Jason Alt, Unlocked ProTrader

Unlocked Pro Trader: More like BORE-Var!

Readers!

I would have liked to have talked about Orvar before stupid junk like this happened, but there was a lot going on over at EDHREC.

Don’t let the prices fool you – Whim is sold out everywhere, even when relisted at $8 or $9. It was a bulk rare last week, but Orvar, the All-Form made it pop off. Did we miss the opportunity to pick these up cheap? Sure, but we shouldn’t look at it as if we lost money. We missed an opportunity to get some money, but as always, the less obvious stuff in a deck like this takes longer to get scooped up and gives us ample time to plan our moves. So why didn’t I write about Orvar beforevar? Simply put, there were some doings happening at EDHREC.

Pardon Our Dust

EDHREC got a UI facelift and I think it will work even better as an analytical tool. Nothing we used before is gone but there are some new features that I’m sure I’ll go into at length in future articles. Focusing on launching a lot of new features sapped a lot of the site’s mental bandwidth and the scrapers weren’t working optimally for about a week. That’s normally not a huge deal, but during that week, we weren’t getting updates about how much Orvar was being played. Now that it’s fixed, we know.

It’s played a lot.

Sometimes people tell me that I make these pictures too wide so that the individual cards are too hard to read. You don’t need to read the individual cards, readers. I’ll zoom in if that needs to happen. What I want you to see is where Orvar is.

It’s the 5th-most-built deck in the set, right after Toski and right before Fynn (the poison guy). Orvar is popular and since that’s the case, the Whim of Volrath spike matters even less because if the deck has legs, there are other cards people missed. I found ’em.

Check out the Orvar page. A video should automatically play that tells you about the new features, and it’s worth learning about what they are. Once it’s done, you’ll see that Orvar is sort of boring. A lot of the cards are going in every single build, which bores me as an EDH player but makes me feel better about my investments as a financier. Usually when one part of my job makes me unhappy, the other half makes me happy to compensate. The money I made finding Necrogen Mists at an LGS for $2 makes me feel better about how stupid a deck Tergrid is and how much I hate that they made it. Let’s look at the obvious cards in a linear deck and marvel at how they’re still cheap.

Literally 24 hours ago, Card Kingdom had a bunch of copies, and they were cheaper than TCG Player. When a price is “wrong” like that, as we discussed last week, it’s worth noting. The “cheap” CK copies are gone, but TCG Player is still reasonable, and other sites haven’t quite figured out that this is in as many decks as Whim of Volrath and is just as reusable give its retrace ability. I don’t expect this to stay under $5 for long, and it probably goes higher.

Scepter bottoms out from reprintings, but always manages to rebound strong. This deck, in particular, makes use of a lot of cheap cantrips that have a lot of impact with Orvar out. Anything you imprint on Scepter is good in this deck, meaning there’s no reason not to run it because you don’t have to build around it. It’s always good, and with its price at a 7-year-low, it’s time to get serious about the scepter.

Can someone who knows about foils tell me if this is a good buy at $30? It seems like it is to me. I don’t love foils, as we all know, but this is a rare promo with unique art and the card is going to be played more than usual soon. With Scepter getting a lot of reprints in sets that have foils with its classic art, this is the better foil – I don’t care for the FTV one bit. If you like FTV foils, though, here’s that graph.

$13 for a foil that has flirted with $30 in the recent past. If you buy the premise that Scepter can see more play on the back of decks like Orvar, this seems like it has a lot of potential. It likely never gets cheaper than it is now.

This was on a rocket to the moon already, but in case you weren’t sure if the literal Sakashima deck was enough to help this recover from its Mystery Booster crater, here’s another deck that can’t get enough copies.

Tidespout stock is incredibly low everywhere. This is about to hit a tipping point and you’ll want to have some copies in hand when it does.

The copies from Battlebond are good, too. If I had one card I could buy this week, and I couldn’t find cheap copies of Glamerdye (my Pick of the Week last night) I really like Tidespout Tyrant. There are a lot of cards you can copy with Orvar, and a lot of them are either bulk rares like Scourge of Fleets or already the correct price like Torrential Gearhulk (unless you think it’s on its way up, in which case call it a bonus pick) but Tidespout is about to sell out and it’s nutterbutters in this deck.

When everyone decides there is exactly one way to build a deck, and it’s a popular deck, I have to push past the revulsion I feel as a self-proclaimed steward of the format and make myself feel better by stacking cabbage. Join me in buying obvious cards before they’re obvious to everyone else. Glamerdye is the exact same spec as Whim of Volrath, but one was obvious and easy to buy out and one wasn’t, so let’s do what we always do and make some money. That does it for me, until next time!

Casual Fridays

Early Kaldheim Prices

So the set is out on Arena and MTGO, and won’t be available on paper for another week. If you preordered, it’ll ship out on February 5, when the set is officially released in paper. We’ve still got a little time for prices to go nuts, but we’ve also got some preliminary data on what’s selling and what isn’t. Let’s take a look, shall we?

Reflections of Littjara

Reflections of Littjara (Currently $3) – First of all, this is available as an alt-art foil promo for those who purchase the Kaldheim bundle. I am very likely to take a stab at picking up a lot of those versions, as well as some number of regulars and FEA versions. This is an excellent payoff for tribal decks of just about any flavor, and the only problem here is that Legendary creatures are not always great to make copies of, depending on the enters-the-battlefield effects. This has trended down from a high of about $5 so far, and I completely expect it to approach bulk status. It’s not going to do much in Standard, and buying large amounts of awesome Commander cards is exactly where I want to be.

Cosmos Elixir ($4) – What’s notable about this is that it isn’t legendary. If you wanted to build a control deck and put three copies into play, you’d get three triggers. Lifegain is a popular theme in Commander games, and this does what you want, giving you the lifegain trigger or a card. I expect this to be an easy slot into whatever the next good lifegain Commander is, as Oloro is a bit too old to gain attention this way, even though it’s on The List. To be clear, I’m not buying these until they come way down in price.

The World Tree ($12) – It takes a lot to have a rare land hold a price higher than a booster pack. It’s got to have enormous appeal across several formats, and while I love what this offers to five-color Commander players, that’s pretty much it in terms of the potential market. The activated ability means that you can’t add this as free fixing in anything less than fully prismatic decks. As a counterpoint, EDHREC has more than 30,000 five-color decks in its database, and this is remarkably easy to slot into such a deck and feel pretty good. Still, this won’t hold $12 and will be lucky to hold $5. 

Esika, God of the Tree ($14) – Another card that’s five colors or bust, the attention is mostly on the flip side, The Prismatic Bridge. Every turn you get the first creature or planeswalker out of your deck, but the extras are sent to the bottom. No Polymorph-style tricks here. This is a mythic, so the price will stay higher for longer. I’m hoping that it gets down to the $5 range as no one plays it outside Commander, but being the new awesome card will probably mean $10 is a more realistic price point.

Mystic Reflection ($13) – There is a graph via Frank Karsten that shows the interaction between this card and Master of Waves. Do keep in mind that this reflects the total power on the field, not the number of creatures. 

Kooky stuff, and yes, it combos very well with a range of token makers, but the memes are not enough to keep the price this high. It’s possible to use this offensively, to turn their cool thing into some lame thing that’s already on the field, but really, wouldn’t you rather have a counterspell or an Ixidron to deal with that problem? This is going to drop like a rock, and if I could short sell a card this is the prime candidate. I have trouble imagining that it’ll hold a price above $3.

Koma, Cosmos Serpent ($8) – Again, this is a mythic so it’s got that many less copies out there, but this is a card that MIGHT be a singleton as a finisher in some Simic deck and that’s about it. There’s not a huge amount of Serpent synergies to exploit, whereas if this was a Hydra it would at least have those decks going. This is going crash hard, being bulk or nearly so in a couple of months.

Tibalt’s Trickery ($7) – Another meme card, but one with potential and it’s showing up with Violent Outburst and Emrakul, the Aeons Torn to work together and get the spaghetti monster on the field on turn 3. Basically, cast the cascade spell, and the only hit is a single Trickery. Then the Trickery starts flipping cards, and the only legal hit is Emrakul. It’s a glass cannon, but so are the new versions of Oops! All Spells and Charbelcher, so let’s not go throwing too many stones. If people want to play instant-win combos in Modern that require aggressive mulliganing and folds to hand disruption or a Censor. This will also be bulk status in a few weeks.

Image
courtesy of @MTGSodek

In Search of Greatness ($6) – This is a bad version of cards we already have. Hibernation’s End is the most reliable of these, as you pay the upkeep cost and then get something that size, no matter what you have in play. ISoG requires you to have something on the board, and then have something else exactly one mana more. The fail-case plan of scry 1 is a pretty lame gift, but at least we have that going. This can only ever cheat you ahead to something that you would have been able to play if you had drawn another land, and for this to be good, you’re going to need quite a string of fortunate events. Bulk rare incoming.

Alrund’s Epiphany ($3) – Finally, a card I’m planning to stock up on. Extra turns cards are generally very good, and some decks want to play every single one they can. Part the Waterveil comes with a 6/6 if you get it going, and two 1/1s is also nice for speeding up the process. This has alternate art as a Showcase, and when this is cheap (and it’s going to be quite cheap) I’ll be happy to pick up a couple playsets for very little down. 

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.

MTGO, OkoAssassin

Profiting From New Set Releases on MTGO

By Oko Assassin (@OkoAssassin)

Speculating on Magic the Gathering Online (MTGO) is very different than its paper counterpart, as explained in my overview of the MTGO economics system here. The boom and bust cycle of MTGO is rapid, sometimes occurring within a matter of hours. Additionally, users can short MTGO positions, an opportunity that is fairly unique outside of the stock market. This article discusses the release of new expansion sets on MTGO and how users can profit from repeatable trends that occur during a new set’s lifecycle.

Background

There are several ways MTGO users can profit from new sets being released, which are predictable and repeatable. Some provide a quick gain, while others take a longer buy-and-hold approach. This article will dive into each of these methods, which include:

·       Pre-Release: Short any reprints

·       Day 1-4: Purchase hyped, constructed playable cards

·       Day 2: Short garbage cards

·       Day 4-7: Short hyped cards

·       Day 7-30: Buy cards with proven tournament results

·       Day 30-120: Purchase cheap constructed playable cards

Pre-Release: Short Reprints

When a magic card is reprinted, the supply increases and the price falls, sometimes dramatically. This is a fairly simple economic concept that most magic players have experienced in paper over the years and the same phenomenon applies to MTGO. This is especially impactful on commons and uncommons, for example, see the dramatic drop that occurred when Mishra’s Bauble was reprinted in Double Masters.

An easy profit can be made by shorting cards that are reprinted. The first way is by shorting reprinted cards within the first 10-30 minutes after a reprint is announced. This will generate a quick gain, but you have to be very fast to take advantage of this approach. The easier way to profit is by shorting any valuable reprinted cards a day or two before the set release and then covering the short-sale 3-7 days after the new set release.

Day 1-4: Purchase Hyped, Constructed Playable Cards

Each time a new set releases, there are a small number of cards that are highly playable in constructed formats and naturally these cards tend to be the driving economic force on MTGO. As these new format staples are discovered, demand is always greater than the initial supply, creating a price spike for these new hyped cards. Tournaments occur on MTGO each weekend, so any card that is being played competitively is needed immediately, within a few short days after set release. MTGO tournaments attract only the most competitive players, many of whom have the motivation and means to procure these cards at any cost.

This trend has become even more prevalent as draft grinders have increasingly migrated to MTG Arena starting in April, 2020, when drafting against real opponents became possible for the first time. This is important because drafting is the primary way new supply enters the MTGO economy, with Treasure Chests to an important secondary source.

Cross-format play is the gold standard for any speculation that can drive amazing returns. While this seems obvious, identifying these cards early this can be more difficult than it seems. A recent example of this is Skyclave Apparition, which was initially available on MTGO for 1 tix, but quickly jumped to 10 tix, and then 20 tix, once it became clear this card was seeing 3-4x play in nearly all constructive formats. Most cards will not be quite so regal, so often a card will only see play in a specific format or two.

Modern is the most popular constructed format on MTGO, and thus it will often drive the most exceptional returns using this approach. In particular look for mythics that will be played as 4x in an existing archetype or are essential to a new combo, such as Heliod, Sun-Crowned/Walking Ballista. Players love new tech and will pay a premium to try it out. Scourge of the Skyclaves is a great example of a card seeing 4x play that slotted into an existing archetype.

Standard is also relevant for the few weeks of set release too, despite it being fairly irrelevant normally on MTGO. Wizard of the Coast’s new F.I.R.E. design philosophy has led to many new cards being absurdly broken, leading to new cards dominating the standard format, followed quickly by subsequent bans. This dominance leads to significant price increases on MTGO. A great example of this phenomenon was Lukka, Coppercoat Outcast, which increased dramatically in price as it caught on in Standard before Agent of Treachery was banned. Eventually Lukka began seeing play in Pioneer as well, but that did not fuel this initial demand.

An unusually high number of cards from Zendikar Rising fit this template – with Scourge of the Skyclaves, Omnath, Locus of Creation, modal double-faced mythic lands, all increasing greatly in price during the first week of the set release. More recently during the (non-standard legal) set release of Commander Legends Hullbreacher spiked up to 120 tix due to seeing play in both Legacy and Vintage.   

In summary, a large profit can be made during the first 1-4 days of a set release by identifying what will be the new hot thing by following hype and results on Twitter, CFB/SCG articles, podcasts, and hype. This approach comes with a significant risk too because most MTGO cards fall in price following set release, so recognizing the difference is key to success.

Day 2: Short Garbage Cards

Many cards are expensive upon set release simply because they are in short supply. Strong profits can be made by shorting garbage mythics and rares as soon as they become available – in hopes that their price will plummet after a few days of drafting leads to a glut of supply. I define a garbage card to be a card with limited constructed value.

This approach requires magic experience and strong analysis. Some cards can be easily written off, but then take off like a rocketship after getting discovered. For example, Omnath, Locus of Creation started at 10 tix, but it quickly became the new hot tech in standard, causing this card to jump to 70 tickets in a few short days. In contrast, Sea Gate Stormcaller had a lot of hype, but fell from 25 tix to 5 tix in just a few days. Speculators should short cards that lack potential or are overhyped, while avoiding cards with significant potential.

Day 4-7: Short Hyped Cards

The same cards that can be profitable to buy in the first few days after a set release can similarly be profitable to short once more supply enters the market and/or demand decreases after the first weekend tournaments. Going back to the Omnath, Locus of Creation example, this card peaked at 70 tix three days after set release. Over the next 6 days Omnath fell to 22 tickets. Similarly, Teferi Master of Time fell from 50 tix three days after set release to 28 tix only three days later. This trend is fairly cyclical and reliable. Profit from it by shorting at the peak hype pricing and covering a few days later for a gain.  

Day 7-30: Buy cards with proven tournament results

After the first week, price movements pivots to being defined by cards that have proven themselves during weekend tournaments, and to a lesser extend, the daily 5-0 lists, and preliminaries.

There are many recent examples of this including Mazemind Tome (.04 to 4 tix), Skyclave Apparition (9 to 20 tix), Fiend Artisan (13 to 25 tix), Lukka, Coppercoat Outcast (3 to 25 tix), among many others. Each of these increases occurred not because of speculation, rather because these cards were proving themselves in tournaments. Most cards fall in price during the first 30 days because of the massive amount of new supply coming into the market from drafting, so these cards are an exception to the general trend. During this time period aim to only invest in cards like those listed above that were under-estimated at first but have been proving themselves in weekend tournaments.

Day 30-120: Purchase cheap cards with potential

Cards can get really affordable on MTGO, even very good cards. This is especially true for rares, but can also be true of mythics. An example I often think of is the Throne of Eldraine (ELD) land cycle, which hit a low of .10 tix per land about one month after the set’s release. The ELD lands were clearly good – with a lot of long term potential. Yet they could be bought 10 for 1 tix. That’s crazy! At this moment, the cheapest castle is .3 tix, while the most expensive is 3 tix. This means if you would have bought 100 copies of every castle, it would have cost 50 tix and the net return would be 300 tix for Castle Locthwain alone.

While many desirable cards won’t be this cheap, over the last year you could have gotten great deals on staples that were destined to succeed. For example, at some point between 30-120 days after a new set release you could have gotten Shark Typhoon, Bonecrusher Giant, or Murderous Rider for 1 tix. Or for 2.5 tix you could have gotten Klothys, God of Destiny or Lurrus of the Dream-Den.

Identifying these opportunities requires skill and experience, but hundreds of tickets can be made if you’re able to identify undervalued cards that are likely to increase in price once supply is cut off.

Closing Thoughts

MTGO speculation is defined by identifying and exploiting patterns and data. This framework aims to provide several patterns that apply generally to each new set release. Think of them as guidelines rather than hard and fast rules and for the greatest results, research, research, research.

The Collector, Unlocked ProTrader

How To Fix Your Dry Curled Magic: The Gathering Foils

2 Comments

By: Jeremy Lee 

One of the most frustrating things for Magic: The Gathering fans in recent years has been the frequent printing of foil Magic cards that seem especially prone to curling beyond the point where they could feasibly be tabled, especially for competitive play. 

The hyper popular set Commander Legends is a fantastic Magic set, full of staples both new and returning.  It’s full of EDH staples and the new etched foils for the commanders look great in my opinion.  However, there is a common complaint about the quality of certain CMR foils, specifically the standard foiling on regular and extended art cards. The major problem is that CMR foils can become dry and curl, especially if you live in a low humidity climate, home or place of business, turning your new cards into the shape of Pringles.  Fortunately there is a technique you can use to revive your curled foils that takes only a few minutes of effort and a little patience.

To uncurl most foil Magic cards you’ll need to raise the moisture of the card which you can do in a homemade “hydration chamber”.  The technique is straightforward:  create a small space with high humidity to rehydrate the card, remove it, then flatten it overnight to reshape it.  

Do keep in mind that foils placed in a higher humidity than they were manufactured will tend to curl in the opposite direction to those which are moved to a dry environment. Cards in this condition require a different technique to dry them out (and is a topic for another article).  You can tell which technique you need by the way the card is curling:  if the sides of the card curl away from you when you’re looking at the front of the card it needs to be hydrated, not dried out.  

It’s important to note that while I’ve used this technique successfully on two dozen cards, you will have to experiment a bit to find the right timing for your environment.  Start with cheap common foils from the same set/box and work your way up to the more valuable cards from the same set/box as you perfect your process.

No one wants their fancy foils to be curled unto unplayability.



Here is a solid starting point for most rehydration operations:

  1. Grab an old to-go container or Tupperware tub (any glass or plastic box, preferably something with a see-through lid)
  2. Lightly wet a single paper towel until it’s damp and line the bottom of the box with it
  3. You’ll need to make or find a platform for your card – I use the plastic top off a pencil case.  The only requirements are that the platform is flat, waterproof, and preferably has a lip around the sides so the card can’t slide off  
  4. Set your platform down in the middle of the hydration box, put your card on it, and close the lid
  5. Wait 30 minutes and check on the card.  If it’s in a halfway curled/uncurled state (ideally it will look a little wavy) that’s the sweet spot I’ve found.  If it’s still curled give it another 30 min
  6. Be mindful that your lid isn’t dripping water on the card – it shouldn’t be so humid that water is condensing and dripping from the top.  Once you’ve used the hydration chamber a few times (or opened and closed it a lot) you might need to rewet the paper towel
  7. Depending on how dried out the card was it’s hard to give exact times, but I’ve never had to wait more than 60 min.  Your climate may differ and take more or less time.  Note that It won’t look “perfect” in it’s rehydrated state, it will look wobbly but the flattening comes later.  If you overhydrate the card and it starts to curl towards you – the opposite of what you were trying to achieve – don’t panic.  Even in that state you should be able to leave it out for a while until it loses enough moisture to proceed to the next step
  8. Once you’ve gotten it to a state that’s somewhat flat and wavy, leave it out for about 10 minutes so it can acclimate a bit to your air (definitely let it “dry” if the surface of the card looks damp) then slide it in a sleeve and press it under a heavy book overnight
  9. Note: If you notice that your cards begin to curl the other way, you’ve gone too far, and will need to dehydrate the cards instead, a process we will cover in a future article.
  10. Note 2:  If you find yourself needing to hydrate a lot of cards – or that you need to do it frequently – you should consider investing in some humidity control packets used for cigar humidors.  These last a few months each, cost less than $20, and can be found online.  Same approach applies to the steps above, but replacing the towel for the humidity control packet and waiting a day or two instead of an hour

Here’s a quick video of what my hydration chamber looks like: 

After this method and a night under a heavy book your foil should be as flat as the day it was printed!  Now get it into another sleeve and into a perfect fit sleeve, penny sleeve and a hard plastic toploader so it stays that way. 

Major thanks to fellow ProTrader Alexis who suggested this technique!

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