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Weekend Recap – Legacy in Los Angeles

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By Jim Marsh

Every week 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 occurred.

10 Big Winners of the Week

10. Wasteland

$109.98 to $133.99 (21.8%)

This card is no stranger to anyone who plays or follows Legacy. Strip Mine is banned and this is the Land Destroying Real Estate of choice. It can and does work in pretty much every deck in the format. In fact, it is pretty hard to come up with a Legacy deck that does not make use of the Tempest uncommon. There is a reason that it is the most played land in Legacy. \

Legacy as a format is still vibrant and strong. Even with articles lamenting its oncoming death. Wasteland is also a desirable inclusion in Commander, Cube and pretty much any format that will allow it.

The power of a land that can destroy your opponent’s nonbasics is only amplified in a format with such backbreaking lands as The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale, Karakas, Rishadan Port, Cavern of Souls, Mishra’s Factory, Creeping Tar Pit, and Dual Lands.

A lot of Legacy decks don’t even run many, if any basic lands, so it is a target rich environment.

I expect this card to just keep climbing.

 

9. Grafdigger’s Cage

$2.20 to $2.71 (23.2%)

This is the quintessential sideboard card. For one mana you can turn off entire strategies. Suddenly Green Sun’s Zenith, Reanimate, Exhume, Snapcaster Mage and friends look pretty silly.

Innistrad has been out of print for about a year now, and given the name, it is not easy to reprint. It might show up in a supplemental product, but those rarely have pure hate cards in them.

I have long felt that this card did not deserve to be considered bulk, and it seems like the rest of the world agrees.

You may find a few trade partners that are still willing to give these away as toss-ins or to make room in their binder for something more exciting.

8. Twilight Mire

$19.99 to $25.48 (27.5%)

Modern prices have been increasing across the board recently, and it looks like Twilight Mire’s time to shine is upon us.

It can help us get our mana ready to cast Abrupt Decay, Tarmogoyf, Dark Confidant or Scavenging Ooze and not break a sweat.

It is showing up in Modern Jund builds, as well as the G/B and Junk Obliterator decks.

I would take a good long look at the Shadowmoor filter lands. Right now everyone is (rightfully) clamoring for the reprinting of Scalding Tarn and friends, but after the influx of Shocklands in Return to Ravnica, these can play an important role in fixing your mana without requiring an investment of $100 per land in your mana base.

They are usually played as a 1 or 2 of in color relevant decks, but if people protest the price of Zendikar fetches, more and more will be tempted to experiment with filter lands.

7. Seizan, Perverter of Truth

$2.52 to $3.28 (30.2%)

In Kamigawa every rare creature was a legendary creature. Some of them were hits. Some were misses. Some have been sleepers for a long time. 

With the rise of the Commander format, a lot of people have been dusting off old Legendary creatures and giving them a spin either as a Commander or as part of their 99.

Seizan, Perverter of Truth is one of those, and giving everyone a free Night’s Whisper (or Sign in Blood) each turn is an interesting effect.

Normally a symmetrical effect like this starts with you on the raw end of the deal. You pay the mana and your opponents all get the extra cards before you do. (Think of tapping out for Howling Mine.)

This time at least that means they all get to pay life before you do.

He is also a strong possible inclusion in Nekuzar, the Mindrazer decks, which breaks the symmetry right in half and forces each of your opponents to take at lose at least 5 life a turn. That adds up quickly, and that may be why Seizan has moved from Bulk Rare to a decent price tag in the past few weeks.

6. Volcanic Island

$180.50 to $240.12 (33.0%)

There are a finite amount of Dual lands from Alpha, Beta and Unlimited in existence. I don’t know what that amount is, but as the amount of players grow and the opportunity to play Legacy looks more enticing, people will be fighting over these scarce resources.

You need a good strong, consistent mana base in Legacy (or any format) and the original Dual Lands are as strong and consistent as the get. They are restricted and are largely considered among the most stable collector’s items in the history of the game short of the Power 9.

I don’t think we will ever see these any cheaper than they are now. It’s been growing aggressively, and I would not be surprised to see the other Dual Lands (especially the Blue ones) hurry to catch up.

5. Hurkyl’s Recall

$14.99  to $23.90 (49.1%)

What do you do when you are playing Modern and the most aggressive, successful deck in the format is Affinity? How about a one sided Upheaval? For two mana?

What do you bounce? An Aether Vial? That’s a bargain.

Besides being in the sideboard for Modern Merfolk, Ad Nauseam, Faeries and other decks, it was also the subject of a recent buy out.

I see it coming back down, and quickly. It has been printed 5 times. It is a sideboard card against one deck, where a lot of sideboard cards have versatility that can be used against different strategies.

I would not get in on this (but try to move any you have that you don’t need to play with in the mean time.)

4. Sewer Nemesis

$3.08 to $4.67 (51.6%)

This card has only been printed once, in the original batch of Commander decks.

It has not seen any place in any competitive deck ever played, and probably won’t.

It is pretty fun in Mill decks that use creatures like this and Consuming Aberration.

Phenax, God of Deception loves cards like this. It is a perfect fit in a Phenax Commander deck, and the supply is pretty low.

I am surprised to see it jump this much (it has been hovering about $2 since it was printed) and don’t see it going up much, but I bet some people will still give it to you as trade evener if you ask.

3. Ancient Tomb

$16.66 to $35.00 (110.1%)

Ancient Tomb is an important part of certain Legacy decks that need mana now to power out something gross and end the game.

These decks include Imperial Painter’s, OmniTell, Sneak and Show, MUD, etc.

It has steadily been growing for the past several months, and it has just started to explode. Its power level makes it unlikely to be reprinted in any Standard format, and even supplemental products are questionable. It was included in From the Vaults: Realms, but other than that this uncommon from Tempest has really made its presence known.

I don’t think it will hold onto this aggressive growth for long. It will dip back, not quite to the $10 it was at earlier, but probably back down to $20 or so, and then begin to grow again steadily.

I even think it will get back to $35 eventually, but not for a while yet.

2. Food Chain

$5.00 to $11.26  (125.2%)

Food Chain? Really? On Sunday it made the semifinals in a Los Angeles Legacy SCG event, but this feels like it came out of nowhere.

It has been a $5 card for a while, but the combo with Food Chain and Misthollow Griffin lets you get infinite mana and cheat out Emrakul, the Aeons Torn and several other value creatures.

It is interesting as a metagame choice, but compared to other Legacy decks, it seems a little unwieldy.

The price got as high as $15 before settling down to $11 and I think it will settle even further.

Even still, if you had some sitting in your trade binder, Sunday was your lucky day.

1. Leonin Arbiter

$0.89 to $2.77 (211.2%)

Now there’s a spec I am happy to see. Modern has a lot of decks that want to tutor for various cards. Birthing Pod and Chord of Calling want creatures. Ranger of Eos wants friends. Everyone wants to use their Misty Rainforest to find a Stomping Ground or Breeding Pool. 

Leonin Arbiter says not without a cost. It sets people behind when they want to use their fetchlands.

It is slows down Birthing Pod.

It makes your Path to Exile so much better.

All while providing a 2/2 to block and attack with.

It gets used in Modern GW Hatebears, Death and Taxes, UW Tempo decks and a few variations on each theme. It has been a Bulk Rare for far too long.

Modern is an increasingly expensive format. Sometimes that really bothers people. Sometimes it is just time for others to realize how good certain cards are.

If Aven Mindcensor can be $12, I see no reason why Leonin Arbiter can’t be $3. (Or even $5!)

5 Big Losers of the Week

5. Cabal Therapy

$15.59 to $13.97 (-10.4%)

I don’t think that Cabal Therapy is going away any time soon. It provides too much information and punch for its cost to ever be considered anything other than strong.

Recently it went from steady growth at $10 to an overnight jump to $20. Like Ancient Tomb, it is now settling again. I think it’s settling is just about over.

I probably have misnamed my Losers of the Week.

I think a better term would be Bargains of the Week.

Think of this as getting a coupon for 10% off Cabal Therapy. Or 30% off the high point.

I should just remind you that everyone playing ANT, Dredge, Nic-Fit, Manaless Dredge, Oops! All Spells!, anything with Young Pyromancer and more will all want their Cabal Therapys.

4. Old Man of the Sea

$52.38 to $59.98 (-11.9%)

Old Man of the Sea has been $40 for a while. It recently jumped to $60 for almost no reason. There is no demand from people who want to play the card, just collect it.

Are there really that many fans of this effect? Using creatures to steal other creatures is great, but there are other powerful ways to do it.

You can use Gilded Drake or Sower of Temptation.

You can use Threads of Disloyalty or Vedalken Shackles.

They all have more flexibility or power.

Yes, it’s on the Restricted List. Yes, it was only printed in Arabian Nights, but it bought to sit in a binder, not in a deck.

I see this one going back to the $40 where it came from.

3. Skullclamp

$6.20 to $5.44 (-12.3%)

This is a tough card to price. It is not played competitively because it is banned in both Modern and Legacy.

It got reprinted in both From the Vault: Exiled and in the original Commander decks.

It is still very powerful in the Commander format, but that is one of the few places you can play it. It was sitting at a pretty reasonable $3 to $4 for a while but tried to correct to $6. I think that was a little too much, which is why I think it will come down to $5.

It combos with pretty much any deck that can produce small creatures and wants to draw cards, so I don’t think Wizards will unban it any time soon. If they did the jump would be amazing (see Bitterblossom.)

2. Dragonlair Spider

$5.49 to $4.79 (-12.8%)

This is another Casual exclusive. It has seen two printings, and I would not be surprised to see it in Conspiracy. It cries out “play with me in a multiplayer environment!”

The past month has been interesting, with it fighting to get from $3 to almost $6 in value, but there has not been enough interest to sustain it. Maybe $4 is about right for now.

At least Ruric Thar and Jund Commanders love you Dragonlair Spider.

1. Silent-Blade Oni

$8.79 to $7.48 (-14.9%)

The creature type Demon Ninja looks so cool, how could it not be a winner? While the effect looks cool on paper (and I hope someone has gotten to cast a free Cruel Ultimatum with it!) it is rather expensive and cumbersome for all but the most casual of decks. 

In Commander you can hope your opponent has an Overwhelming Forces in their hand and not just a Rampant Growth.

It has been a $4 to $5 card for a while, and tried to get to $9, but it looks like it is on its way back down.

Ninjas are a personal favorite creature type, but there is a reason why Ninja of the Deep Hours and Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni are the most popular.

Their effects all but guarantee card advantage and are reasonably costed.

Six mana is a bit much for an effect that may not even have a valid target.

I’d stay away until it get back below $5.

Casual Fridays

Fear and Finance

By: Cliff Daigle

I have extolled my viewpoint as a casual financier before, but to summarize, I don’t like to buy cards. I like to trade for my EDH cards, and I have had a string of a few years where I’ve slowly built up the value of my collection this way. I don’t speculate on cards in the sense that I will go buy a stack of them, but I will trade for them when the price is right. I like to plan ahead, trading for things when they are cheap and trading them away when they aren’t.

I’ve rung the bell for Thespian’s Stage and Prophet of Kruphix over and over. Both of those are buylisting for a lot more right now than they were early on. I should know–as part of selling out some Commander decks, I got $2 for Prophet and $1 for Stage.

Over the past few months, I’ve traded for 50 Prophets and 40 Stages. Non-foils, at least. I’ve got a couple of each in foil but those are in decks and not part of my plan. I’m expecting those cards to grow in the next year, dip a little, and begin a long-term increase in value because they are amazing in casual formats.

But if these are casual cards, what happens if they get the EDH ban?

What about if I had a playset of foil Deathrite Shamans, and now they aren’t Modern-legal? It was going to spike so hard eventually! What if I trade for 20 Birthing Pods, and when Journey into Nyx comes out, Wizards bans that card from Modern too?

Welcome to the fear.

There is always a chance that your plan doesn’t work. This is true in any setting, Magic or not. The unexpected will happen. Your car will break down. You will have an injury. Someone else’s bad day will turn into your bad day.

There is not much you can do to prevent the unexpected, but managing your fear is a necessary part of financial planning. Your can’t-miss spec…will sometimes miss.

If you’re feeling the cold grip of fear, there are two ways to stay warm:

#1: Diversify

Here at MTGPrice, you’re going to get all sorts of tips and tricks. You don’t have to take all of our advice, it’s up to you. But you should do more than zero in on one card and buy only that card. You want to have a few things lined up, stored away for when their price increases. 

The amount of diversification you do is proportional to the amount of money you’re comfortable spending. There are people with the bankroll to decide on a card, and then spend $50, or $100, or what they want to. My policy was simpler on these two cards: I’d take all that someone wanted to trade.

I do think there’s a chance that Prophet gets banned in Commander within the next year. It’s not overtly overpowered, as it is a creature, and enables creatures, but in effect, you’ve got multiple Time Warp effects. You get to take a turn every time someone else takes a turn. You get to cast creatures and instants, with all of your mana, on each of your opponents’ turns. While that isn’t much of a strategy in and of itself, it doesn’t take much to get out of hand. Perhaps most obnoxious about the card is the time factor, since one player’s extra turns means that much more time that player has to do things, the more time other spend waiting.

Just imagine you have Prophet out, with a Sprout Swarm in your hand. Everyone is going to want you dead, simply because you’re spending more and more time playing with yourself and building an army.

So if Prophet of Kruphix gets the Commander ban, the long-term prospects take a dive. I wouldn’t try to hold the card past Christmas 2014.

Thespian’s Stage is a card I feel is also dripping with long-term potential, but it’s quite unlikely that it gets banned in EDH. This is my way of managing my risk. I don’t have all my money tied up in Prophet, so if something goes wrong with one of these two, I have other options.

#2: Consideration

This is not an action to take, it’s more of mindset to have. When you choose what cards to buy in on, you do so after some amount of thinking about it. 

That reflection should also be present when you’re worried about those choices.

Remind yourself that seemingly every card that is ever played in Modern is $5. And it could go up higher! Tell yourself that Deadeye Navigator, Kiki-Jiki, Palinchron, and a host of other cards aren’t banned yet in Commander either!

This is also when you make ‘just-in-case’ plans. For instance, I’m going to be content to sell most of my Prophets during the next block, minimizing my risk on the rest. Or if it gets banned before I sell, I’ll be able to look at other cards and feel not-quite-as-bad. Even Primeval Titan is still retaining value, despite not making Constructed waves and getting banned in EDH.

I hope you’re able to stock up on cards with less anxiety, and if you need some tips, I’m a believer on these two cards.

Think Twice, Uncategorized

Magic Online and You: An Intro

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By: Camden Clark

Many people have little understanding of how important Magic Online is to MTG finance.

They are really missing out. If you fail to take full advantage of Magic Online, you too are missing on some valuable opportunities.

Think about it: Magic Online is where all the pros play. Moreover, it is the de facto deck testing platform for anyone heading into a competitive event. These are people who will pay any sum to have an opportunity to test a deck or just play high-level Magic. This means that there are huge speculation opportunities on Magic Online, as well as having one of the best platforms to determine the progression of cards in paper.

Let’s go over some basics of how the Magic Online economy works.

Event Tickets are the currency of Magic Online. They are used to purchase cards from bots and enter into events. Each one is worth a little less than a dollar, but you can buy them for a dollar from the Wizards store on Magic Online. However, almost everything can and should be purchased outside of the Wizards store by trading with bots or other players.

Bots are what drive Magic Online’s economy. They provide the liquidity for players who want to buy cards. They make their money through occasionally absurd buy/sell margins (especially on eternal cards). They automatically perform buy and sell orders and are basically an automatic cash cow for whoever is running the bot. More on this later.

Most things are cheaper to buy from a bot than buy from Wizard’s store. The most notable example of this is booster packs. Boosters get into the system as rewards from constructed events and draft events, and are used to enter into drafts. Rarely does a current draft set booster pack cost the official four tickets from a bot. Usually, they are at least twenty cents to a dollar cheaper.

Typically, Magic Online card prices are significantly cheaper than their paper counterparts, with a few exceptions (most notably Force of Will).

So how do you get started with utilizing Magic Online?

Magic Online is unforgiving to mistakes. It is quite easy to buy a seemingly perfect speculation opportunity but make some serious mistakes and lose money. That being said, let’s go over some pitfalls first:

Investing in cards with high buy/sell margins

This is a major pitfall of online investment.

Many eternal stapes have extreme margins between the buy and sell prices on the bots. This is because of their low volume. Bots trade standard staples at an exponentially higher rate, thus holding eternal staples is a liability.

Let’s say you purchase a Legacy staple at fifty tickets (essentially dollars). However, the buyback price on the bots is currently thirty-five tickets. That means the sell price would have to go up at least fifteen tickets to be profitable. Those are huge margins that could leave you with significant deficits. Moreover, these cards don’t move in price very quickly. Your money could be tied in a fifty dollar spec for months. That’s not good value.

This is why, in general, I don’t recommend investing in Legacy yet online, especially with the looming Vintage Masters set.

Buying event tickets from the store

This is a small issue, but can be important if you are moving a large volume of event tickets. If you are inside the United States, last time I checked, you pay a dollar per event ticket with no tax at the Wizards store inside Magic Online. This is subject to being changed, of course. For many who aren’t in the US, there can be insane upcharges with tax. Thus, it’s almost a necessity to purchase event tickets outside of the Wizards store.

There are many places to buy event tickets. A quick google search will give you the best ones (I don’t want to endorse one over another-you be the judge). You can often get event tickets for $.97-$.99 per ticket. That’s not too good to be true, that’s just the going rate.

Under this section, I might as well put some general tips when starting out on Magic Online. Don’t open any product you get when starting. Sell your booster pack; you can typically get about two to three event tickets for it.

Don’t play cube unless you want to throw money away.

Getting screwed by the bots

It is very easy to let yourself lose a ton of value by dealing with bots. You will always round up the amount you are paying for cards up to the next event ticket (you cannot have a decimal of event tickets on Magic Online). However, the bot will save your credit. Obviously, this requires trust on your part that the bot will correctly log the amount of credit you have and stay online. I would recommend keeping a word document of the bots you have credit with and searching those for your cards first. That’s a mistake I made.

Make sure to shop around for the best prices of cards. It is certainly possible to pay a dollar or more than you would at a different bot. I have also paid up to five dollars less than the going rate because of an error in bot maintenance. Be mindful of the going rate (MTGOTraders is a ceiling, look for prices above this).

To be honest, the best way to make money directly from Magic Online is to maintain your own bot. That is a topic that goes far beyond the scope of this article. Stay tuned for that.

Those were some pitfalls. It will be confusing at first, and you may make some mistakes.

The key question is: how does this translate into paper investment?

All of the best players play on Magic Online. They test their decks here. They play with other high level grinders here. Where else can you face this kind of competition virtually twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week?

An invaluable gauge for where prices will be is the Magic Online tournaments called Daily Events. Although the name implies they are “daily”, there are Standard tournaments that fire several times a day, with Modern having about half as many of these tournaments.

You can pick up on the latest technology by looking at the tournaments results that are posted every week on dailymtg. Being cognizant of this will vastly improve your ability to make good decisions.

Another useful feature of Magic Online is being able to see good inventory data.

One of the greatest features of Pro Trader here on MTGPrice is the inventory data from retailers. It allows you to see when certain cards are experiencing a buyout and to move in on those cards.

However, Magic Online is a good supplement to this data.

Once you get a “feel” for how much stock major bots have in cards, it is quite easy to see when that stock is being depleted or is simply too low.

This provides you with a barometer of which cards are going to see price swings in paper too.

It’s difficult to quantify, unfortunately. There is nothing like MTGPrice for MTGO, so it’s mostly up to you to gain the understanding and utilize it.

This is constantly what I’m talking about in my articles. There aren’t any silver bullets for MTG finance, you have to use your intuition as a player to make money.

That is the essence of why you should be on Magic Online. You need to be a part of the culture of Magic in order to be effective in investing in it. Would you invest in a company where you knew nothing about the product it sold?

No.

The same goes for Magic. If you are playing in the same events that the pros are, you will develop your sense as a player and investor. The difference is that the people you are playing with aren’t looking to make money, they want to get better at the game. If you are looking for opportunity while playing Magic Online, it will begin to present itself.

I can go over hundreds of cards that might see drastic increases in price. Is that the most helpful thing to you? Does that help you become a better investor?

Not for the long term.

If I spent this article telling you my picks for the next months, it may help you for the next few months.

How about five years?

You can only become a better investor by investing a bit of yourself, especially when your money is going into a game. In our hearts, we are all still players.

So load up Magic Online. Take it for a spin. It’s mediocre (read: shitty) technology, but it’s the platform that Wizards has made for competitive players to test decks. If you’re not on there, you are missing out.

City of Traders

Standard Snapshot: 3/26/14

By: Travis Allen

Last week I got everyone real angry about Legacy. I failed to clarify one particular point though, which I’ll start with today. When I implied that Legacy was going to fade away I wasn’t explicit about what that meant. It doesn’t mean nobody will play the format anymore. I expect it to eventually end up as Vintage is today – enjoyed by a core group of dedicated players, occasionally responsible for odd cards being hilariously expensive, but overall not something most players concern themselves with. People will still have their pet decks and Legacy events will continue to fire at local stores and Grand Prix side events. But there will come a day when SCG no longer runs it as a major event at opens and you can no longer win Pro Tour invites playing the format. That is the eventual fate of Legacy, not a total abolishment from the minds of mortals.

Anyways, on to today’s topic. We haven’t talked Standard in a while, and GP Cincinnati just occurred, which seems like a good reason to take a look at the format. Where is the money to be made? What should we stay away from? What do we sell? Is everyone sick of Pack Rat yet? (The last one is easy: yes.) 

Kyle Boggemes took down the whole event with a soup du jour Esper control list. The first thing that jumps out at me is the full twelve Scrylands. If you haven’t figured it out yet, these are powerful lands that are going to be relevant for their full course in Standard. What’s most interesting is how resilient the prices have been on the Theros lands. Typically we see the current fall-set lands get quite low. The Innistrad checklands behaved this way as well. These seem to have kept their prices a little better than I anticipated, with the exception of Temple of Mystery. Their floor will be between May and June, so whatever they fall to, that’s as low as they’re going to be.

The Born of the Gods temples are still doing quite well too, especially Temple of Enlightenment, clocking in at nearly $9. UW was clearly going to be the best Scryland from the outset and the price reflects that. The BOG scrylands should fare better than their Theros counterparts overall, and the Journey lands will be in a position to sit at the top of the financial pile. More on this at the bottom of the article

Three Elspeths is also worth noting, and she’s been prevalent in many of these lists. Her price continues to be a stubborn $20, which is impressive for a fall Planeswalker. If she gets below $15, I’d start trading hard for her. We will definitely continue to see her after rotation.

If you haven’t moved your Desecration Demons, Nightveil Specters, Underworld Connections, or Pack Rats, get on that soon. Their peak has come and gone.

A playset of Herald of Torment showed up in the Top 8, which is good news for his long-term prospects. He’s still about a dollar, and could pretty easily climb to $3+, maybe even $7-$10 depending on how things shake out. I haven’t bought any myself, but if I could get twelve or more copies for $1 each shipped, I would. We’ll still have Bile Blight, Hero’s Downfall and Thoughtseize after rotation, which basically guarantees he’ll always have a shot at being good. I’ve been wondering if you could actually build a Hero of Iroas deck with Fabled Hero, Agent of the Fates, Herald of Torment, and Nighthowler. It’s probably an FNM deck, but it sure sounds fun.

As I warned, Pain Seer is down to under $1 at this point. She’s a pretty low-risk pickup, but I like her less than I like Herald. She’s just so much more conditional than Herald is.

Naya Auras made the Top 8 as well, but there doesn’t seem to be a lot there we can work with. Most of the deck is rotating soon. I do see a whole lot of Scrylands though.

In the Top 16, Adam Jansen showed up with three copies of Ashiok. I still am a fan, and while Ashiok hasn’t been tearing up the tournament scene, at least s/he’s putting up occasional results. As a $7 pickup, you can’t really go wrong. I’d be surprised if s/he didn’t end up north of $10 at some point this fall for at least a slim period of time. 

Ari Lax was the darling of Cincinnati, piloting a GB “dredge” deck. He had some hot cards for sure. I was about to start listing the cool creatures he was playing but then I realized it was basically just all of them. I don’t think we’ll see Jarad make any moves, as the Duel Deck made sure that even if he’s playable there will be plenty of stock to go around. If you don’t have your Nighthowler promos yet, grab them now. The card is definitely powerful enough, and the full art version is leagues better than the pack foils.

What may be the most interesting card here is Satyr Wayfinder. While he isn’t going to be a $4 common, this list is proof that he is definitely capable of helping enable an archetype. Be on the watch for more graveyard-friendly cards and strategies in Journey and M15. Whip of Erebos will be around this September as well. The seeds are sown for a graveyard deck. The question is whether or not Wizards will make it rain.

While Cincinnati certainly drew the biggest Standard crowd this weekend, there was in fact an SCG open as well. I see Courser of Kruphix in third place, and I notice his price is nearly $10. This guy is definitely legit. Expect to see plenty of him next year as well. He’s a Born of the Gods rare, which is good for his longer-term prospects. $10 is a tough point of entry, but if he slips this summer, jump on that.

Cliff has talked about it before, but I want to refresh your memories here. I recommend you read his article, as it’s digestible and useful. The tl;dr is that the draft format means that we are going to open way more Theros than either of the other two sets, and less Journey than either of the other two. This means Theros cards are the weakest in terms of speculation value, BOG cards will be acceptable, and Journey cards will be ripe for unexpected spikes. It’s tough for me to recommend going deep on any almost anything in Theros, but I think BOG should have a low enough print run that it’s safe to expect movement. Journey will be your best bet, but we aren’t quite there yet.

I’m not saying that it’s impossible for Theros cards to spike, just that there will be less of them, they’ll be harder to identify, and they may not go as high as you’d like.

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