Modern Horizons 2 has been live for a week, and we’ve got some price data to look at. Some things are rising, most of them are falling, and right now, it’s quite possible for a $350 Collector Booster box to yield $600 or more of retail value. There’s always been chances for things like that, but there’s a lot of pricey cards still to go in the set.

Let’s take a look at some of these price movements and see what’s real and what’s illusion, as well as decide what to do about it.

Fetchlands (Down about 20%-30%) – Let’s call up the graph for the least-sought-after version of the least-used fetchland: Arid Mesa from Modern Masters 2017:

Pretty clear stuff. In April, this was $45. Now it’s $30. Perhaps, though, that’s because it’s a reprint, or a non-blue fetchland. So here’s Scalding Tarn, from OG Zendikar.

Also down, but to $60 from $80. I like comparing these because they reflect a trend, one that’s happening to all the ones that look the same except for the expansion symbol: They are on the decline. This is the first large-scale printing of fetches since the allied ones in Khans of Tarkir, and while MH2 is not to that scale, it’s going to cause a big dent in prices. 

I’m not sure what the bottom is for the fetchlands, but I feel VERY confident in telling you to get ready to buy. Forgotten Realms has a release date of July 23, and that’s probably about maximum supply on this set. I suspect most fetches will have fallen a little farther, especially as people try to recoup their $350 by getting what they can as quick as they can. Tarn from this set is available under $50 right now, which looks tempting, but if they can fall to that price, then $40 is an option too. Keep an eye on the new TCG feature showing you the most recent sales, that’s a very useful tool for something like this.

Note that Mesa is currently flirting with $25, and I’m pretty comfortable letting a few of those into my wallet at that price. If nothing else, fetchlands are gold when trading with other people, if that’s something you’re comfortable doing. I respect patience as a plan, but price memory alone is going to keep any fetchland from going under $20. It took being in Khans, and then in a widely sold Clash Pack, as well as being the least-played fetchland, for Windswept Heath to go under $15.

Garth One-Eye (Down to $4 and still falling) – It’s rough to be a mythic in some of these sets, and while what Garth does is pretty cool and potentially powerful, he’s a nostalgic meme. As a five-color legend, he’s quite generic in his skillset and he can never ever get better. Kenrith is a much better choice as your generic 5c Commander because if you had a ton of mana, you could play him, and then use abilities. Garth will have to wait. Poor Garth will be bulk in a month. Stay away until then (and then feel free to pick up a brick of bulk-price mythics).

Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer (up to $70 after being down to $55 after being a preorder for $80) – This monkey is leading us all on a merry chase up and down the rankings and the price tables. There’s a whole lot of cool things to be done with Ragavan, and while my impulse is to offer the path of patience, we’ve seen the drop and then the recovery so far. Because of what he offers, Ragavan shows up as a four-of and no one messes around with shaving their one-drops. There’s a variety of decks wanting to use this card, from Delver-style ‘play a one-drop and ride it all the way’ to multicolor aggro builds seeking to abuse Mox Amber. The price dropped early, as expected, but there’s a whole lot of people buying this up for its uses, and probably not Commander players either.

History tells us that this price has to go back down in the next few weeks, but the great unknown is how many packs are getting cracked outside of the big distributors and Collector Boosters. If stores were all open and regular copies were flowing, I’d say this would drop to $40, even as the most popular mythic. There’s too much retail value in this set for it to stay where it is, frankly. If you’ve got an $80 mythic, and a whole bunch of $30 rares, that just will not stay the case. 

There is an event this weekend in Florida, the TCG Con, and that’s the first big in-person event I know about. It’s got a $1000 Modern tournament, but that’s not enough to keep these prices high. I expect Ragavan to come back down to $50, I just can’t say for sure how long that will take.

Dragon’s Rage Channeler (up to $5, foils at $9) – This is an uncommon, and has no special frame, so there’s just two versions to discuss. It’s both better and worse than Delver of Secrets, but the big game for this card is in the first line of text, giving you control over the top of your library every time you cast a noncreature spell. It’s already adopted by assorted UR lists, and I expect this to be in the discussion for Burn decks eventually. Is this Delirium ability better than Prowess, and if not, does the Surveil 1 make up for the loss? As an uncommon, there’s a lot out there, and for the moment, you should sell these as fast as you can. Long-term, I’m likely to move in on foils, since you get two foil uncommons per Collector Booster, but for the moment you should be selling.

Urza’s Saga (Down to $30 from a high of $60) – A really wide variety of decks are trying this out, and it’s going to be popular in Commander for a while too. That’s a formula for success, long-term. The question is, will you be able to get this for $25 or less before the price climbs back up? Banning the card is also in the discussion, considering the impressively broken things it can do. Seeing a list of decks, from Jund to Whir Control to Hammer Time and even Lantern Control…there’s a lot going on with this card. 

I’m going to step out on a limb and say that this won’t get banned before the end of this year, and that $25 will be the floor. Being useful in a lot of different decks is good but not necessarily broken. I think it will get banned in Modern when some other incredible combo piece gets printed, but that hasn’t happened yet and people haven’t abused the card too terribly as yet.

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.

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.