The Modern metagame has been evolving rapidly over the past couple of weeks with all the exciting new additions from Modern Horizons 2, with a bunch of new decks coming up alongside older ones being revived and updated. With the world slowly returning to paper Magic and in-store play, people are excited to play Modern again and that means there are specs to investigate and cards to buy!
Mishra’s Bauble
Price in Europe: €5/€8 ($6/$9) Price in US: $18/$20 Possible price: $30/$50?
The printing of Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar in MH2 has spawned quite a few different new decks, one of the earliest of which – featuring Feasting Troll King and Witch’s Oven to generate silly amounts of food and do unfair things – has been amusingly titled “Hell’s Kitchen”. Something else it’s done though is brought Urza and Emry back to the forefront of the format, where they used to be before both Arcum’s Astrolabe and Mox Opal were banned. The ‘Whirza’ deck and variants upon it dominated Modern for a while, and it seems like they might be back again to stay.
One of the keystones to decks like this are the cheap artifacts needed to generate value early and then combo off later with Asmoranomardicadaistinaculadacar and Ovalchase Daredevil, and Mishra’s Bauble has always been one of the top picks for that job. As such, TCG has been draining of copies very quickly, and both foils and non-foils are close to $20 already. It’s a different story in Europe though, with non-foils available from around €5 and foils starting around €8. This is some great arbitrage, but you need to hop on it fairly quickly before Europe catches on and those copies disappear too.
This is also a good time to go through any IMA or 2XM bulk you have lying around, because chances are you may well have some copies of this uncommon stashed away with the rest of those sets. Depending on how dominant this kind of deck becomes we may see something banned at some point, but until then I think we should have a decent amount of time to get in and out of this card.
Azusa, Lost but Seeking (FEA)
Price today: $20 Possible price: $40
Amulet Titan is another deck that fell off the ladder in Modern for a little while, but a seemingly innocuous little card from MH2 has given it new life once more. Abundant Harvest has given the deck an incredible new consistency that it sometimes lacked before, finding you the lands you need when you need them and even some Prime Times if you haven’t got a Summoner’s Pact handy.
But as good as it is, I’m not here advocating for Abundant Harvest to spec on – I want to look at Azusa, Lost but Seeking instead. It’s a card that has always been an integral part of Amulet Titan decks through their various iterations, enabling ridiculous amounts of mana on the very early turns of the game and potentially even helping power out a Primeval Titan as early as turn three (or turn two if you have double Amulet).
There are a few different printings of Azusa around now, but I really like the look of the FEA copies from M21 here. At only $20 they’re much cheaper than the Judge foils that have the same art but aren’t extended, and are already close to $40. The original Kamigawa foils are (and have been for a long time) very expensive, and the Commander’s Arsenal foils just…don’t look great. That leaves these M21 FEAs at $20 looking like excellent pickups now, as supply is starting to dwindle. It’s worth noting that this is a huge EDH card as well, in nearly 23k decks listed on EDHREC. Even if Modern doesn’t push this card as high as we’d like, EDH will get it there just fine.
Prismatic Ending (OBF)
Price today: $10 Possible price: $20
Now for a slightly more speculative pick to finish things off, I’m taking a look at Prismatic Ending – a card that’s actually from MH2 and not just influenced by MH2 cards. Prismatic Ending has started showing up in Modern control decks (control decks in Modern, you ask?? I know, unheard of), and I think it might be a card that’s here to stay.
Although an uncommon, the old-border foils of this aren’t exactly in high supply, and won’t be close to that of a normal uncommon. Even so, we’ve seen foil uncommons from MH1 cruise well over $10 and so for these OBFs I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to hit $20. There are so many problematic 1-3 mana permanents around in Modern that this deals with easily, without giving your opponent a land like Path to Exile does but still gaining the benefit of exile over something like Fatal Push (and the additional boon of not needing black mana of course).
This will probably be a longer hold, but I’m fairly confident that it will continue to show up in Modern control decks for quite a while to come as a nice catch-all.
David Sharman (@accidentprune on Twitter) has been playing Magic since 2013, dabbling in almost all formats but with a main focus on Modern, EDH and Pioneer. Based in the UK and a new writer for MTGPrice in 2020, he’s an active MTG finance speculator specialising in cross-border arbitrage.
One of the things that our ProTrader Discord excels at is helping each other maximize returns. I asked our members about how to use TCGPlayer effectively, helping people understand what TCG Direct is and why they may want to be part of that program.
I’ve edited the conversations and posts into more of a how-to guide. If you have questions, come to the General tab and ask away! People here are super helpful.
If you’re intent on reaching TCG Seller Level 4, which unlocks custom shipping options like ‘Free Shipping for all orders over $5’, then focus on flipping lots of EDH staples or other high-demand high-value cards. Note that your level is determined by how quickly you fill orders and your feedback rating.
Leveling up isn’t terribly difficult as long as you commit to one of three strategies: 1) put the effort into grading strictly 2) don’t do much grading or condition evaluation but accept that you’re going to take some hits along the way, including delays on your seller level 3) list your “NM” stuff at LP.
Once you have a high enough volume of sales (by value, not by number of cards sold) and a thoroughly stocked inventory, you can apply to become a TCG Direct store. This has many benefits, including:
1) Your TCG Direct sales get bundled into a single package you send to TCG. (saving you on postage AND time)
2) You don’t have to deal with ANY customer service issues for Direct sales. This is a huge time saver for you (i.e. not having to email with customers, do returns, etc.)
3) TCG Direct pricing tends to be anywhere from 5% to 30%+ higher than TCG Low. People pay for the convenience of a single package and the cart optimizer favors TCG Direct listings as well.
4) Your non-direct sales (as a Direct seller) will have slightly lower TCG fees than Level 4.
If you’re content to send just $20-$60 cards occasionally, you’re likely better off avoiding Direct.
Keep in mind that despite higher seller fees on a TCG Direct sale, the upsides more than make up for it.
While a TCG Direct seller, you must be strict with your grading. Be sure to check your cards with good lighting at all angles. For example: You have a card you think is a NM non-foil, with a tiny edge/corner ding or microscopic surface scratches. It should be fine, but they WILL ding you for mild surface issues or minor edge issues, especially before you get to Direct status. Better to be cautious in your grading, as buying a LP card and getting something with only a small ding feels pretty good. Buying something as NM and finding a ding that’s bigger than expected may end up being a return.
The penalty for sending in a card that’s graded to the wrong condition isn’t too terrible: they purchase a new copy on your behalf and charge you the higher of what you charged or what the new copy costs, so your net penalty is basically your fees. They send your misgraded cards back later, so if it’s a hot card, you might also lose out on an opportunity.
Because you’ve downgraded your items, or graded very strictly, you’re much less likely to get dinged on condition. Instead you’ll be making sure that your sales are executed as smoothly as possible.
Please note that you can get unexpected “normal” sales when TCG’s inventory runs out, as your direct listings fall temporarily to “nondirect” status. So you can’t completely avoid sending envelopes, and occasionally this results in having to ship a cheap card at a loss depending on your pricing and listing strategies.
When it comes to listing larger quantities of cards, one member suggests: “The ‘single package’ nature of TCG Direct makes it worth listing cheaper cards. Where you draw the line is up to you, but I personally price cards as low as 5c on TCGDirect because it’s more efficient for me to just inventory and list everything from my collection rather than trying to remember which cards are worth selling.”
Once you reach TCGDirect status, take note of their fee structures. Because of how TCG Direct fees work, you should generally never list a card in the $3 to $3.14 range or in the $20 to $22.42 range. You get charged fees that are higher than $2.99 or $19.99 if the card sells by itself.
Also, now that you’re a Direct seller, you want to adjust your pricing as it relates to the TCG Direct low, not the overall TCG Low. These are two different price indicators, and you should change these prices during your transition to TCG Direct. Specifically, reprice cards after you’re approved but before you confirm the change.
If you plan to apply for TCG Direct, note that TCG’s invoicing system orders cards by Condition, then by Set (generally newest to oldest standard sets, then supplemental sets), and finally Alphabetically. You can prepare for this as you build your inventory system and start sorting the same way.
Getting to TCGDirect status also unlocks the TCG Buylist. You can fund your buylist account with deductions from your payouts, or you can manually fund by talking to customer service. e.g. TCG holds your buylist money up front.
For TCG Buylist, you add cards similar to how you list cards for sale (i.e. by specific card, condition, price, and the quantity you’re willing to buy. Because TCG manages the inventory, cards always sell to the highest buylist price first, there’s no brand loyalty or any other way to accidentally get your lower buylist price to trigger until all higher prices are filled. Note that you can make a buylist as if you were a customer selling cards and see all of the open buylist offers from competitors. Checking manually can be worth it because sometimes there might be only one or two higher offers compared to yours. As a result, it may make more sense to lower your buylist offer to increase your chances of capturing a higher sale price.
For TCG Buylist the sellers that accept your offer will send cards directly to TCG. TCG will accept the shipments, grade them, and mark your buys as “confirmed” or not (e.g. condition not as advertised / seller didn’t ship) You can elect to pay postage once a month or on request. TCG will then ship you everything they’ve received up to that point . Buylisters should not expect a flood of cards all at once. Think of the Buylist as someone incrementally building up a collection for you.
TCG’s fee (in addition to postage) is a flat 10% of the buylist prices, with a minimum 10 cents per card. Please note that this fee may seem small but can really add up on the aggregate. Luckly, there are no taxes or other hidden fees.
Another thing to watch out for as a Buylister is that if a sale ends up being unconfirmed, your buy will immediately reopen, and you won’t be able to reduce the quantity requested. So say you ask for 10 copies of a card at $10 each, and get 10 buyers taking you up on it, you can’t adjust your “buylist” below 10 qty (and you’ll get no further buys at the time) but then if one of those copies “fails”, suddenly you’re back “on the hook” to buy another copy at $10. So you have to be on top of your buylist prices and make sure they’re prices you’re willing to pay even if it looks like you’re “fully sold”.
Some other quotes from our members about TCG’s Buylist feature:
“-The great thing about TCG Buylist is that if you have the best price, you’ll get the sale. Sellers cannot pick who to sell to, it defaults to the best price.
-You’ll get more hits on newer cards. Get your specs in early in the format. Older cards are very random crapshoots, but staples are reasonable odds. (anything someone would think “I should sell this to get some cash”)
– You need to decide whether you want to actively manage your prices and get into bidding wars, or pick a price you’re happy with and let the chips fall where they may.
– You will be charged to ship your purchases, and it happens automatically after a month of no POs. So you want at least enough quantity of buylist so you don’t pay $5 to be shipped one copy of Deathrite Shaman.
– In a similar vein, you’ll want to load up your withholding as you add more cards. When I go on a buylist spree I generally have to up my withholding to 100% for one or two payments to load in more cash. I’ve never had them directly deposit money but I know that’s also doable.”
“- remember that you will be charged 10% fee for each buylisted card, 10c minimum. (so price accordingly) But the shipping per PO is the only other meaningful cost. No tax. They’ll grade the cards as part of the process, and I’d say they’re 98% accurate but not perfect.
– I strongly recommend putting in a price for LP variants as well. You can often put in a lower price, and if someone sends in a NM card they deem LP, you might get a cheap auto-buy from the downgrade. Conversely, often people send in as LP to be safe and the cards are totally NM viable.”
One more member testimonial about their numbers for 2020:
“- TCG Direct fees were 26.5% of my total sales. (all fees divided by all sales, so bigger sales count more here)
– Fees on non-direct sales were 12.3%
– Adding in shipping costs, 17.9%
– Adding in materials costs as well, 18.4%
So TCG Direct all-in upfront cost is about 8% more expensive than a traditional non-TCG Direct sale. However,my Direct items regularly sell for at least 10% more than non-direct and often closer to 20%. The increased sale price and the time saved by using TCG Direct are huge.
Also note that the non-Direct sales would be +1.3% in fees if I wasn’t a direct seller, so if you’re doing a strict comparison to decide whether to make the jump, it’s 26.5% Direct vs. 19.7% Level 4.”
If there’s things that you’d like to contribute to this guide, drop into our Discord and let us know. This is by no means the definitive, all-encompassing guide, but the distillation of many members’ input and experiences.
Cliff (@WordOfCommander) has been writing for MTGPrice since 2013, and is an eager Commander player, Draft enthusiast, and Cube fanatic. A high school science teacher by day, he’s also the official substitute teacher of the MTG Fast Finance podcast. If you’re ever at a GP and you see a giant flashing ‘CUBE DRAFT’ sign, go over, say hi, and be ready to draft.
It occurred to me recently that perhaps the best way to judge reprint risk is to assume that Wizards has access to the same data that we do. I think that they do because of course they do, but also they sometimes remind us that they do.
If the first thing that comes to Gavin’s mind when someone asserts that a card needs a reprint is to check EDHREC, whether or not he understands how many decks 1% of every deck in the database is, it stands to reason he has checked EDHREC before. If there were some secret WotC way to gauge card adoption in EDH, would he have? Did he not because it takes too long? Does he not wanting the unwashed knowing he has access to better data? Or does WotC base their decisions partially based on EDHREC? I mean, that’s what I do, so like, on the one hand it’s cool that I’m doing a thing that people at WotC do also which means I’ve figured out the best way to do it, but also, yikes, a little?
If Wizards is operating on the same info we have access to, they might be basing what they deem is worthy of a reprint on raw EDHREC data. If Gavin is saying “only 1% of decks” play Champion’s Helm (3,450 in the last 2 years, or about 500 more decks than run Godsend, a $17 card) to scoff at the idea of Helm needing a reprint, what else doesn’t need a reprint in their estimation? There are a lot of cards that can live in a sweet spot of too niche for a set like Commander Legends which they insist on making draftable, isn’t a format staple, is too expensive to put in an EDH precon or is “only” in 1% of the half a million decks currently displayed on EDHREC. If they’re looking at EDHREC to decide what needs a reprint (or a sexy new retro frame), we should look at what they’re looking at to see what is hiding.
I’m going to start by heading to EDHREC, going to Top Cards from the dropdown and clicking on Last 2 Years. That will take you here if you can’t figure it out from that description. It displays the Top 100 by default, but you can click “load more” at the bottom, which is what we’re going to do. A few times. If 1% of decks doesn’t warrant a reprint, let’s see what’s hanging out around that number.
Does 5% of decks seem like a lot? Because here is what I found when I drilled down to 5%.
Second Harvest could probably use another printing, but maybe that’s just me. At this point, I’ve hit “load more” 5 times and scrolled down to the 500th-most-played card, Whir of Invention. We’re still in the territory of stuff that seems like it deserves a reprint, but we haven’t run out of good cards, yet.
Only 3% of decks.
Clearly we have drilled down enough, because it’s at 3% of the nearly 300k Blue decks on EDHREC that we run across a card that warranted a “The List” printing but not an actual one. They don’t seem that worried about a card that was flirting with $50 getting an actual reprint, so we should check a bit more in this area.
Training Grounds was on a great trajectory and it hasn’t been harmed overly much by the inclusion in “The List” printings, which is a relief. I think cards similar to Training Grounds are good places to park money – even if they do get a reprinting, it will likely be a The List printing, which we’ve seen knock maybe 20% off of a card’s price but still leave it on a mostly upward trajectory. What else reminds me of Training Grounds?
I found a few decently expensive cards in this category but they all overlapped with Modern in a way this does not. I think it’s possible something happens in Modern to break Training Grounds, but that’s less a repudiation of my thesis and more, I don’t know, a sick opportunity for people who had a playset of Training Grounds to make some quick scrilla? I think Aesi is on its way to $20 so why not ride the Serpent all the way to value city? The metaphorical city where you get value for your cards, not the furniture store.
There may just be too many of these to nail down a good version to buy. Do you get the $70 foil Mothra with the Godzilla treatment? The $14 promo pack foil? The $18 Extended Art non-foil (probably)? Cards Ikoria and after have some special consideration we need to take and maybe we avoid them until it becomes clear what the move is. All I know is that Luminous Broodmoth feels like cheating and it’s too cheap.
I don’t expect to find a ton of $50 cards down here in the sub 5% inclusion pile, but I also don’t expect this card to stay below $10 on TCG Player for much longer. This hits $20 if WotC continues to ignore it, and given how expensive it is to cast and how feel-bad it can be to very new players, this seems like it gets left alone. I want a brick of these.
After scrolling down a lot more, I came across the card that reminds me the most of Training Grounds so far.
Oh yeah, that’s a Training Grounds, baby. Look at the year it came out, the price, the “mere” 2% of Black decks. If they reprint this, it will be on The List and then so what? If they don’t throw it on The List, GOOD.
It’s suffering a bit of a post-Tergrid hangover, but who doesn’t want to catch it all cheap and easy on the rebound?
I like Quandary a lot, especially if the price continues to drop a bit due to the post-Tergrid glut hitting the market. The next spike will be even harder and I would like to have a bunch in hand the day it does. This is a brutal card, much too brutal to put in a lot of the precons where they reprint cards and yet it’s durdly, much too durdly for a set like Modern Horizons. It’s hard to reprint this, and with it being in “only” 7,000 decks, (albeit twice as many as Champion’s Helm), I think it’s pretty safe.
I’M NOT DUNKING ON GAVIN.
He wasn’t saying anything a lot of the people in the Pro Trader Discord don’t also say regularly. Without context, a card’s percentage or even raw number of inclusions doesn’t really mean anything, but if WotC has a better way of determining what in EDH needs a printing, they aren’t tweeting like it. I don’t think relying on this tweet from Gavin to make all of our financial decisions is prudent, but I think noticing that someone at WotC in a position to decide what cards end up in these products seeming to echo common sentiment that I have made a lot of money from knowing better than presents an opportunity. If the people in a position to reprint cards tell you they’re not going to reprint something, listen. Anyway, that’s my stupid article for this week, I hope you like it and I hope we make some money. As always, Pro Traders get a 48 hour head start before I even think about buying any of these cards. Until next time!
Magic Online gets a lot of crap for being a crap program. There are oral histories and big retrospectives on why the program is the way that it is, and the succession of issues that made it into the behemoth that it is. I don’t like the program personally, finding it clunky and irritating, but it has a big impact on Modern, Legacy, and even Vintage play, because that’s the only place people can play those formats online, and for real prizes.
Modern Horizons 2 is now legal on MTGO, and has made prices shift in some remarkable ways. Let’s dive in and see what has happened online, and what might happen going forward as prereleases happen in person and packs start to get opened for paper play.
Granted, this is only the first week, but MTGO tends to set the trends and try for a more ‘solved’ metagame. There’s a LOT of new fun things going on with this set, and this is not going to be a comprehensive list. Sadly, this will also be obsolete in a month, but if you’re looking to unload what you open at the prerelease or adjust your pre-orders, this is the spot.
Urza’s Saga (Up $25) – The preorders were for about $20, and I wouldn’t expect that price to hold given how much product is about to be opened…except that multiple decks are already using this as a four-of, and that’s before we get to the Commander applications. Amulet Titan loves the idea of a tutor for Amulet that can’t be countered and just happens to have the Amulet show up on turn 3, and then it’s Prime Time.
Affinity decks are hopelessly in love with this card too, and Affinity is going to put more cards on this list. All the steps in the Saga are great for Affinity, and don’t overlook that you’ll get two bites at the “make a robot” ability at step 2. Go find the Welding Jar, or the Signal Pest, or the Pithing Needle you need. It’s pretty silly.
For Commander players, the obvious play is to use it to find the Sol Ring or Mana Crypt, but pair it with Power Conduit and you get to search OVER AND OVER again, finding all of the trinkets you put into the deck. Yes, that works. Put the step 3 ability on the stack, and then use the Conduit to take a counter off. The ability resolves, and when it checks to destroy itself, it’s only at two counters.
Right now there’s a lot at $45 on TCGPlayer, and we’re still in preorder phase until the 18th. I expect to see more lists with Urza’s Saga this weekend, but this is a rare, not a mythic. It won’t hold at $45 once boxes are being opened, especially because there’s a lot of talk about it being banned. If I knew it wasn’t going to be banned, I’d be a buyer at $20 or even $25, but with that hanging over my head I just can’t do it. In six weeks, it might be as low as $20 again.
Thought Monitor (Up to $6.50 from $4) and Nettlecyst (Up to $3.50 from $1) – Affinity is playing a creature with actual Affinity for Artifacts! Stop the presses! There have been versions in the past that played Thoughtcast, but this is just amazing, getting a 2/2 flyer AND two cards for a single blue mana on turn three or four. Nettlecyst is not showing up as a four-of, but it does a credible job of being additional copies of Cranial Plating.
Nettlecyst has synergies with UW artifact builds that play Stoneforge Mystic, being another great target after getting the first Batterskull. In the right deck, with the right board, I can easily see Nettlecyst being a bigger threat than Batterskull. I even found an Emry deck that used Sai, Master Thopterist and Retrofitter Foundry (which Urza’s Saga can find!) to churn out the 4/4 tokens.
Territorial Kavu (Up to $5 after being less than $1) – With fetchlands, shocks, and Triomes, having this attack as a 5/5 is easy enough. The new Zoo lists aren’t playing Nacatl, but are making use of General Ferrous Rokiric as well. Bloodbraid Elf has never been so at home, and this deck alone might keep Scion of Draco from being a bulk rare. If the Kavu is a 5/5, the Scion is a 4/4 flyer for two that gives all sorts of bonuses to the rest of your creatures. The deck looks like a blast to play, and I want it to be good.
There’s also a few cards that have fallen hard.
Subtlety (down to $30 from a high of $70) – The ability to counter creatures is good, but there’s a lot of decks that aren’t willing to pay the two-card cost. Combo cards are rarely creatures, but there’s a chance this climbs up if the two-mana plays of Territorial and Scion really take off. This is mythic, and at full price it’s awesome to counter a spell and get a 4/4, but control decks aren’t going to play a lot of these when they could just be patient and cast Supreme Verdict.
Cabal Coffers (down to $40 from $80) – Coffers had spiked recently, and that really set the preorder price high:
However, this is going to rebound very well. I’m anticipating that it’ll sink down to the $20 range, and that’s when I’ll be getting as many copies as I can afford. We know how good the card is, and this is the first time it’s been available in large amounts. Whenever this stops falling, that’s your buy-in price, and like I said, I’m hoping for $20. Should it fall farther, I’m in for that many more copies, as this is casual gold.
Cliff (@WordOfCommander) has been writing for MTGPrice since 2013, and is an eager Commander player, Draft enthusiast, and Cube fanatic. A high school science teacher by day, he’s also the official substitute teacher of the MTG Fast Finance podcast. If you’re ever at a GP and you see a giant flashing ‘CUBE DRAFT’ sign, go over, say hi, and be ready to draft.
MAGIC: THE GATHERING FINANCE ARTICLES AND COMMUNITY
