Know What You’re Talking About

January 27, 2014 Jason Alt

I was on Facebook earlier this week.

Yes, I know; Facebook is terrible. Everyone’s parents are on Facebook and they’re reported to potentially lose 80% of their users and Zuckerberg just sold 3.2 Billion in Facebook stock; it’s a cesspool. I get it. It’s useful to join Facebook groups to engage with brands you like and find sales and trades and it’s fun to see who from High School got fat and went to jail. It’s also (sometimes) instructive to see what people are saying about cards. Some people think that they have to set the record straight when people are wrong about cards, but it’s really more useful just to sit back and see what different groups are saying.

This set is bad. I don’t think I’m shocking anyone with that proclamation. Not every set can be good, that’s an impossible standard. But no set should be this bad. There are literally 3 cards I care about and one of them I only want to get copies of because I can virtually guarantee it’s overpriced by 300% and I want to trade it out for cards that will retain value. I’ll give you a hint- it’s blue and black and it rhymes with “Den Hacks”.

Given that the set is bad, people are doing something very curious, which is to try and find nice things to say about bad cards they would normally skip. I actually think that’s a great practice, because people who play mostly standard tend to ignore about 90% of every set and focus on the 10 cards that are going to get played in Standard and they tend to miss the stuff with the most financial potential. I happened upon a conversation one day in a Facebook group that was discussing a new card that was just spoiled.

One succinct, one-word review proclaimed “EDH” as if to say “Boom. Nailed it. Moving on.” That would be a pretty good way to handle not spending too much time on a card that was clearly not going to see play in Standard. There was just one problem.

This isn’t really that great in EDH.

Card Analysis is Hard

Even pros get it wrong sometimes, but Standard players are generally about 95% accurate with their gut reactions to cards. Bad stuff is usually very obviously bad, limited-only stuff is generally pretty obvious as well. Good stuff can be even more obvious, and though some cards are initially under or over-rated, Standard players are usually pretty close. They know what they want to play in those formats and it’s easy to identify.

With more people getting involved in MTGFinance, it seems like every set there are fewer and fewer opportunities to make money pre-ordering cards from Standard. Sphinx’s Revalation was embarrassingly-low as was Angel of Serenity. I ordered Thragtusks for $5 apiece from eBay. Five. Actual. Dollars. Price corrections happen much faster because people are on top of it more and more each set. 50 copies of Pain Seer at $2 sold in minutes and the price was corrected very quickly. I am not convinced Pain Seer should be more than $2, but the people buying it at $10 a copy disagree.

With it getting tougher to make money by analyzing the cards from competitive formats it is even more important to learn how to analyze the cards from other formats. The person who gave Astral Cornucopia a dismissive “EDH” as if the card were a waiter who reached for his salad plate before he’d finished picking at it probably won’t lose any actual money by not correctly evaluating the card (and I likely won’t lose any if I’m super wrong and Cornucopia is just what people need to go from 9 mana on turn 6 to 13 mana on turn 7, thus winning all of the EDHs forever) he’s probably going to lose out on a lot of money eventually by failing to correctly evaluate EDH cards. If you see a card that is worse than Darksteel Ingot at 3 mana and worse than Gilded Lotus at 6 mana and say “EDH players will want this”, you should probably play a game of EDH, ever.

You Should All Play a Game of EDH, Ever

I’m serious. I was a very late adopter of EDH but I’ve seen the value in how playing it has allowed me to access an entirely new customer base. EDH players are way better to trade with than people who only play competitive formats. After weekends at SCG Opens where some competitive player would look through three of my binders and say “I’m pretty much only looking for Snapcaster and Boros Reckoner” I thought I would quit trading altogether. What I found when I traded with EDH players was that the amount of stuff they were looking for was way higher and they had no reservations about coming off of competitive cards. Having an EDH deck to play a few games will not only introduce you to those players, it may demonstrate the power level of certain cards you may be able to hook them up with to improve their decks.

EDH isn’t a joke. It’s not a fad. It’s not something to deride or dismiss. It’s a completely new card game that uses the same cards you already have and if you don’t know anything about it as a financier, you’re doing it WRONG.

Build an EDH deck. You probably have a dozen of each Commander 2013 deck, right? Bust one open. Jam some better cards in there. Evasive Maneuvers seems fun given you can generate infinite mana with the general Derevi, a Deadeye Navigator and a Gilded Lotus (or an Astral Cornucopia at X=3…maybe I was wrong about that card. No I wasn’t). Power Hungry is begging for you to jam a Parallel Lives and a Doubling Season in there and go to token town. It would take you 20 minutes and $20 to make a serviceable EDH deck with stuff you have in binders and boxes and you can trade for the rest. Once you play a few games, you’ll know right away what is good in EDH. You may have been playing since 1996, but you’re about to get humbled when you have to ask someone to hand you a Black Market or a Mana Equilibrium so you can read it.

Then, One Day, You’ll Get it

You’ll learn that you can never buy too many copies of Sol Ring at $2 or Gilded Lotus at $3. You’ll learn that Japanese foil EDH generals aren’t quite as liquid as you thought, but your group can’t get enough copies of Food Chain and Pattern of Rebirth. You’ll learn why it was a good idea to snap foil Sylvan Primordial for $1 the first week the set was out but not buy foil Chromatic Lantern yet. No article can teach you how to truly evaluate cards in EDH as well as playing a few games, building a few decks, meeting a few people who come to your shop every week but whom you’ve never met because they don’t play FNM.

You’ll also learn that there are different kinds of EDH groups, and while competitive players will not play a card like Astral Cornucopia, casual EDH players might. When games go a million turns, playing this for 15 to tap it for 5 may be what they want to do. That won’t drive the price up that high and won’t make this card suddenly a good investment, but it will let you know which kinds of EDH players might want this off of you. But how will you ever meet them if you don’t play with them?

Just like someone who plays Standard will recognize the immediate impact of cards like Brimaz, someone with a few EDH decks and some experience is going to correctly identify the sheer, awesome power of a card like Prophet of Kruphix or Progenitor Mimic and they are going to recognize that although a card like Astral Cornucopia looks durdly and mana-intensive, that isn’t a bad thing to every group . They’ll know that by having an understanding of the format, some experience playing and some decks built so they will know what their own specific needs are.

Also, once you’re building EDH decks and picking up cards to build with in the future or trade to your group, you’ll pay more attention to prices. I’ve made way more money picking up underpriced Vigors from competitive players who only cared about the ten cards that get played in Standard from each set than I have trafficking in Huntmasters and other cards with thin margins due to a low spread. I’ve had 10 copies of Thespian’s Stage disappear out of my EDH deck stock box in one night and had 10 sit unsold for weeks on TCG Player despite being the cheapest listing. You won’t have to ask twitter why Kami of the Crescent Moon and Wheel and Deal and Forced Fruition are quintupling in price because you will have seen the power of those cards in a Nekusar deck demonstrated and you will have stocked up before the big spikes.

Rather than handing out a few fish, this week I wanted to teach you to fish and in this case, learning to fish involves playing Magic. It’s not even going to feel like work.

Finance Quick Hits

Nekusar isn’t done making stuff spike. Any card that makes people draw extra cards and hasn’t been reprinted is a good target.
For the love of Heliod, didn’t anyone read Pain Seer?
Bitterblossom getting bought weeks in advance of the B&R announcement is a new trend. Don’t expect to be able to have a full shopping cart at 11:59 like you used to. I really don’t expect this (or anything) to be unbanned next week and I expect the price to tank back to where it was.

Casual Fridays

Five things Owen taught me in one match

January 24, 2014 Cliff Daigle

By: Cliff Daigle

At GP Sacramento last week, being 4-1 and having made several mistakes along the way, I sat down across from Owen Turtenwald, a former Player of the Year with several GP wins to his name. I tried not to be intimidated, but instead, I wanted to see what hints and tips I could glean from someone who makes a living playing this game. He didn’t disappoint.

We sat down, shuffled, presented. I gave my benediction of “May you draw mana in the appropriate ratio” (a phrase I stole from an old friend named Brian Smith) and he said “Good luck.” The gentleman next to me said, “That’s a great thing to say, to hope for good mana.” I said that I hate losing to lucky topdecks.

Owen said “It’s about sportsmanship. There’s no reason to be a bad sport.” And you know? He’s right.

Financial Lesson #1: Don’t be a jerk.

I’ve sort of been a jerk in the past in terms of trades. I’m a touch pushy, I’m constantly asking for trades, and right now, I’m dismissive of most things in binders. Mainly because they are of no interest to me or I know they are out of my price range. The point is, I can spare a moment and be more polite about things. It could only make things better.

In game one, turn two, he plays Stymied Hope to counter my turn two play of Tymaret, the Murder King. I said, “Has that been good for you today?” He smiled and said, “It’s been okay.”

Why on earth am I asking this guy if that card has been good? He countered my play and scryed, he’s maindecking it, he’s gotten full value – from me! – and I actually have to ask if the card has been worth playing? I recognize that there are situations where it would not be optimal. I imagine that if he’d had better choices, he would have been playing them. But all that said…it was there and it was very effective.

Financial Lesson #2: Believe the pros!

This applies all over the place. Owen Turtenwald doesn’t need to justify a card’s inclusion in the maindeck. Other financiers don’t need to justify themselves to me or to anyone. Heck, I don’t need to justify myself to anyone else. All I can do is listen to them or show others what I do, and let the rest of the world make up their own mind.

I get aggressive and bring his life down while trading creatures. Our boards clear, he plays a Keepsake Gorgon and I do the same. He goes monstrous on his and points to my Gorgon, to which I reply, “That’s an invalid target.” He blinks and looks at the text again, where it says “destroy target non-Gorgon creature.” He nods and looks at his hand again before passing the turn.

Financial Lesson #3: Don’t Panic!

I’ve never made a mistake with the aplomb he just showed me. I have a bad habit of cursing my fate to the heavens and questioning why Polis Crusher is the only Monstrous card that has an ability which triggers on damage being dealt. It’s my fault for not reading the card.
This applies in the financial realm as well. You’re going to be wrong about a card. You may well be wrong about large quantities of a card. When you’re wrong, accept that, figure out why you were wrong, and apply that lesson in the future. I try to do that, as I did with Primeval Bounty and the rest of M14.

So he’s got a monstrous Gorgon, while mine isn’t. We each play some creatures and rebuild the board. I need to get aggressive again, so I attack with my gorgon with monstrous mana open and with a Coordinated Assault in my hand. He makes some blocks, his gorgon blocking mine, and I monstrous to kill something else because it was a threat. Know what I didn’t do? Play the Coordinated Assault!

Financial Lesson #4: Think about your plan, especially if you want to change it.

Maybe you change your mind on a speculation. Maybe you’d resolved to hold for two years but find yourself waffling after just one. Maybe something happens and you decide to go all-in on one card.

Whichever avenue you take, be aware of why you’re changing your plan. Nothing is set in stone, but recognize if you’re making a mistake, acting hastily, or being irrational. It’s very easy to be irrational in the current Magic market, with a different card spiking every other day, simply because people think it MIGHT be good in the next set.

I attack Owen down to five and bring back the Murder King with lethal on the board. He calmly plays a Gray Merchant, casts Pharika’s Cure on Tymaret, and is comfortable at 11 now. He ends up taking that game.

So I’m following my plan of adding a third color and changing my lands and cards, going bigger: twelve cards in, twelve cards out. I stack up my deck and shuffle, then present. He does the same. When I look at my opening seven, there’s cards I know I sideboarded out. Oh hell.

I call a judge and ask if I can sideboard. It’s no longer a game loss, thankfully, but I’d like to go back to 40 cards. Unfortunately, I’ve presented my deck and that’s my deck for this game. I was too busy replacing the counterspell, the Gorgons, the Merchant, everything. I got sloppy and careless and ended up playing a 52-card deck with 23 land, losing after drawing eleven of them.

Financial Lesson #5: Pay attention!

So much is going on, with spikes and articles and counterfeits, that it’s easy to get distracted. It’s possible that while I’m at my day job, cards are going crazy in value. I have to prioritize, though, and focus on what’s important.

Things are no longer under the radar. In fact, we have access to a ridiculous amount of information. If you’re following several hundred people on Twitter, you won’t catch everything being said. Perhaps you should make a new account just for Magic-related tweets (including mine, @WordOfCommander) and assign your interests to different usernames.

I’d like to thank Owen for also telling me that I could still make Day 2 as a 4-2. I dropped after that round, mainly because I wanted to get some EDH games in, but also because I could feel that I was tired and making silly, sloppy mistakes. If we end up playing again, Mr. Turtenwald, you may well win but at least this time I will have more cogent questions and reasonable plays.

City of Traders

Let the Bodies Hit the Floor

January 22, 2014 Travis Allen

By: Travis Allen

Born of the Gods is nearly upon us, and all of you should know by now not to trade for cards during their prerelease period. It has been repeated a hundred times before, with greater elucidation than you will find here today. The tl;dr is that 98% of cards will lose value over time, so even if you get lucky and connect on the 2% that rises, you’ll probably lose way more money gambling on the rest of them.

In the process of X-0ing all your local release events, you’re going to end up with a bunch of singles. You’ll jam them in your binder ready to pawn them off on some amateur trader who thinks that Chromanticore will definitely see play (he’s quite certain.) But what exactly should you be taking in return? If you’ve read my recent article, you’ll know that I’m pretty down on a lot of Standard cards at the moment. If your trade partner doesn’t have any sweet, sweet Modern staples to trade for, then what should you take? You’re standing there with binder credit in hand, flipping through pages, wondering which two dollar cards you should be picking out. Let’s take a look some Standard cards that have probably gotten pretty comfy in binder sleeves that owners may be willing to ship away for very reasonable rates. Our goal here is to identify cheap Standard cards that are going to be in a lot of binders, that while rather uninspiring right now, have solid middle or long-term prospects that you can trade inflated BOG product for.

Angel of Serenity

Serenity is now available for under $4 from some vendors, which is kind of amazing given what things looked like seven months ago.

She hasn’t gotten any less powerful though, and making your opponent scoop up their Master of Waves or Desecration Demons is still just as good as when she was doing it last season. She’s even got a shot to see some solid play in Standard again before rotation, and if that doesn’t pan out she’s still an angel with an awesome effect. Angels are quite possibly the most popular casual tribe out there. A constructed-grade angel is going to be a great gainer long-term. If she shows up again in Standard you’ve got a winner, and if she doesn’t, as an angel there’s no doubt of a slow trend upwards over time.

Aurelia, the Warleader
Basically what I said above. Less likely to see play in Standard, but still an Angel with a cool ability at rock-bottom prices.

Chromatic Lantern
A $2-$3 card without any play in Standard whatsoever, Lantern is as low as it can be. You won’t lose money taking them, and a year from now they could make it to $5.

Crypt Ghast
Cards that double mana are popular with the casual crowd and the EDH crowd. (Those are separate groups, by the way.) For $2, he’s a safe bet. He can’t get any lower, and with the extort keyword, his reprint options are considerably limited.

Darksteel Forge

Forge used to be a bazillion bucks. It’s not anymore, but it could definitely work it’s way up there again. An easy choice at a dollar or two.

Deadbridge Chant
Chant hasn’t changed price in about six months, but that just means it won’t be going any lower. As a mythic from a relatively unpopular set, there’s plenty of possible upward growth. Even if it doesn’t start to climb, you probably won’t have any trouble trading away copies a year or two from now for $2. There’s basically no risk here, and while it may not be the best place to put your Magic money, if there’s only one guy in the room taking your Pain Seers for $12 you’ve gotta get something.

Galerider Sliver
$1 for a strict upgrade over the previous iteration. Slivers didn’t do much of anything this time through Standard, but they were never for us anyways. After how little people cared for them, I’m guessing it will be quite some time before we see them again. As a core set rare, Galerider could easily be $4 in a year or two. With how well the Modern can support a 5-color manabase for a tribal deck, Slivers have a non-zero chance of showing up there in a semi-competitive fashion. The ability to give your entire team evasion for one mana is pretty great in an aggro deck.

Master Biomancer
He will never not be several dollars, and could easily climb to double digits within two years. He’s hanging right around $5 right now, and I bet you could get them for $3 or $4 in trade. Plus, Biomancer is probably the coolest creature to pair with Master of Waves. (A man can dream.)

Necropolis Regent
A mythic vampire with a big body and a tasty ability that reads well to new or casual players. She’s also under a $1. There’s no way this doesn’t grow, even if only to $2.

Plasm Capture
I’m still a big fan long term. Mana Drain is no joke. Two for a dollar is the best rate you’ll see on this for a long, long time. If you don’t believe me that it’s popular, did you know foils are $4? That’s a good sign for long-term growth.

Prophet of Kruphix
Currently $2. Seedborn Muse is $10 and has been printed three times. Prophet has the bonus of potentially showing up in Standard too!

Savageborn Hydra
I bet you did not know this card is $3. That’s ok; most won’t. Hydras have historically been pretty popular, and Savageborn is in the upper half when it comes to power level. It could easily double within a year or so, and will probably be $10 in about two. You’ll be glad you had 15 or 20 sitting around at that point.

Sylvan Primordial
There’s no way this doesn’t start rising after rotation and not stop until its reprinted. If your EDH deck makes green mana, you’re probably casting this. At under $1, this is one of the safest choices on this list.

Worldspine Wurm
A humongous trampling creature that leaves behind three humongous trampling creatures when it dies. At $2, I don’t see this ever being cheaper. Stash it and be happy it’s $8 in a year or two.

Join me next week when I do my Born of the Gods full financial set review!

The Gilded Goblin

Spiking Cards – Round 2

January 20, 2014 Jared Yost

By: Jared Yost

The first round of spikes happened last month, and this month they just keep coming. Gee, the spikes for Magic cards aren’t slowing down anytime soon are they? Let’s break down last week’s spikes and see if the gains are for real, or if the hype train has derailed yet another card.

Summoner’s Egg

Usual suspect Travis Woo is the primary driver of this spike. You don’t have to take my word for it, he actually tweeted about it:

If you saw this tweet on Jan 7th, you might have been able to buy in early enough. Trying to sell into the next wave of buyers that think it can break higher than $4 in paper is another story.

If you missed out on this spike you are now asking yourself – is Summoner’s Egg the next Show and Tell in Modern? Let me answer that for you – No! It hasn’t even put up any real results! Through the Breach and Goryo’s Vengeance are a million times better than this card, and even they aren’t more than $10 and $12 respectively. Summoner’s Egg isn’t even in the same league as these cards. Sell any Eggs if you got ‘em; this price won’t be lasting long.

Fist of Suns

Huh, interesting that two Fifth Dawn rares spiked – just goes to show you how rare old sets are compared to recent print runs.

With less unbridled enthusiasm than Woo, the creator of the Fist of Suns deck Jan van der Vegt, who was championing the deck during Day 1 and ultimately finished 44th place, had this to say:

The freaking creator of the deck told people that it wasn’t any good, and it still went from $2 to $10! What the actual…. well, I am honestly lost for words here.

All I know is that the snowball to avalanche effect is the perfect metaphor for speculating in MTG these days. All it takes is one tweet or Reddit post to make a few deckbuilders salivate and start buying, then others check MTGStocks and see that the price is going up, and then these others decide to start heavily buying in. You wind up with a crazy price that in no way reflects the actual merits of the card.

Norin the Wary

Is this a joke? I’m happy to say it is indeed not. From the Magic Online classifieds to paper binders everywhere, Norin is now a $3 card. Why you ask? Take a look at this. Keen players noticed that this deck snuck 3x Norin into the build because gaining life, dealing damage, and pumping up your Champion of the Parish once every player’s turn is not too shabby. You can tutor him up with Ranger of Eos, get a bunch of Myrs from Genesis Chamber, and draw some cards with extra mana from Mentor of the Meek. I think we’re starting to see the beginning of a new archetype emerge in Modern. Soul Sisters has always been a deck, and this is just a new twist on that strategy.

His only issue is his Legendary status, which means that you can only have one cautious little Norin out at a time. Despite this I believe that this price has staying power, unlike those silly Fifth Dawn cards above. As of Friday, there were plenty available on TCGPlayer for $2.50. This price fairly represents his potential to make the deck a contender in the future. Keep an eye out on Norin, and if you like the deck I suggest you pick him up before the next potential spike that could occur closer to Modern season.

Cabal Therapy

How is Cabal Therapy, a card that already has seen a reprint twice (albeit rarer than most reprints,) an $18 uncommon? Well, I guess there are a few factors behind this gold rush – it has Flashback, which is a mechanic that is hard to reprint (plus we just had a set with Flashback,) the card name is very flavor-specific, and Judgment is a fairly rare set. These factors combined, plus the hype that drew attention to it Friday the 10th, made a lot of players anxious to quickly finish their Legacy decks.

I wouldn’t bet on Cabal Therapy keeping this new price – Wizards has shown they have no problem reprinting this card, and I bet in the future it could be in another supplementary product. Avoid buying into this. Sell or trade any extra copies you have at this point.

Market Theory – Analyzing These Spiking Card Trends

Over the past few months, cards good in theory yet without results have been spiking out of nowhere. I’m hardly a pot to call a kettle black, but come on people – you know who you are. This is just getting out of hand. More and more speculators are crawling out of the woodwork to make their fortunes on unrealized potential. I’ll let you in on a secret – I don’t really make that much on speculating.

Speculating on Magic in the way that most individual players engage is just like a person engaging with the stock market. What most people don’t know is that most individual investors underperform the market. Also, people seem to think very highly of themselves even if they aren’t getting a decent return from their investments. They even did studies on hedge fund managers, people whose entire job it is to make money from money. Guess what – not even these geniuses and brainiacs could outsmart the market, and their returns for the most part were “indistinguishable from zero”. That’s right, they worked their entire career and their gains were so close to nothing that they didn’t even register as a blip on the radar in the grand scheme of things. These are the so-called experts.

What does this all mean for you, reader? Well, it means that all of us need some self-awareness as to why we make the purchasing decisions we do. Maybe there is some emotional investment involved, where we pick up cards that scream cool to us, and convince ourselves that they won’t be going down. Maybe there are some people notice how few copies of a specific card are in circulation and see dollar signs. Maybe there is a secret consortium of card vendors out there, colluding with each other like OPEC to keep that oil money coming in… well, most likely not this reason.

Anyways, what this means is that in the long run you won’t be making much money from your Magic speculating. And that’s OK. Nobody really does, not even the market whiz kids. What you should be looking to capitalize on with your Magic acquisitions is a steady percentage increase from year to year by making smart buying decisions and timing the market correctly – something that takes a little bit of experience and knowledge to fully understand. Once you have the fundamentals down your pickups will start to reflect this experience and keep your binder full of relevant, relatively well-priced cards.

If I was to sum up the current frenzy of Magic speculating in one word, it would be “insanity.” Cards without a lot of results shouldn’t be jumping this high or this quickly. I’m not sure what can be done about this problem moving forward, though I think awareness about your place in the market as an individual speculator is as good a starting point as any. Sure, some of you probably made some decent money from a few of the cards I mentioned above – possibly even all of them. Remember though, in the long run the odds are against 99.9% of us. Players already complain quite frequently about the high price of cards, and adding fuel to the fire by buying up copies of cards that are only good in theory aren’t helping. I have a feeling that a lot of people will be burned by these spikes, and not just from the cards I mentioned above. There are plenty of examples that I didn’t showcase today (such as many of the cards related to a Nekusar.) Buyer beware, buy cards with care.

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