City of Traders

Modern Minneapolis Monster Madness

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By: Travis Allen

Now is a time of rejoice. Magic players have an especially good reason to celebrate and drink deep the joys of the season. In just a few short days, we get to say goodbye to Theros sealed PTQs permanently. On the first of June we wave goodbye to that godawful format and are rewarded with quite possibly the best constructed format in Magic: Modern.

We’ve got two things on the agenda for today. First, we’re going to chat about GP Minneapolis, a recent Modern event. Second, we’re going to consider our overall strategy heading into PTQ season.

GP Minneapolis came and went without a lot of fanfare. I didn’t see too much discussion on Twitter as we saw the Top 8 emerge, nor did i see much in the way of a post-mortem. There simply wasn’t anything too exciting for the community to take note of. But while the Top 16 was fairly predictable, there’s still some things we should paying attention to in the coming season.

The first thing that jumped out at me is the quantity of UWR decks that showed up in the Top 8. Three UWR lists and a PT win not long ago tells me that Bolt – Snap – Bolt is still pretty insane. Snapcaster Mage is clearly a major pillar of the format, and should be respected as such. He’s not at Dark Confidant levels yet, but he will be in due time. He’s certainly seeing more play than Confidant is at this point.

Restoration Angel has also firmly cemented her place in Modern by now. I’m kind of surprised she isn’t well over $10 already. Aside from being an angel, and therefore getting a big ol’ checkmark under the casual demand column, she’s quite obviously competitive. Her interaction with cheap value creatures like Snapcaster and Kitchen Finks is well known, she enables an EOT combo kill, and she only stands to get better as more enter-the-battlefield guys get printed. As we march forward into the season, be on the lookout for any in the binders of those emptying their Modern stock. I’ll be happy to trade for any copies people want to ship me.

Cryptic Command continues to be the best 1UUU spell in the format. While I won’t be picking up normal copies, I especially like the MPR printing since we’re unlikely to see those return in a very long time, if ever. Even if you aren’t personally wild about fishhand art, plenty of others will be. Demand exists for several MPR promos that look like butt.

Celestial Colonnade has made it to $20 and I see no reason why it shouldn’t keep going. It was a Buy-A-Box promo which means there’s an increased quantity available, but that was all the way back in Worldwake. Anything UW in Modern is running the full set. It definitely has the pedigree necessary to be the most expensive land in the format that doesn’t fetch. The tricky part is trying to figure out what it can/should reasonably cost. There isn’t really anything with a similar demand profile in Modern as best as I can tell. Grove of the Burnwillows is probably the closest, of which both printings are currently over $40. Of course Grove has Legacy demand which Colonnade doesn’t, but Colonnade has also been used much more in Modern than Grove since The Fall of Tron. (I’m capitalizing that because it sounds like a cool story). At the end of the day I’d say Colonnade should be at least as much as Grove, if not more. I also don’t see Colonnade showing up in an expert set this year or even next year. If you see a single dual-colored manland spoiler though, ship your copies on eBay that day.

Jund snuck two copies into the Top 16 with a playset of of Courser of Kruphix between them. I expect Courser is going to be around for awhile. Other than that, there wasn’t too much spice in the lists. I’m still seeing Pyromaster as a one-of but I don’t know how long that will last, and her value is only going to be dropping between now and September anyways.

The winning list was Scapeshift, but didn’t show us anything we didn’t already know. The namesake card made an immediate jump, but we’re way past capitalizing on that. Beyond Shift itself, it’s commons, Snapcaster, and Cryptic Command.

The other big showing was Pod, and boy did it ever. Seven of the Top 16 was Birthing Pod, so be dang sure you can beat it when you show up to a PTQ this summer. How that card is still only $12 is kind of a mystery to me. We saw it jump pretty drastically before Richmond, as well as many other Modern staples, but it has since settled quite a bit. Why is what is clearly the best card in both versions of the deck, decks which don’t seem any more expensive than many other tier one lists, under fifteen dollars? I literally do not have a good answer. Is it really just that New Phyrexia had enough supply in the market? That doesn’t seem likely. Is it a fear that the card will be banned? I do think that Pod is on the edge, but many competent strategists don’t seem to think we’ll be at that point before the next B&R change.

Gavony Township is nearly $4 at this point. It’s great in any deck that generates both green and white mana and has dudes, which surprisingly most decks that make those colors of mana do. It’s up from under a dollar a year or so ago, and probably stands to keep climbing into the $6-$10 range. If Pod does in fact get the axe, it’s not hard to imagine another GW list appearing at some point that wants it. It’s also pretty heavily tied into Innistrad flavor, so don’t expect to see more copies anytime soon.

While we’re chatting lands, Razorverge Thicket is both cheaper and more played than Blackcleave Cliffs at this point, with a better outlook to boot.

Linvala terrifies me as a hold. I have a single copy in my “never trade” binder and I’m half considering pulling it out and getting rid of it. This is absolutely getting reprinted at some point and it’s going to hurt when it does. If it crests $50 I may break and ship it. Avoid at all costs unless you 100% need it for your deck. There’s no real reason for it not to keep trending up as it has been, basically making her an expensive game of chicken.

Affinity only put a single copy in the Top 16, but that doesn’t mean the deck has fallen in popularity, just that enough people had a dedicated sideboard for it that weekend. There’s nothing really new here to work with. Arcbound Ravager is probably still a little lower than it should be, but not by much. The deck can’t get much better without running face first into a ban. (By the way, did you know how expensive Steel Overseer is? Hah.)

The bigger question to consider is just what to do with all of our Modern holdings. Earlier this year and late last year I was advocating near-complete liquidation in the coming weeks, but I’ve eased up on that a bit. I keep coming back to the notion that the game has grown beyond what any of us really fathomed a year ago, resulting in a surprising amount of demand for a relatively small supply. With so many Modern cards only getting less available by the day, is it really the best course of action to sell them all when they could gain anywhere from 20% to 300% by next year?

I’ve been pondering this quite a bit lately. I’m not sure how much others will share my opinions. I believe it has a great deal to do with how you manage your portfolio. Some individuals have cases at their local store that they buy/sell out of, which means churning through inventory is assuredly lucrative. Even if a particular card looks like a lock to rise in the future, they may find themselves better off selling it now and moving the profits into other cards that can do more in the shorter term. Meanwhile, those that operate with a much smaller number of transactions per week and less overall time in the market may find that they can’t capitalize on high turnover, and prefer to make their money with the slower sit-and-hold strategy. When to sell also depends heavily on how badly you need the cash, of course.

I’m finding that I’m looking to move some of my cards, but there is a chunk I may be holding onto unless they see enough of a rise. Format staples like Snapcaster I’m not going to mind holding onto if it’s a slow season for them. Let’s consider two possible futures for everyone’s favorite blue two-drop:

Timeline A: Snapcaster hits $45 during this Modern season and I choose not to sell. He settles to around $35 in the off-season. Before next year’s Modern PTQs, Modern Masters 2 is announced and Snapcaster is in. Like Cryptic Command before him, he drops to ~$20. All looks bleak. Though still like Cryptic Command, copies dry up as players acquire their sets. Demand steadily rises as less and less copies are available on the market, and eventually original copies are worth more than they were before MM2. The card is $55-$60+ in two years.

Timeline B: Snapcaster still hits $45 and I still choose not to sell. He dips to $35 in the off-season. There is no Modern Masters 2, and this time next year no new copies have hit the market. His price is now $60-$70 as he continues to be a the best blue card in Modern and a role-player in Legacy.

In either case, it’s likely that Snapcaster is worth more in one to two years than he is today. Being printed in a fall set would certainly hurt, but that is a very unlikely outcome. They won’t be in a rush to flashback Flashback. (Sorry). There is incentive to sell at $45 so that I can get my money out and move it somewhere else that will do even better, accepting the fact that the card will likely be worth more than I’m selling it for in a year or two. If he gets to $50-$60 I should probably sell because even in the best of circumstances he probably isn’t rising beyond $70 or $80, especially as reprints loom. If he doesn’t break $40, then I really should hold since in either scenario I make a good chunk of change on each copy in a year or two.

Cards that were in Modern Masters need to see an even greater rise for there to be sufficient reason to sell. By now everything has hit its floor. We’ve moved past the decline in prices and are into the stage where they’re either flatlining or rising. You can see the rise on Cryptic Command, Tarmogoyf, etc. Since those cards were just printed last year, I don’t think Wizards is going to be flooding us with even more copies of all of them. Assuming there’s a MM2 next year it’s likely some will come back, but not all. The stuff that doesn’t get reprinted between now and next June is just going to keep rising. If we don’t end up with more copies of Vendilion Clique or Dark Confidant before next June, they could easily gain 10%, 40%, or even more. This of course runs into the portfolio management mentioned above. If you’re a higher-frequency seller, it may be worth it to out your copies now and hop on the next card you see gaining that much in a quarter of the time. If you prefer to play it slow and sit on sure things, format pillars aren’t a bad place to camp. It may not make as much money overall, but it’s less risky and doesn’t require you to be able to identify the next big gainer.

If I’m not in a rush to sell format staples, what AM I looking to get rid of? Anything in the “flavor of the month” category can go. Amulet of Vigor. Azusa. Porphyry nodes. Scapeshift. Uncommons that people really need to play their decks that keep getting reprinted, such as Kitchen Finks, Lightning Helix and Path to Exile. Cards that have been floating around long enough that they may see a reprint, such as Spellskite, Damnation, Fulminator Mage, Threads of Disloyalty and Tectonic Edge. Cards that are pushing their effective ceiling, such as Mox Opal. Probably Fetchlands, although those are complex given that they’re format staples like Snapcaster and thus asking to be held while at the same time playing the “will they/won’t they” reprint game. (I’ll probably sell mine and move onto greener pastures, even though I don’t expect them in Khans). Odds and ends like Shadow of Doubt.

All of those cards I mentioned above could easily gain significant value by the time next Modern rolls around, but the risk of them losing value because of some unforeseeable cause – reprint, meta shift, ban change, etc – is too great to make it worth holding out for a few extra dollars. I’d much rather sell all my Threads for a good $20 today, completely willing to accept that I’m passing up the possibility of $30 next June, rather than get blown out by a Khans reprint and see them at $6.

Even though I’m not in a rush to sell cards like Snapcaster or Liliana of the Veil, I’m not necessarily looking to get further into them. The issue is that they’re gigantic question marks at this point in time. On a long enough time scale you’re unlikely to lose money on those types of cards because they will almost definitely end up more expensive than they are when you pick them up, but you may not be in the market to sit on Snapcasters for a few years because he got stuck in Speed vs. Cunning. 

That leaves us in an awkward spot of looking to out 70% to 90% of our Modern holdings, but unlike the last eighteen months, we don’t want to just move all in on any card legal in that format. Where do we put our money now? The most available place is Standard. Standard cards are going to be ubiquitous, and people will be quite eager to ship Temples for Primeval Titans. Grabbing Standard cards requires a certain level of knowledge though, both of a myriad of prices and what is/isn’t a good pickup. The latter is tough in a format where there are so few slam dunks. Moving hundreds or thousands of dollars in Modern cards into Standard also has the added risk of making your portfolio considerably more volatile. Spellskites have been gold for months now, and you knew you could pick them up in trade and not have to worry about them hitting their peak and dropping in the span of three weeks. They were safe and easy. Very few Standard cards are going to have that feature. Instead, you’re going to need to keep close tabs on both your inventory and the format so that you can ship as soon as prices move in your favor. Not all of us enjoy watching Standard prices like a hawk week in and week out, so that’s quite a chore.

Another option is foils. Pack foils are incredibly tough to crack the value on, especially anything unique. Innistrad foil Lilianas and Snapcasters are likely to only maintain their value, no matter what happens. Deathrite Shaman foils didn’t take a hit at all when they were banned, and many seem to think he’ll be unbanned down the road. Foil casual staples like Temporal Mastery are fertile ground. If you’re moving enough to generate serious cash, big-ticket items are excellent places to put your money. Pack foil Onslaught fetches, duals, and even Power are all great options. Of course these are clearly difficult to trade for. Chances are that if you’re getting rid of enough product to have enough to afford those, you’re probably selling instead of trading though.

Sealed product is as safe as Modern staples were circa August 2013, but don’t expect as fast a return. Boxes of Return to Ravnica are a great target at the moment, but it will take some time before you really get paid on that. Sealed Innistrad boxes have only recently started breaking $200 on eBay, and those were one of the fastest rising booster boxes since the borders changed. Sealed Ravnica cases certainly do handle scale well though. It’s easy to sink money into, and I don’t even see sealed Innistrad cases in a cursory glance.

The long and short of it is that when Modern Masters came out, those of us looking to invest couldn’t have had it easier. Prices on staples guaranteed to rise were in a temporary valley. If a card showed up in a Modern decklist at any point anywhere it was fine to stash. You couldn’t lose money. I feel like with this PTQ season we’re crossing a border though, and between now and next summer it’s going to be a lot dicier to find cards that are as easy to trade for and as lucrative as Modern staples were. Cards that stand to gain as much now as the ones last summer did will be harder to find and will be riskier to hold.

I’m sharing all of this with you guys, but I’ll be completely upfront that I’m willing to adjust my plan if necessary. This is my line of thinking and how I plan on approaching the coming months. I’m happy to listen to alternative viewpoints backed by solid logic that suggest other lines of play though. I’m sure at least one of the other guys who do this day in and day out will disagree with me somewhere, and I’m curious to hear how.

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Argument for the Modern Event Deck

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By: Jared Yost

Question of Value

From what I’ve been seeing around the internet concerning the Modern event deck, you would think most people would rather go to the dentist than see it printed. I’m going to say this right off the bat – this event deck package is actually pretty decent value.

I know, I must be crazy right? Well, here’s the thing – and I actually didn’t figure this out until I looked it up on the mtgsalvation wiki and confirmed it on Wizard’s website – the thing is that this is not just an event deck. It comes with other things! A spindown life counter, 80 sleeves, and a deck box are also included with this deck. Let’s think about this for a minute.

With all the other event decks you don’t get a package like this. Why? Because those event decks are created for Standard. The people playing Standard already have all of their accessories needed to play that format. New players are entering the market all the time, and they sure aren’t starting with Modern as their format of choice. In a format where $1000+ decks are ruling the Top 8 tables why should they? Standard offers them all they need to get their Magic kick and they are happy just playing that format. The entry point for a decent Standard deck is around $500 if you are going after the singles only and don’t care if they are all in perfectly NM condition and foiled out. Event decks help to fill this gap by providing newer players or even existing players with multiple copies of format staples to make their entrance into Standard that much easier.

What the inclusion of the accessories means is that this event deck was never meant to print $100 bills within a $75 retail package. It was never meant for that Modern player who already has a deck and maybe wanted to branch out into another deck. It was meant for the Modern novice, to understand that Modern exists as a format and that they it doesn’t take much to enter the format if you are willing to play budget versions of decks just like the Standard event decks.

New players to Magic may not even be aware that Modern exists. Wizards really only needs to support Standard. Their support of eternal formats will only work as long as there is a new player already playing Standard and is ready to take the leap to an eternal format. Once they see the event deck and play around with it a bit they will recognize that Modern is a format that is both diverse and rewarding to play. Wizards is just making that connection for the new Standard player by providing them a discount ticket entrance to that format so that they can grab the interest of the few who are willing to make the leap and really jump into the Modern format.

This process has already been started with Modern Masters. Wizards just needed enough time for the set full of reprints to disseminate itself throughout the Magic community in order to drum up more interest in Modern. GP Richmond is a testament to this success story – one of the highest attended constructed events in recent memory, Modern is now on a lot of people’s radars and they are willing to play whatever deck they can get their hands on in order to participate. I know, I was there – plenty of people were playing B/W tokens decks and I even saw one win a GP Trial at the event. Even though it is a “dumb Tier 2 strategy”, many times new arrivals to a format can only afford to play these types of strategies. I know when I first started playing Legacy that the Mono-Red Burn was a very tempting option due to the low barrier to entry. Now that Wizards has solved the problem of the reserved list they can provide event decks for eternal formats, which isn’t something we’ve ever seen before. It is going to take some time for people to understand why Wizards made the choice they did with their first Modern event deck.

From a purely numbers standpoint, I’ve put the entire list including sideboard into the TCGPlayer cart optimizer and this is the approximate value of the deck according to that calcuation (see here for decklist):

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Once we add the other parts of the package to the price

– Spindown Life Counter ~$3
– 80 Sleeves ~$6
– Deckbox ~3.50

All told it comes to about $150 of value. Let’s be honest though, the real value of all the pieces of the deck is going to come down once it is released due to an influx of copies entering the market. I’m betting that the actual value will be closer to $100 when everything is said and done.

The cards included might be disappointing for some, but I have a feeling that if Wizards put too many money cards in the deck it would just be sold at absurdly high prices by retailers in order for them to get the most value out of selling the event deck. Wizards didn’t want it to be expensive for Standard players to enter Modern which is why I feel that did not include many of the cards that I predicted they might in a previous article I had written. Honestly, if retailers creating a price barrier is the reason they didn’t include cards like Marsh Flats, Arid Mesa, Fetid Heath, and Auriok Champion in the deck I would wholeheartedly agree with keeping them out even though including them would have lowered their prices by a good margin.

Let’s Do Something About It

There are plenty of ways of improving the deck and not all of them are very costly. Outside of the mana base the rest of the deck can be upgraded rather easily. Just from a quick glance, I would make the following replacements based on this GP Trial Winning List if I were to buy this deck and take to my store’s Modern night.

Maindeck:
– 2 Soul Warden
– 2 Shrine of Loyal Legions
+ 2 Hero of Bladehold
+ 1 Inquisition of Kozilek
+ 1 Path to Exile
Sideboard:
– 2 Ghost Quarter
+ 2 Torpor Orb

Just making these simple replacements makes the deck a lot more consistent and will help your fight against Pod. The manabase may still need some work in order to accommodate the Hero’s but I think that if we’re playing four Spectral Procession main deck anyways it won’t matter in the majority of cases. It may not be the best deck in the room, but when you’re just starting out you need to utilize the tools that are at your disposal.

If you’re playing Standard, you may already have copies of Brimaz, King of Oreskos and Thoughtseize – these are also fine additions to the deck if you can make them fit. The GP Trial deck utilized two Brimaz rather than Tidehollow Scullers (which can be easily removed if your metagame has a lot of U/W/r players) and opted to play four copies of Thoughtseize and only one copy of Inquisition.

The core of the deck is present right out of the box which is good news for the novice Modern player. I’m sure others may argue with my logic but it won’t take much for a Modern beginner to take this deck and start rolling with it. Even if you were to pick up this event deck now, you could start budgeting for the rare lands and even wait for the inevitable reprint of the fetchlands to help supplement this deck. I think it is a good purchase if you’re in the market for a Modern deck because it also allows you get access to things for Commander like Sword of Feast and Famine and Elspeth, Knight-Errant.

I look forward to see what Wizards can do in the future with the Modern event deck products. Like the Commander products that are now yearly I hope that they will make these Modern event decks a yearly, or even biyearly, release in order to get new players that might only be acquainted with Standard interested in the Modern format. Releasing them on a regular basis will also help current Modern players start accumulating a collection so that they can keep building up their Modern card pool over time. I think having this event deck is healthy for the Modern format and for Magic as a whole and I would totally recommend that this deck should be purchased by the target audience for it – Modern rookies.

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Weekend Update for 5/26

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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.

10 Big Winners of the Week

10. Mishra’s Factory
$66.51 to $76.37 (14.8%)

Mishra’s Factory was the original “man” land. It allowed players to cast Wrath of God and then animate the Factory and attack with a creature in control decks.

It is still used in Legacy as a play set in Pox and Standstill decks.

These decks try to keep the board clear of creatures through heavy disrutpion and get there with lands that can attack.

They have also seen the occasional 3-1 in MODO Legacy dailies.

The rise in popularity of UWR Miracles also has people experimenting with Factories in Stoneblade builds.

I advocate trading into the hype while people are brewing. If you can turn a play set of these into some duel lands I would not look back.

9. Temple of Plenty
$6.00 to $6.91 (15.2%)

Scrylands are more powerful than originally assumed. We have seen pros running twelve scrylands to help smooth draws and fix mana for three color decks.

Temple of Plenty has seen full adoption in Selesnya and Junk builds in Standard.

I think that the scrylands are well positioned for rotation once the shocklands leave Standard.

I would trade for them with emphasis on this, Temple of Malady, Temple of Enlightenment and Temple of Silence.

8. Urza’s Tower
$2.46 to $2.84 (15.5%)

Modern season is quickly approaching.

Putting together the Urzatron is powerful in any format. It can be tough to recover from a turn three Karn Liberated or Wurmcoil Engine.

Different builds can throw out an early Batterskull or Sundering Titan which make it difficult if not impossible for aggressive decks to recover.

If you play the Urzatron in Gruul, Blue, Azorius or other combinations you need to have a play set of each of the three lands.

The biggest thing holding them back is their five printings including Chronicles and Fifth Edition where they were common.

It still think they are good solid holds. Anyone thinking of playing in the Modern format should at least pick up a play set of each to have to play with.

They are not powerful enough to ban and the biggest risk I could see would be further reprints.

7. Winds of Change
$1.86 to $2.15 (15.6%)

Nekusar, the Mindrazer decks continue to be popular and powerful. This is one of the most efficient ways to restock your hand and deal seven damage to each of your opponents.

There are still copies out there for less than a dollar. The spread on this card is less than a dime.

More Mind Seize decks will find their ways to retailers at the rate of two boxes per shipment.

That means more ninety-eight card commander decks than need tuning after True-Name Nemesis and Baleful Strix are sold.

These are still surprisingly easy to trade for and with such a low margin a pretty safe bet.

6. Necropotence (From the Vault: Exiled)
$14.97 to $17.97 (20.0%)

Necropotence is one the most powerful card engines every devised.

It is also one of the most iconic cards Wizards has ever printed.

This is the only foil copy available for Vintage or Cube players.

A lot of people are going to be playing with it in Vintage Masters online.

The beta shows the lowest price of $13 and the highest buylist of $10.

This shows a great deal of confidence in the growth of this card.

This is a great long term hold.

5. Apocalypse
$2.44 to $3.09 (26.6%)

This card is a rare from Tempest. That means there are not many out there. It is also on the reserved list so there will never be any more.

This card has a negative spread. You can buy it from one retailer and sell it to another at a profit.

This is as good a recommendation as I can possibly give.

Grab these any time you see them. They have probably been rotting in trade binders for years.

4. Tendo Ice Bridge
$3.59 to $4.58 (27.6%)

The power and flexibility of this land are considerable when you can reuse the counter using bouncelands and Amulet of Vigor. They are used as three of in that deck.

I have seen this card listed for $5 in a few places and some sites still have them for less than $3.

The beta on this card is only $0.42. That makes this a safe and smart target.

I would actively trade for these. The deck has already caused significant increases in the prices of Azusa, Lost but Seeking and Primeval Titan.

3. Urza’s Miter
$4.87 to $6.45 (32.4%)

This is all smoke.

I don’t think anyone is actually buying this card at this price.

I looked at ebay sales records and it looks like everyone is buying theirs for around $3. The highest buylist I see is $2.51 but most vendors are offering about a dollar less than that.

That tells me that there is not a lot of confidence in the price of this card.

It is an Antiquities rare on the reserved list but it really does not belong in any deck. It is a collector’s item but that does not explain the recent surge in interest it has seen.

Am I missing something here? Does anyone know what started this?

I honestly feel you could buy any early rare on the reserved list and it would be at least as valuable to you as this card.

For about the same amount you can get a Mana Matrix or Planar Gate.

Both of those are about as rare and have awesome applications in Commander or Cube.

2. Nether Shadow
$2.00 to $2.97 (48.5%)

Legacy Manaless Dredge is picking up in popularity and it shows.

Nether Shadow can safely be dredged away and will be back to fight, block or be sacrificed to Dread Return to reanimate Balustrade Spy or Golgari Grave-Troll.

The deck is a popular budget option for a format known for costing thousands of dollars to play competitively.

This deck can be put together for a little more than a preordered booster box of Conspiracy.

There are still a lot of budget cards in the deck that have room to grow.

Chancellor of the Annex is cheap and can keep opponents from landing a turn one Deathrite Shaman to attack your graveyard.

Flayer of the Hatebound is also a bulk card and adds a unique effect which can close games out of nowhere.

I expect the pieces of this deck to continue to grow as interest in Legacy grows.

1. Breathstealer’s Crypt
$1.21 to $2.00 (65.3%)

Here is a spec that I like!

Breathstealer’s Crypt is a rare from Visions. It is on the reserve list.

It gives you information. Everyone will know what everyone is drawing. It costs life or cards.

It is obvious what is going on with this card – it is the latest Nekusar target.

You make your opponents draw cards and drain their life anyway. You can deprive them of precious creatures and finish them off.

What is left for the Nekusar deck?

Kederekt Parasite, Otherworld Atlas and Reforge the Soul are all still bulk.

5 Big Losers of the Week

5. Boros Reckoner
$8.75 to $7.79 (-11.0%)

Pro Tour Journey into Nyx was not kind to the Minotaur Wizard.

The event came and went and not a single copy was found in the Top 8.

Even Monowhite Aggro and Boros Burn decks do not necessarily run him anymore.

The time to trade these away was a few months ago. Their only use was Standard and it has seen its day.

I would move them as quickly as possible because once rotation hits they will be bulk.

I would try to get scylands or even shocklands for them if you could.

4. Shatterstorm
$19.10 to $16.90 (-11.5%)

Shatterstorm is a powerful answer to Affinity decks in Modern and Legacy.

Unfortunately the popularity of these decks have waned as people have adjusted their sideboards.

This is part of the danger of investing in sideboard cards.

If they do too well then the threat is neutralized and demand sags.

This leaves and opening for the threat to return and for interest to rise again.

I would trade these away as it is on its way down. It jumped from $5 to $20 over the course of a few weeks. It has been trending down again.

Try to pick them up again once they drop below $10.

3. The Mimeoplasm (Commander’s Arsenal)
$13.75 to $12.00 (-12.7%)

We recently saw a burst in demand for Commanders. Every enemy wedge Commander that was under $10 was snatched up and an increase in price drove this card from $ $6 to $15 over night.

The frenzy is dying down and prices are settling.

The price has come down but it is stabilizing.

If you want a fun commander I would hold onto these. I expect the price the price to slowly start climbing from here. It just will not be at the rabid pace we have seen.

2. Shivan Reef
$7.99 to $6.88 (-13.9%)

Storm has been testing well in Modern. Shivan Reef helps fix mana and does not come into play tapped.

It has been steadily growing over the past few weeks. I would look at this as a speed bump.

Modern season is rapidly approaching. This could be a good opportunity to grab three or four if you are looking at playing UR Storm.

1. Oubliette
$9.35 to $7.21 (-22.9%)

Did you trade yours away yet? Everyone else is doing so.

It is an interesting card but not so powerful that I see a strong reason for the price.

If you want to exile a creature in black we now have Silence the Believers and Gild. I think this will just continue to decrease in value.

Casual Fridays

Joining the Conspiracy

By: Cliff Daigle

I know that most of you here are enthusiastic Magic players. You’re likely to do a lot of trading, buying, and selling. You attend a range of events, from FNM to PTQ, GP and other large events. Wizards knows this and does things to make Magic an awesome game for you.

They also understand that a huge part of the playerbase is not here to gain value, or to win a tournament, or even to win a game. Many players are here because this game is a social interaction interwoven with a card game, and this interaction is tremendously fun.

That’s how we get Conspiracy.

I’m here to tell you that Conspiracy is draft- and multiplayer- based, and in a way that is going to be very, very fun. You are going to see people want to draft this set on a basis that I don’t think has been matched. Modern Masters may have come close, but the value on that set made it sought after in a different way.

I’ve been lucky enough to draft almost every set of Magic. I’ve drafted Unglued and Unhinged. I’ve drafted the Ice Age block. I’ve helped build Reject Rare Cubes for drafting.

Nothing is going to come close to what Conspiracy offers. The mechanics that alter the draft, even going so far as to add a ninth booster pack to the eight that are circulating. You get to peek at another pack, or see what else has been taken.

The gameplay mechanics are fantastic too. Will of the Council allows for democracy, unless you have Brago’s Representative and then you’re a dictator. None of the choices are ever weak either. You’re going to get a great effect no matter the vote, and ‘helping’ others decide how to vote is going to be a game within the game.

Dethrone is a simple and effective tool for deciding who to attack. I’m salivating at the thought of what effect is going to give other creatures dethrone. If we’re really lucky, we will get an effect that can be passed from player to player. “At the beginning of each combat step, all creatures controlled by target player gain Dethrone” would be something amazing to put on a creature. It’s super helpful that Dethrone triggers on the attack, not on the damage.

Parley is just a great way to peek at what other players will have going on. Reveals and bonuses are a way to make the information palatable to those players because you’re usually getting much more of a bonus.

I want you to go to the release events. Just play. Play as much as you can. This is a set that will reinforce the vast array of player types that Wizards has learned to accomodate. The same company that rules the Modern banned list with an iron fist also creates a set where Deal Broker is a card.

There are going to be some unique cards available in Conspiracy, and with the presence of foils, might be incredibly pricey. Of note so far will be only the third foil printing of Brainstorm and the first non-promo foil of Swords to Plowshares. Exploration, an Urza’s Saga rare that did not get the reserved list treatment, will have its first foil. Dack Fayden in foil will also command a hefty price tag, but if you’re looking for a lower bar of entry on your speculations, I’d suggest going after foils of the cards that affect the draft, like Cogwork Librarian.

Conspiracy is going to have a big effect on Cubes this way. Some purists won’t want to touch these sorts of cards, and I suspect that more will add them with gusto. Even the foil common versions will be worth a surprising amount after we’ve moved on to Magic 2015 and the Khans block.

There’s one more thing to note about prices and Conspiracy: We’re going to have an effect on Journey into Nyx – Born of the Gods – Theros drafts. If your FNM is doing Conspiracy instead of JBT, that’s going to keep Theros block cards a little more scarce. Modern Masters interfered with M14 this way and led to a dearth of Mutavault. It’s possible that Conspiracy makes Journey into Nyx cards even rarer than my 6:2:1 article would indicate. It’s possible that if Conspiracy sells well and get reprinted, it will affect the summer sales of M15 as well.

I’m seeing preorder boxes for pretty close to MSRP. Some are even below, as if this were any old booster set. This is not the usual 36 packs, and if you get the chance to put away a box or two, it will be an easy way to grow your money over time. Booster boxes usually are, but ones that offer a unique and fun format, AND AT THE SAME TIME are stuffed full of value, should be treated with respect and purchased freely.

And if anyone asks…I didn’t tell you. Shhh!

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