I think the last time I thought about it was when Biovisionary was printed.

It is a cute trick but much too situational. There will always be johnnies looking out for the next combo but I would not want to hold onto more than a couple of copies at the most.

You can still buy them for as little as $1.75 and sell them for $1.91.

3. Door of Destinies (Morningtide)
From $4.53 to $3.77 (-16.78%)

Door of Destinies has lots of casual appeal. It is colorless and adapts to the tribe of your choice. Unfortunately all of the M14 copies are getting ready to rotate and so players that have been holding onto copies waiting for slivers or minotaur tribe to become a thing are going to be unloading them.

This has led to a slight price disparity. You can buy them for $1.25 and sell them for $1.82.

It will never be a bulk rare bue to casual appeal but I think it will go down to $2 after rotation.

2. Sword of Feast and Famine (Mirrodin Beseiged)
From $22.87 to $17.99 (-21.34%)

Sword of Feast and Famine has been reprinted in the Modern Event Deck and so new copies have been entering the market place.

This supply shock has depressed the price. I think that this creates an excellent opportunity to purchase some cheap copies. It is used in Modern UB Faeries and can easily find its way into any deck that wants to disrupt hands and keep mana open on their opponents turn.

Legacy uses it for Jeskai Delver, Esper Stoneblade and even Bant Delver.

It is a popular inclusion in cubes and commander decks.

You can even buy them for $12.00 and sell them for $12.40 but I would hold onto them. It is only a matter of time before it gets back to $25 to $30.

1. Onslaught Fetchlands
From an average of $59.22 to $45.40 (-23.00%)

You knew that this was coming. I have updated this section more than any other throughout the week.

Let us take a moment and see how the individual fetches have been affected so far.

Bloodstained Mire (Onslaught)
From $40.59 to $33.71 (-16.95%)

It is currently used in Legacy ANT, Imperial Painter and Burn decks.

Polluted Delta (Onslaught)
From $88.64 to $70.31 (-20.68%)

It is used in Shardless Sultai, Sultai Delver, Temur Delver, 4 Color Delver and Esper Stoneblade.

Windswept Heath (Onslaught)
From $42.99 to $33.74 (-21.51%)

It is used in Legacy Elves, Maverick, Zoo and Nic Fit.

Wooded Foothills (Onslaught)
From $46.99 to $33.99 (-27.67%)

It is used in Legacy Elves, Temur Delver, Imperial Painter, Nic Fit and Zoo.

Flooded Strand (Onslaught)
From $76.91 to $55.24 (-28.18%)

It is in Legacy Jeskai Miracles, Temur Delver, OmniTell and Esper Stoneblade.

The reprinting of the ally instead of the enemy fetchlands opens up several interesting questions. You can and should read Travis’ article about it in depth here but I will add a few thoughts.

The ally fetchlands only appeal to one wedge each. The enemy fetchlands would have each had two fetchlands that they could use to fix their mana. This could Wizards’ attempt to make sure that the right wedge gets its own mana fixing but who is not first picking a fetchland 90% of the time regardless of what they are playing?

The Zendikar fetchlands stand to lose quite a bit from their modern monopoly.

Each fetchland can find seven of the ten shocklands. There is no reason to fixate on any one fetchland even if you are running a two color deck. The number of lands that can find your Steam Vents has now gone from three to seven and you will be able to purchase a play set for what a single Scalding Tarn costs. There is no way that the current price can hold.

If you are holding onto any fetchlands from either cycle that you are not actively playing with I would dump them as soon as you can.You will be able to purchase them back and them some in a few months. Take a look at what the prices of shocklands or Thoughtseize have done to get a glimpse.

There were several arbitrage opportunities for the Onslaught copies but those dried up before I could get this out to you. That is how quick and dramatic this has been.

I should also caution that this goes for the normal copies only. Old border foils tend to hold their value better especially when the new artwork is not as nice as the original. I do not know anyone who thought that what Flooded Strand really needed was a dragon carcass taking most of the focus.

Standard should be pretty dynamic over the next few months. Anyone who wants to play a wedge will have access to an ally fetchland, two enemy painlands, fetchland, three scrylands and Mana Confluence. You will be able to make your mana do pretty much whatever you want with various tradeoffs between each one.

It will be exciting.

Value of a Symbol

By: Cliff Daigle

I have one all-foil Commander deck. It’s tribal Vampires, with Garza Zol, Plague Queen at its head. I didn’t plan to foil it out at first, it just sort of happened that almost all the creatures were foil and I kept finding good prices and trades for the lands and accessories. Eventually, I was 80% foil and took the plunge, swapping out things that could never be foil (Oh, how I miss having Shauku, Endbringer!) and trading for foil filterlands, scrylands, etc.

One thing I didn’t have until recently was a foil Reflecting Pool, because there was only one foil version from Shadowmoor. It has been super-pricey due to a printing error: all of the foils have a Plains watermark, increasing the collectibility. When Conspiracy came out, I knew this would be my chance to get a foil Pool at a reasonable price. 

Imagine my surprise, though, when I see that there’s a significant gap between the two foils, with the same text, art, and frame! There are indeed some people who feel strongly that they have to have the original (in this case, the first available foil, as the Tempest version has no foil) and are willing to pay a high price to have that. Wrong watermark or not, that’s a big jump in price due to collectors.

In honor of them, I’d like to share with you a few examples of how much value being ‘original pack foil’ can add. My goal here is just the cards that have an expansion symbol of difference, and I encourage you to add your own to this list in the comments. I’ve looked for them, but I am not perfect.

Akroma, Angel of Wrath – $20 for Timeshifted foil, $30 for Legions foil

Just $10 to get rid of the purple expansion symbol seems worth it. The Timeshifted sheet causes all sorts of collector headaches!

Eternal Witness – $25 for Fifth Dawn foil, $11 for Modern Masters foil

One of the most busted cards in Commander, the foil prices are surprising. There’s an FNM version with similar art by Terese Nielsen, but the easily-recurred way to reuse anything has massive casual appeal.

Elspeth, Knight-Errant: $89 for Shards of Alara foil, $65 for Modern Masters foil

Shards block foils have additional price pressure on them, thanks to the all-foil packs Wizards printed at the end of the block. This higher number of foils is mainly pushing prices on commons and uncommons down, and not that many people were willing to drop $15 on a single booster.

I once did a draft with these though, and it was a lot of fun to have all foils!

Blood Moon – $64 for 9th edition foil, $55 for 8th edition, $45 for Modern Masters

How I wish we had some hard sales numbers on the different sets. It’s entirely possible that there are a lot more MM foils out there, because 8th and 9th were close to the dark days of Magic. This was a surprise find, though, I thought these would be more expensive, considering how good they are in Eternal formats, and how often Legacy and Vintage like to foil out their decks.

Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker – $27 for Conflux foil, $16 for M14 foil

Another card that had extras due to the foil Shards packs, there’s also a Duel Deck foil with very different art to be had for the same price as a nonfoil.

Progenitus – $39 for Conflux foil, $28 for Modern Masters foil

The FTV foil is frankly unappealing next to the original, which had great tricks with clouds to make it clear just how huge The Soul Of The World is. If you have the extra $11 for the original, go for it.

Glen Elendra Archmage – $65 for Eventide foil, $27 for Modern Masters foil

A gap of a few dollars doesn’t surprise me too much, but this being more than double is really surprising. Looking at the price history for the Eventide foil, the price went up when Modern Masters was around. To be fair, that summer, lots of things went up as the hype to join the format was at its peak. Things have stabilized since.

Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth – $53 for Planar Chaos, $19 for M15 or FTV

The FTV is the same art but it is also the same vertically shiny foiling process that turns some people off. If you wanted to skip that, I’d respect your choice. This was the only foil available for some time, which may be why the price is still so much more.

Woodfall Primus – $34 for Shadowmoor foil, $18 for Modern Masters foil

For a long while, this was a strong option for Reanimator decks, blasting lands and setting the other person back significantly. And perhaps to do it twice! Ashen Rider is just an upgrade on that process, though.

Jace Beleren – $29 for Lorwyn foil, $17 for M10, $19 for M11

Weirdly, this effect is in place for Garruk and Liliana as well, but not Ajani or Chandra. Ajani Goldmane has a Pro Tour foil that might be affecting the foil prices. Garruk and Liliana have Duel Deck promos, as well as Duels of the Planeswalker cards, but these are still showing big steps in price from set to set.

If you’re hardcore about getting the first foil, be my guest, but keep in mind that in a lot of cases, you’re paying a premium for it. That premium is on top of the premium you’re giving to have foils in the first place. I understand completely, though.

Join me next week as we explore some of the spoiled cards and see what you’ll be seeing at kitchen tables for a long time!

The One Where Wizards Makes Me Look Stupid

By: Travis Allen

It’s Christmas time for us Wizards. The fall set always brings with it a crackling excitement of new spoilers each day to be dissected at FNM and on Twitter, with thousands of players trying to break the card in each available format. Many stay up until midnight eastern to see the new spoilers that hit from non-WotC sites, and those of us at work at 11am each morning are F5ing DailyMTG for the official spoilers. It’s hard not to be swept up in the collective thrill of the community.

I suppose a more appropriate metaphor would be Hanukkah, right? We don’t have a single night of hundreds of spoilers, but rather, a little bit doled out each night. We even have a Candelabra. That sounds more accurate than Christmas, really.

This weekend was Pax, and they lit a big ol’ present candle at the Magic party they have there every year. (Annual reminder: Don’t go to Pax.) A bunch of cards were spoiled, including a ridiculous Jeskai Khan, a legitimate-looking Sarkhan Planeswalker, and, the subject of today’s article, the Onslaught fetches.

Let me begin by saying I’m sorry. I’ve been spending months talking about how I didn’t think the fetches would be in Khans. If you got burned on this reprint because of my advice, I really do apologize. If it makes you feel any better I’ve got a bunch of Zendikar fetches in my possession, so I’m getting gotten by this just the same.

The decision still seems odd to me, honestly. There’s no mechanic to really support their presence. Sure they work with delve, but what doesn’t work with delve. As long as you’re playing Magic, you’re fueling delve. Morph doesn’t care about fetching. Prowess and raid and outlast don’t. They even chose what feels like the wrong fetches. This block is all about wedges – RUG, UWR, etc. With the allied fetches, for RUG we only get RG. If we got the enemy fetches we would get both UR and UG. Basically what I’m saying is that they really seem shoehorned in. I’m guessing they weren’t originally planned for the block, but Wizards made the decision sometime possibly late in design or in development that they needed to put fetches in. It was brought to my attention that apparently the fetches were the first cards in the set. This doesn’t change the fact that they feel out of place. I’m guessing they make more sense once we get to the end of Louie.

Regardless, this is the world we live in. The Onslaught allied fetches are on their way and we need to decide what this means for our existing Onslaught copies, as well as what’s going to happen with the Zendikar fetches.

Lucky for us there is some precedent for expensive old cards being reprinted in Standard. We don’t have to turn our gaze past Standard to see both Thoughtseize and the Shocklands. Let’s check out the Lorwyn printing of Thoughtseize. The red strips indicate Modern PTQ seasons.

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According to Wikipedia Modern was announced back in the spring of 2011, so our graph starts off with people knowing about Modern as a format. Thoughtseize was in the $30-$40 range at the time. At the start of the PTQ season it skyrocketed towards $60, and lived at $60-$70 until Theros released. It slowly dropped back to it’s pre-PTQ price of $30-$35, which is where it is today. The reprint clearly had an affect on the price of the card, although you’ll notice that the price today is not really much lower than the price of it before it saw a massive spike thanks to a PTQ season.

Hallowed Fountain didn’t fare quite so well.

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It was floating around $30 at the start of 2012, which is right about when we would have gotten the announcement that the fall set that year would be Return to Ravnica. Shocks would have been clearly evident at that point. You see a slow decline starting around the fall of ‘12, and they’ve since leveled off to around $15 or so.

The behavior of the rest of the shocks is mostly similar, although Hallowed Fountain and Watery Grave seem to have gotten the worst of it. The original printings of Temple Garden and Stomping Ground have lost only maybe $5, and Sacred Foundry doesn’t appear to have moved at all. It seems that the inflated blue shocks (Fountain, Grave, Breeding Pool, Steam Vents) lost the most, but the non-blue shocks didn’t see more than maybe a 40% loss.

Let’s analyze our data a bit at this point. When Thoughtseize was reprinted it was cut in half from its current value, but that doesn’t tell the whole story. With a longer timeline in view, it would be incomplete to say that it was simply a case of the card losing half it’s value. A more accurate description would be that the reprint reversed the doubling of the price the card had seen about a year earlier. I think it would be safe to say that while Thoughtseize being reprinted certainly didn’t help the price, at the end of the day it didn’t really have that much of an impact on the original copy.

Here’s another way to consider the price change. The original copy of Thoughtseize has a variety of types of demand. There’s the demand from people that want the first printing, demand from people that think the old art looked better, demand from PTQ grinders, etc. There’s a quantitative amount of demand and it can be segmented into types. When the reprint occurred all the excess PTQ grinder demand was chopped off. The card lost all that extra ‘fat’ demand it had acquired from people that just needed to cast it competitively. It still retained all of it’s other demand. The doubling from $30 to $60 was all competitive demand. The rest of the price was legitimate, sustainable desire for the Lorwyn copy.

Hallowed Fountain behaved a bit differently. The price on Dissension copies today is about twice the RTR copy, so clearly there’s still some amount of demand for the first printing. That doesn’t mean it didn’t take a beating when the reprint hit. While it was $30+ ahead of RTR, it’s now only about $15. This would be pretty damning for the Onslaught fetches as a whole if we didn’t consider the other shocks as well. The non-blue shocks lost between zero and forty percent or so, which is not too severe a loss when you consider how many extra copies hit the market in RTR.

Thoughtseize and the Shocklands indicate that Onslaught copies will take a loss, but we aren’t quite sure how much. Let’s take a look at the price graph of the most expensive of the five, Polluted Delta.

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That is some pretty wild growth. We see the price more than double from the spring of ‘12 to early this summer, and it’s still holding a solid $80 even after losing a chunk in the last two months. A growth in price like this immediately makes me think of the Thoughtseize jump at the start of the PTQ season. If you drag this graph out another year into the future, what do you think it looks like? Where do you envision it landing? Which price plateau is the “real” one?

One thing that split Thoughtseize from the shocks is playability. Of course both were extremely playable in Standard and Modern, but Thoughtseize went beyond that into Legacy and even Vintage. There is additional playability demand for Thoughtseize that didn’t exist for the shocks. That extra layer of competitive demand provided insulation for Thoughtseize’s price that the shocks didn’t get.

These new fetches will absolutely behave similarly to Thoughtseize, except even more so. Ally fetches will be required for Standard, Modern, Legacy, Vintage, EDH, and Cube. Really, who doesn’t want them? Greater demand across the board will help the old copies stand up to a brand new batch much better than if they were only a two-format card.

Here’s another factor that was in play to an extent when Thoughtseize was reprinted, but not as drastic as it will be now. Have you seen the new fetches? Like, seen what the cards look like?

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Those…do not look that hot. The Flooded Strand is sort of cute, and the Bloodstained Mire is by talented artist Daarken, but overall I would say these are not visually impressive lands. I’m not alone either. Upon reveal Twitter blew up about their inclusion in Khans, but the first things I was reading beyond “omg fetches!” was “hey these are kind of dumb looking.” Compared to the the original lands there is a stunning difference in appearance.

windsweptheath1

The aesthetic of the old cards is remarkably different from the new copies in a way that neither the shocks nor Thoughtseize experienced. With a distinction in appearance this strong, there will be a real incentive for aesthetic-oriented players to seek out original copies. A real layer of demand is going to exist from this characteristic alone. I’m partial to old borders so I’ll of course be using the original ones where I can, but even players that are unbiased may find themselves drawn to the original copies. This type of demand is something that cannot be sated by additional printings. For players such as myself, it doesn’t matter how many times Windswept Heath is printed – I only want to play with the original. We’ve seen it on Thoughtseize with the fairy art, and we’re going to see it even more here.

It’s difficult to put a number on this since Wizards doesn’t officially release any of this data, but another quick item to keep in mind is that the original Onslaught fetches were printed less than both the original shocks and the original Thoughtseize, meaning there won’t actually be that many original border copies.

Taking everything we know into consideration, what happens with all of our original Onslaught fetches? It seems clear that they’ll be dropping in price, but the question is by how much. I’d hazard a guess that we’ll see Polluted Delta and Flooded Strand land north of $40, but I’m not exactly sure where. I would expect anywhere between $30-$60 to be plausible, and $40-$50 to be a reasonable expectation. The other ones will move, but not by as much. I’d guess that Windswept Heath, Bloodstained Mire, and Wooded Foothills, all about $40 right now, don’t drop below $25 or possibly even $30. These are all educated guesses though, and I’m not promising anything. There may be factors I’m missing or unforeseen changes that will alter these trajectories in ways I can’t predict at the moment.

Foil Onslaught copies are only going to rise, not fall. Damnit.

What do we do with this? I’m personally holding onto my original copies. Playing with the old border is worth it to me. If you don’t care, I’d look to move them ASAP. Keep the prices in mind that I outlined above, and as long as your trade/sale looks good with that information, go for it. Don’t be afraid to offer a discount on the $80 retail price of Polluted Delta today if it’s going to be $50 in three weeks.

If that’s what’s in store for the original copies, how about all the new ones? Well that’s a lot easier to answer. You won’t see in-print rares from a fall set, especially a cycle of five, get too expensive. I’d guess our maximum is about $15 each. If that sounds too low, just do a little math. You average over three of each rare land in a single box. At $20 a piece, three lands would make up well more than half of the value of the box. There’s no way the box prices will support those numbers on rares. I’d say we’ll see prices hover between $7 and $15, with each taking turns at the higher end of that as they see their time to shine in Standard. Bloodstained Mire should consistently be the cheapest one, and Polluted Delta/Flooded Strand will pretty consistently be near the most expensive. The Zendikar fetches averaged maybe $10 each while they were in Standard, so that sounds like a comfortable place for these to live.

The best time to get the fetches will be a month or two after release, just like with most rares. There will be an extended period of increased demand as Modern and Legacy players seek to fill out their sets but by the time we hit Christmas that should quiet. They’ll probably be cheapest sometime next year, but nobody wants to wait that long. Feel free to start grabbing your non-foil copies around October if you’re impatient, and December if you can wait. If you’re looking to score foil copies, the best time to buy is also easy. It’s now. Take a look at the price graph for foil Breeding Pool.

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Trends for the other shocks are comparable. The foil copies tend to be lowest immediately after release and see very slow to no movement for a few months before they finally start to creep up. I’d say that grabbing foil copies ahead of Christmas would be your best bet. They’ll probably be rather expensive, but that’s the nature of a cycle like this. People will want foil copies for their Cubes, EDH, and Legacy decks.

Now that we’ve covered the Onslaught fetches pretty thoroughly, let’s turn our attention to the other five: the Zendikar fetches. What does this reprint mean for them?

Well it’s not great, that’s for sure. Currently the Zendikar fetches are as expensive as they are because not only do they have that playable demand from nearly every format, they’re also the only fetches legal in Modern, the largest format that fetches are played in. Way more players are taking one in Modern than Legacy these days and there’s currently only five ways to do it. Adding the ally fetches is going to double the number of choices for Modern players.

This is going to be what does the most damage to the Zendikar copies. Why would Johnny Random Shell out $60 apiece for Scalding Tarns when he can get Polluted Deltas and Bloodstained Mires for $10 each? Sure the Tarns are better for his deck, but are they six times as expensive better? That’s a question everyone has to answer for themselves, but I bet for a large majority of players the answer is “hell no.”

There will still be plenty of places you want the enemy fetches over the ally fetches. Any three-color deck is going to be in the market for at least a set of enemy fetches still, and possibly two sets if it’s a wedge rather than a shard. Still, no longer being the only game in town is just going to be too hard for them to weather in the near future. Consider the enemy fetches in the same way that I presented Thoughtseize earlier. There’s an existing layer of demand ‘fat’ from being the only legal fetches. While there’s still other types of demand that will help keep the price up, that entire chunk of demand is about to be excised.

One thing going for the Zen fetches is that their supply will still be limited. While the ally fetches are going to flood the market, there aren’t any more Misty Rainforests now than there were six months ago. Less people will need them, but those that do need them will still be in the market for them. While many will make do with the inexpensive ally fetches from Khans, plenty of players will continue to insist on having exactly the right ones for the deck. We may see a small surge in the number of players looking for enemy fetches as well. Up until now, people have put off Modern because the mana was too expensive and they didn’t want to deal with it. With shocks readily available and a fetch reprint only a few weeks away, the format suddenly looks wildly more accessible. Once these players start jumping into Modern they will inevitably start looking to fill out their fetch collection with the enemy copies, even if it is only just one or two for a specific deck.

The long and short of it is that even though it isn’t all doom and gloom for the Zendikar fetches, it’s still a bad time for them. If you have extra copies (like I do), I wouldn’t hesitate to move them if the prices stay somewhat stable over the next few weeks. If you can get reasonable offers for them now, take it. However if there’s a huge market crash and they lose 60% of their value, don’t sell. It’s not uncommon for the market to overreact to this type of news, and the devalued cards often quickly rebound as players start snatching up now under-valued copies. In the case of a crash, hang on and wait it out until after prices rebound a bit. Watch buylists to see how vendors are reacting; that will give you an idea of how the market is handling the news. Today, September second, Misty Rainforest is still getting $40 and Scalding Tarn $45. Those aren’t any lower than they were a week ago.

With this news, when is the next time we’ll actually see Zendikar fetches? I hear some people talking about seeing them later in the block, but that sounds rather silly to me. With their printing, the mana will be even across enemy and ally pairs. There’s all ten Scrylands, five enemy Painlands, and now five ally Fetchlands. Adding more fetches would push the balance back towards enemy pairs.

Assuming there’s a Modern Masters 2, which we are operating assuming that there is, they’re a good choice for that release now. I’ve claimed before that I didn’t think we’d see Zen fetches in MM2, but that was before the ally fetches were in Khans. With the Khans reprint, it takes a lot of pressure off Zen fetches, which means Wizards isn’t in a situation where they need to flood the market with more copies. A more limited release via MM2 would be perfectly acceptable. If we don’t see them there, then I’d say any fall set after Khans is conceivable. It’s hard to say for sure until we get closer. For right now assume an MM2 release is possible/probable, and if they’re not there, then who knows.

One more topic I’m seeing discussed a lot – what does the printing of the ally fetches do to Modern? Their appearance will likely see a surge in the overall index of the format. When format staples drop in price due to an event like this, currently under-priced cards tend to jump. Cards like Leonin Arbiter had trouble climbing in the past because the barrier to entry on mana was so high. Nobody wants to shell out for Arbiters if they spent a fortune getting the mana together. Once the mana is accessible more people start buying Arbiters, and the price begins to rise. As a result of the mana getting cheaper, the rest of the deck corrects in response.

We’re also going to see a flood of new players enter Modern now that they’ve got both cheap shocks and fetches, which is going to put a greater demand on the already constrained copies of many format staples such as Clique, Spellskite, Goyf, Celestial Colonnade, Snapcaster, etc etc. This is probably the biggest impact the fetches will have on Modern (and Legacy, to a lesser extent). Players that have been priced out of the format up until now are suddenly going to be capable of diving in. Add in that Modern will be playable at PreTQs year round and you’ve got a recipe for price jumps across the board.

Beyond that I don’t see the addition of the fetches doing much specifically. The mana in Modern is already so good I can’t imagine these suddenly opening the floodgates for decks previously unplayable. It’s not like there’s some list out there that’s just waiting to become a tier one contender that has only been held back by the lack of Wooded Foothills in the format. Some matchups will change by a few percentage points in certain situations, and Blood Moons may become marginally less effective in a few places as fetching basics gets easier, but overall I don’t see sweeping changes to the format. What’s more likely is that many tier two decks (and worse) become over-represented as people assemble affordable mana bases without actually having the rest of the deck. Sure you can build any mana you want with your RTR shocks and your KTK fetches, but you’re still going to have to cast something with them. Players that don’t feel like shelling out for Liliana of the Veil may find themselves playing all sorts of more off-the-wall brews that could put additional demand on cards currently in the fringe. Those are probably the types of cards that in terms of percentage of growth do the best as a result of all of this.

There you have it. In short, the original Onslaught fetches will drop but they won’t crater. Foils will go up. New copies won’t be more than $10-!15. Zendikar fetches will drop. Don’t expect any new Modern decks, but the general Modern index will rise.

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From the Vault: Annihilated

By: Jared Yost

Research is Important

From the Vault: Annihilation has been released to the MTG masses at large and it certainly has moved the market in one way or another. Even in ways that defy common sense.

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I crossed off the name of the vendors here so that they don’t get a lot of flack for posting Ravages of War at absurdly high prices because I believe they have a right to post the card at whatever price they feel the market will pay. We, however, do not have be idiots and actually pay this price for a card that still has a very high chance of being reprinted. Wizards has been all about the Portal Three Kingdoms (P3K) reprints ever since including some of the legendary creatures from the set in FTV: Legends. They proved that they were willing to go all out and not just include them in a FTV product when they reprinted several of them in the Commander 2013 decks. I would avoid this card entirely for the time being until the hype for not being included dies down.

Obviously Ravages of War was due for a spike because it was not included in the FTV: Annihilation. We can all agree on this point. Yet what is the true cost? Being able to have another Armageddon in all but name is great for both a player’s cubes and their Commander deck. Stores and players noticed that many copies had already been grabbed off the market and decided to make a last run to collect the remaining few and then try to sell them at a premium. Due to the low print run they could accomplish this if we are not careful. Since so few are for sale only seeing one or two prices could be very deceiving as to the true worth of the card. Cliff just wrote an article on Friday that touches on this very point and the current Ravages of War spike highlights his point perfectly. Just head over to eBay and the real story starts to reveal itself.

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Just last Thursday two non-English versions sold for less than $200. In the previous months, English versions had trouble breaking $350 per copy. Listing an English version at a price higher than $3000 is highway robbery. Do not fall into this trap, please do your research before picking up a card for your cube or Commander deck if the price seems absurd to you.

Missed Opportunities

From my perspective, not including Ravages of War in this recent FTV was a huge oversight from Wizards. Not only did they miss Ravages of War, which would have been my number two guess at the most likely to be reprinted in the set, but they also failed to reprint Damnation (my number one guess before release for inclusion) and All is Dust (my number three guess). These three cards in my opinion best represent a theme of annihilation, destruction, and devastation.

In retrospect though, I can respect Wizards’ decision. Armageddon is an iconic card that carries with it unmeasurable quantities of Magic nostalgia. Not including it would probably have been weirder than having Ravages of War (which is frankly a card that not many players have ever seen). Not every decision Wizards makes can be financially focused. This sometimes gets sacrificed for flavor and historical relevance.

Also consider that Damnation is probably going to be reprinted soon as well. With Commander 2014 on the way and the new Standard rotation coming in the future it is only a matter of time for this card as well. In addition, All is Dust already had a reprint through being a GP Promo so I think it was fair to skip out on it for the FTV.

Even though I was disappointed that not even one of my top three choices made it into the product I can’t fault Wizards too much for excluding them. This was an ambitious set to put together, and no matter what choices were made a ton of players were going to be unhappy.

Current Status

The past is the past and we can’t change that since the set is out in the world. We need to work with what we have to see if there is any opportunity. Here is what we are looking at for FTV vs non-FTV prices for the cards so far:

Card FTV Price Non-FTV Price
Rolling Earthquake $13.97 $182.49
Burning of Xinye $7.74 $149.98
Cataclysm $6.45 $10.62
Armageddon $5.90 $3.88
Smokestack $5.47 $7.99
Wrath of God $6.95 $7.44
Living Death $4.95 $2.71
Terminus $3.85 $3.40
Child of Alara $3.45 $5.34
Martial Coup $3.10 $4.39
Fracturing Gust $3.35 $5.85
Upheaval $2.35 $2.48
Virtue’s Ruin $1.85 $6.26
Firespout $1.85 $1.19
Decree of Annihilation $1.35 $1.23

 

No surprise here that the P3K reprints are the most valuable. The most surprising part of this FTV is the lack of value compared to past FTV releases.

$14 is not much value if you’re talking about the headlining card of the release. Nicol Bolas, Berserk / Sensei’s Divining Top, Ulamog, Grove of the Burnwillows, Mox Diamond / Aether Vial, Jace – see a pattern here? All these cards are worth at least $25 retail now which means they were probably worth substantially more upon their respective FTV release. Rolling Earthquake is barely even half the value of the lowest priced of these cards.

Don’t get me wrong, giving the Magic community a version of the card that isn’t $180 is great for the game. It will get more people interested in picking up copies and could spur further interest in P3K along with any reprints they want to include in the next Commander decks. The only issue is that you are stuck with buying the FTV copies because the P3K versions haven’t moved much yet and it does not look like they’ll budge due to sheer rarity.

It is funny to see here that the FTV: Annihilation reprints hardly even brought down the price of the original P3K Rolling Earthquake and Burning of Xinye. Their original English printings barely even dropped 10% upon the reprint. This could be attributed to the market catching up with the increase in supply. If not, then it would surprise me greatly to realize that just the rarity of the set alone could be the factor here. I could be severely underestimating just how rare the original print run is to find since I was expecting a much higher drop in value of the original printing. Clearly the FTV price reflects accurate market demand, since the new version of Rolling Earthquake is only $14 which is about average for cube / Commander viable cards.

A $14 headliner doesn’t bode well for the future of the FTV: Annihilation product. Especially since many vendors are only selling the set as a whole for $45-$50 total. Many of the cards weren’t even on people’s radars. Upheaval, Firespout, Virtue’s Ruin? Did anyone even think to want these in here? They could have at least given Child of Alara art that doesn’t make it seem like a giant crying baby. The only cards that I would watch out for are Smokestack and Cataclysm in addition to the P3K red spells due to new art and first time foiling. These definitely have the potential to go up in the future from eternal demand. Other than these cards I’m not really expecting the rest of the set to do too much for a while.

Based on the prices I’m seeing this looks to be the most unpopular FTV release yet, which is unfortunate since there was so much potential that could have been here. I touched upon this a little bit in the previous section so I’m not going to continue to harp on about the point. Yet based on the current prices the demand isn’t there like for other FTV’s. At least not yet. Maybe this will be a good buy for $40 looking back a few years down the road. Only time will tell. At this point, I would suggest staying away from the box set as a whole and instead pick up any singles you want. The singles are all very cheap in the set compared to past FTV releases and they have a good chance of going down even further once more of these sets are cracked.

All in all, buying a FTV: Annihilation box set is risky because it will be hard to get much value out of it in the near future. However if you want everything in here, buying the box set is great because there has never been a cheaper FTV this close to MSRP.

MAGIC: THE GATHERING FINANCE ARTICLES AND COMMUNITY