Tag Archives: Grinder Finance

Grinder Finance – Weathering the Eldrazi Winter with Standard

February 23, 2016 Jim Casale 10 Comments

cardart_OGW_World-Breaker — World Breaker by Jaime Jones

Yeah I don’t know if I agree with that idea. Eldrazi are like a cold front that rolled in for a month or two and will probably roll out when Shadows over Innistrad comes out in April. But in the mean time, you can play this sweet Standard format, right?

Standard hasn’t been a featured format on weekend coverage for 3 weeks so not much head way has been made in the largely Rally dominated format. That being said, there are still plenty of things we can do to prepare for the next format.

Generally at the start of Standard formats (ie right after a new set has come out) decks will add new cards to an already existing archetype until someone comes along with a completely new look at the format. We can take a look at some of the most popular standard decks right now and see which largely survive rotation as those will be ready to go out of the box.

Dead

If you play 4 Color Rally, Mardu Green, Jeskai Black, or any flavor of Abzan your deck will likely not survive in its current form. Without the powerful 3 color cards and Khans of Tarkir fetch lands it’s hard to see any world where they could. If you want to avoid the Eldrazi Winter in Modern I don’t suggest building these decks unless you already largely own the deck. Personally, I decided to play Rally since I owned all of the cards for the deck except for Rally the Ancestors and Grim Haruspex.

On Life Support

Atarka Red is a deck that is losing a lot of its support for “go wide” strategies and its combo kill. Monastery Swiftspear, Hordeling Outburst, Become Immense, Temur Battle Rage, Wild Slash, and their heavy fetch mana base are leaving. While most of those cards are not particularly expensive the deck will need to find a way to replace those token makers or give it a lot of raw power to keep competing. I won’t say the deck is dead but I wouldn’t invest a ton into it expecting it to be a player in the next Standard.

BR Dragons is a deck that while is only two colors has some pretty heavy color requirements. Grasp of Darkness and the double red creatures are not very easy to cast with only 2 lands for fixing. This deck is definitely going to be more alive than Atarka Red due to the raw power of it’s cards but it may be a misstep to play a deck without any of the manlands next Standard.

Bant Collected Company decks might seem like a weird deck to put here. Its heavy reliance on a fetch and battle land mana base to support it’s 3 colors makes me question how easy it will be to cast Deathmist Raptor along side Reflector Mage in April. This deck might morph (no pun intended) into a deck closer to a G/X deck with a light splash. I wouldn’t be surprised if it dropped most of the white spells in favor of being the only Jace and Collected Company deck. With that in mind, I’m not super interested in buying into the Deathmist Raptor part of the deck. If there are very strong graveyard decks it is likely that there will also be very strong graveyard removal cards (which we currently don’t have). On the flip side, if we get more cards like Satyr Wayfinder again, it makes Deathmist Raptor a lot better. I think you should go with your gut in this instance because I’m not sure which is right.

Best Value

cardart_OGW_Ruin-In-Their-Wake — Ruin in their Wake by Jason Felix

Standard in April will have 4 sets from the current Standard. Two of them (Dragons of Tarkir and Magic Origins) will rotate out in September with the release of the unnamed next block. The other two sets (Battle for Zendikar and Oath of the Gatewatch) will survive until the following April. There is one deck that is reasonably good in Standard now that is largely made up of cards from the most recent block.

G/x Eldrazi ramp decks ill be good in some flavor. Maybe they will be Red and play Chandra, Flamecaller and Kozilek’s Return. Maybe they will be green and colorless using Wastes to power out Ruin in their Wake. Either way the bulk of the core of the deck survives for some time. The exception to this, being Nissa’s Pilgrimage and Explosive Vegetation which leave in September. This deck is pretty heavy on Mythic rares which means it could become VERY expensive if it is a clear leader in the next Standard. World Breaker is a very affordable $7 on TCG Player right now and will likely be a key part of anything Eldrazi. If going a little bit bigger is more of your thing, Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger can be found for $19, Oblivion Sowers are under $5, and Kozilek, the Great Distortion is a surprisingly low $7.50. Now that I think about it, I’m almost interested picking up Kozilek at $5 cash purely to hang onto for a few years.

As far as rares, it seems like the base of Sanctum of Ugin and Shrine of the Forsaken Gods will be good for 15 months. I’m finding it hard to figure out a better way to spend $8 than to buy those two sets of lands. The worst case scenario is you lose $8 but we can see from battle lands and manlands (like Shambling Vent) that Battle for Zendikar rare lands can support a higher price tag.

Oath of Nissa is another card that might be poised for a big up tick in play. It’s legendary which means the 2nd one you play puts an enchantment into your graveyard. This is relevant for the new Delirium cards. The other thing it does is make it a lot easier to cast Planeswalkers. Right now mana is really good so that doesn’t matter that much but when our mana gets much worse it may be relevant. All 7 of the Standard legal planeswalkers from Dragons of Tarkir, Battle for Zendikar, and Oath of the Gatewatch have 2 colored mana symbols (with 3 of them being different colors). While I won’t say you should buy out your local shop of Oath of Nissa, I would advise getting a personal playset before they get too expensive.

Final Thoughts

Drana, Liberator of Malakir and Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet are two cards we might see an uptick in use come rotation. They have relevant creature types for Innistrad. Last time we got lords like Stromkirk Captain. I wouldn’t rule anything out for them.
While there are not many Zombies in the last year, Risen Executioner and Sidisi, Undead Vizier are two cards I would look at if there are Zombie tribal themes coming out of Shadows over Innistrad spoilers.
If I was a betting man, I would say we will see Eldrazi Temple on the Modern banned list in April.

Grinder Finance – Analyzing Buyouts

January 4, 2016 Jim Casale 18 Comments

Right? The price of the winning deck at the SCG Standard Classic in Cincinnati was $555. Two of the decks in the Top 8 cost about $200 and weren’t a red aggro deck, so we’re making some progress. But that’s not what people are really up in arms about anymore.

It feels like everyone is all of a sudden surprised that cards started going up in price again. With the announcement that SCG Cincinnati was the LARGEST Open in the history of SCG with over 1,000 competitors, I’m not surprised. Oh, it was also a Modern Open. Sorry Legacy fans, I don’t think this is your year.

Why calling price increases a buyout is bad

The reason cards go up and stay up in price is almost never due to buyouts. It’s so impossibly hard to buy enough copies of a card to control the market price due to sheer volume.

What's not happening — What’s not happening

Nobody is getting rich off of artificially inflating the price of cards by buying a large amount of the market. Eventually you have to find someone to sell them or you might end up just losing money. The reason cards are increasing in price is either due to increased demand or dwindling supply. Let’s take a look at some examples and figure out the difference.

Increased Demand

Steady as she goes then boom. If you have been keeping up with the Eldrazi in Modern, this has been a “deck” for like a month. Some people won’t buy in until they see it on camera so you had time to get in cheaply. Actually even very recently. I don’t buy cards to get a quick buck but I had identified this as a problem early.

Let’s take a look at the 10th place finisher at the SCG Open this past weekend here. Oh hey a deck that plays more than 1 Eye of Ugin and a full set of Eldrazi Temples? The deck is also fairly cheap if you don’t include the $200 spent on the two (theoretically unnecessary) Liliana of the Veil. Hell there is an even more budget version of the deck (here) that plays a mono-black shell and some more Standard legal bulk rares to beat people with the power of Eye of Ugin and Eldrazi Temple. The reason we’re seeing spike here is due to REAL demand. If a few thousand players buy 3-4 copies of Eye of Ugin and 4 copies of Eldrazi Temple people will notice and prices will increase. It’s clear vendors feel this is a real price increase because buylist price jumps follow almost immediately.

But what happens from here? Well other cards are going to get more expensive in the deck as people start to build and play it. I’d recommend working on the harder to find cards like Inquisition of Kozilek and Relic of Progenitus and then getting the cards with Standard demand (like Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger and Oblivion Sower). But please don’t go on twitter and decree that MTG finance is the reason why you can’t build the deck for pennies on the dollar now. If anything it’s MTG finance that is keeping the retail stores on their toes and keeping the market fluid. We may see a drop in price in the next few days as more copies enter the market but I don’t see a return to pre-spike prices and that’s okay.

Low Supply

These are not buyouts. They’re not caused by a nefarious group of people trying to make Séance happen. It’s clear from the graphs that multiple months of increasing buy and sell prices has just hit the “bubble” where a small increase just doesn’t get the product flowing. Both of these cards are from Lorwyn Block and Glen Elendra only had a tiny reprint in Modern Masters. Eventually vendors or TCGPlayer reach a breaking point where they will violently increase both prices because the market is demanding it. This can look like a buyout because if there are 12 copies on TCG player and none in stock at retail stores it causes people to panic buy. The reality of these spikes is they will be back down a little in the next few weeks but they will never be their pre-spike price. This sort of price correction is really the wakeup call that leads a lot more supply to the market and is generally healthy after the first day of markups.

How to react to these price increases

Don’t panic. Please whatever you do, don’t panic buy cards. If anything goes up over 200-300% in one day it is so hard for it to stay that high. Just wait a few days for the cheaper copies to reach vendors and then you can pick up your copy for less than the buying frenzy prices. If you buy into hype you only become the greater fool and end up losing the most money. That’s pretty much the definition of anti-value, so don’t do it!

If you’re trying to save money for cards then watch price trends. Standard cards flat line in December and then pick up again at the beginning of the next year. If the card you’re watching is going up $0.20-$0.30 per day (which is hard to really see) then you are better off buying in sooner. Sometimes there is buyer’s remorse if a card gets reprinted but you stand to lose so much more money by waiting that it’s silly to wait too long in a lot of cases.

Cards to keep an Eye on

Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger had 12 copies in the top 32 of SCG Cincinnati. That’s a lot of a Standard Mythic at a Modern event. Ali Aintrazi (affectionately known as Ali Eldrazi) even went so far as to play three Ulamog and zero Emrakul.
Spellskite is 100% going to be an “oh shit I wish I bought this card earlier” card this year. It’s only gone up since the reprint in Modern Masters 2015 and I don’t see it getting printed again soon.
Literally anything in Modern. There is another Modern Open in Charlotte next weekend and then three weeks later is the Modern Pro Tour. This hype train has a long track ahead of it to gain steam before more things explode in price like Scalding Tarn.
We may see some weird prices on the weekend with no events. There is no event (GP or SCG Open) the weekend after the Pro Tour. It will be interesting to see what happens to cards that weekend.

Jim Casale

Grinder Finance – A New Frontier

December 29, 2015 Jim Casale 4 Comments

Last week we looked into the year that was. This week I want to take a look at the year that may be. This year will be uncharted territory for the Magic community and especially for MTG Finance. There have been golden rules related to the time of year. There was one rotation per year in September and the summer before ushered in a huge sell off in the oldest Standard cards. Now we have two rotations, once in September and one in April. How will that affect the normal trends of card prices? There is also another elephant in the room. There isn’t significant growth in the size of the player base. For the past year it has been pretty clear to me that Wizards is trying to sell more product to the same number of people. This may have some impacts on otherwise “safe” picks from the past year’s standard.

We learned about the new rotation over a year ago. Let’s revisit it to refresh everyone’s mind.

Source http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mm/metamorphosis

This is the old rotation. Blocks were 3 sets and then a core set was released and then the following set caused a rotation. This meant that fall sets had 2 years in standard and that amount of time decreased until the core set (which spent the least amount of time in standard).

The new Standard has a rotation every other set. Every beginning of a block causes two sets to rotate out and one set to rotate in. This means there will be an increased significance of the spring and summer set (as they stay in Standard just as long as the fall and winter sets). The real question for us is when do people begin to sell off their cards?

Let’s take a look a card who’s price was entirely impacted by Standard. If you wanted to get rid of your Revelations before they made their final descent, you needed to sell them in March of 2014. That card did not rotate out of Standard until September, meaning people began selling off a full 6 months before rotation.

Khans of Tarkir cards rotate with the release of Shadows Over Innistrad in April. If cards followed that same trajectory then I’d have to assume we’re already almost two months too late.

I’m inclined to believe the boat is missed. While these cards are almost bulk rares at this point, I don’t advocate holding onto anything that has value left from Khans of Tarkir and Fate Reforged. There is almost no upside in the release of Oath of the Gatewatch.

Look at Abrupt Decay. It rotated at around $13. Right now you can find copies at retail for $11.50 (Strike Zone). While there was a period in between you could have got out at a profit, it’s clear that dealer confidence is low and buylists reflect that. There was also never a point where the best buylist was above the retail cost at rotation. Now there is the possibility this is just part of the end of year slump and we see $20 Abrupt Decays July.

This is the year of the Thoughtseize. What happens to it? Buy price is plummeting, now out of even double digits. Are there just too many Thoughtseizes? Is its rotation out of Standard actually detrimental to it’s long-term price? It’s hard to tell but it’s something to watch. We might see a lot more seasonal ebbs and flows with Modern legal cards printed in Return to Ravnica and newer sets. So much sealed product of those sets was available that it’s impossible for cards to retain their pre-rotation value even if they are eternal playable if there are just too many of them. It’s possible the card will never recover to it’s $25 height-of-Standard price tag.

Legacy

I haven’t done anything but eyeball it, but fellow MTG Finance writer Saffron Olive says Legacy staples are down (for the first time ever) 0.4% year over year (Source). I’m not expecting that to change. With the increase support of Modern and the decreased support of Legacy at a local and global level it’s hard for people to justify thousands of dollars in decks they can play maybe three times per year. Wizards has only announced one Legacy GP and Star City Games has announced one Legacy open in the first third of the year. Assuming there are two more opens in 2016, that gives North America only four major Legacy events in the year compared to six Opens and one Grand Prix last year. This doesn’t count international Grands Prix (which were not on the same date as they are this year) and the Invitational or Player’s Championship. I foresee drops to continue as long as support for the format drops nationally. While it may be thriving in your local area, it is so hard to start grass roots support for such an expensive format. I don’t really want to elaborate anymore on my feelings but I think we will see another year of Modern replacing Legacy as the non-rotating format of choice for a lot of players.

The Future of Making Money

With the print runs of recent sets, it’s hard to find a reason these days to invest in a Standard legal pack. When you look at the difference between sealed boxes of Return to Ravnicai versus sealed boxes of Innistrad it’s easy to see where things changed. Conventional wisdom of sitting on any kind of sealed product is no longer true. I would by proxy say holding most singles from those sets is also a poor idea. My interests now are in limited print run products. Modern Masters sets, From the Vaults and promotions like Zendikar Expeditions are the safest places to hold money because we don’t know what the future will hold. If you really want to trade Standard cards into other Standard cards I would suggest looking into foils. Those are similar to limited print run products in terms of scope. The buy and sell prices of Foil Thoughtseizes have been basically flat since July which is a start contrast to the rise and fall of non-foil Thoughtseizes that may just never recover.

Into the Unknown

I don’t think anyone could factually back up any claims on the future. I am suggesting we consider our options and look to the past for some theories. I don’t know how players will enjoy or dislike the new rotation but it will definitely be a defining part of the 2016 Magic landscape.

Jim Casale

Grinder Finance – Kozilek’s Return

December 15, 2015 Jim Casale 8 Comments

Another Eldrazi Titan has entered the mix. The one they called “Cosi” finally joins the battle. What does he bring with him? A wealth of options.

Ok real talk, since everyone else on MTGprice is probably going to cover the expeditions I’m gonna take some time to talk about some Standard cards. My column is for the player, by a player. As I jokingly said during our impromptu podcast (found here) with fellow MTGprice.com writers, Jeremy Aaranson, Travis Allen, and Douglas Johnson, not a lot of MTG Finance people play a ton of Magic. There is some extra value in owning cards when you play with them.

Bad news blue players. We probably have 2 bulk mythic rares right here. Crush of Tentacles looks a lot like an Upheaval but the reality is it’s almost always worse to cast than Ugin. Until Shadows over Innistrad this is likely to be a bulk rare. Part the Waterveil sees “some” play and is still barely breaking the bulk bins at $2. I won’t waste too many words because Sphinx of the Final Word does not deserve many words.

Now we’re cooking with gasoline. I think Nissa might be in an awkward spot because on it’s face value, it’s probably worse than Nissa, Vastwood Seer at the moment. They are the same mana cost and this Nissa is more difficult to cast. That being said, I’m pretty sure there will be some Nissa/Gideon deck coming in the fall of 2016 so we will want to look at the summer as the time to pick her up. As with most Planeswalkers, this card will probably start pre-ordering for too much and be half the price by the next set.

World Breaker. It’s simple, elegant, powerful. This card looks like a literal Giant Spider Eldrazi but it’s really a lot more than that. There is a high demand for 7+ mana colorless creatures (especially Eldrazi). Despite the green mana symbol this guy is immune to the same removal that Kozilek himself dodges. This mini-Ulamog plays a lot like a Pearl Lake Ancient that also plays pretty good defense. I’m certain there are a lot of Eldrazi ramp decks that are fine trading a land for one of their opponent’s every turn. All in all I think this guy will be too good to be $3 but probably not good enough to be $10. Maybe if I get some camera time in Atlanta after the set comes out I can show you how good he will be.

You remember how I said 7 mana Eldrazi are a big deal? The Eldrazi ramp deck really wants to ramp once on 3 and twice on 4 giving you access to 7-8 mana on turn 5. This card can nicely fit into your 4th turn after a Hedron Archive and then can be “flashed back” to finish up any non-Eldrazi threats your opponents may have. Being an instant is a big deal because it allows you to deal with some otherwise awkward threats. This can kill dash creatures like Zurgo and Lightning Berserker and smaller manlands like the new R/W manland. It’s also an answer to Jace that can also kill Dragonlord Ojutai and Dragonlord Silumgar. It can also sweep up Thopter tokens that are otherwise particularly difficult for Ugin to kill. I expect this card to be very popular even after Ugin rotates. This card could pre-order for as much as $15 and that would be really unfortunate because I think longer term it’s probably a $5-8 card for it’s life in Standard.

Yeah this isn’t Elspeth Sun’s Champion. While we are more likely to take off the CMC Glasses now on 6+ mana planeswalkers, this one just doesn’t do enough right now to justify playing. I am, however, a big fan of foils. This card’s 0 ability has a lot of application in EDH and works great in a host of popular Izzet commander decks (Niv-Mizzet the Firemind is where she shines the most). I dont think this card has “what it takes” to get it done in standard. I’m pretty miffed the elementals aren’t even real Spark Elementals. They don’t have trample. Over all I think this is a card you want to avoid for more than $6 or $15 for foils.

I’d say traitor-schmaitor but this guy looks like the real deal. He should be able to single handedly bring Roast back into the fold and propel flying creatures to the front of play. While the 4 drop spot is pretty hard to get into, I think this guy following a Drana will be an unsual 1-2 punch that will leave Black aggro decks able to pull ahead of removal efficient Red aggro decks. With the addition of more Zombies and Vampires in Shadows over Innistrad I think this guy has a lot of upside. We’ll have to wait for preorder pricing to start tricking in but I’m a believer at $10 or less. Without more spoilers, it’s hard to tell if this guy will be good enough without additional tribal support.

Cards that get better with the Spoilers:

Oh hey, you remember this bulk mythic? Well with Kalitas asking you to play more Zombies and Shadows over Innistrad due to bring more competitive Zombies into the fold, this guy might get a lot better. As I’ve said earlier, there is a lot of competition at the 4 drop slot so maybe he doesn’t quite get there right away but it’s early enough that you can get in him trades or dig him out of bulk boxes in preparation for Shadows over Innistrad.

Oh yeah. Eldrazi is a fringe playable deck (it’s actually bonkers if your local meta game isn’t swarming with Atarka Red) that will survive two rotations. I find it hard to believe these 2 lands will continue to stay sub $1 as color fixing continues to get worse and colorless cards continue to get better.

The Painful Truth

This card is the real deal. Showing up in Standard (when your other card draw options are Dig Through Time and Treasure Cruise – Both of which are banned in Modern and Legacy), Modern, and Legacy is a key to long term success. This card is a buck now and if you ever intend to play black, I can’t imagine not owning a set.

The Modern lands

Do you own all of these yet? What are you waiting for? I don’t know if this is the year they go up but I can’t imagine they continue to fall from here. I might write this again in July with a big “I told you so” but even if I don’t, you don’t lose anything by buying now. If buying all 4 is too much, you can look at Derek Madlem‘s article describing the minimum number you need to stay competitive.

That’s all Folks

With the culmination of this article, I think we have 1-2 weeks of solid downward pressure on prices and then the bottom will become apparent. I can’t recommend enough making sure you have purchased all that you need before this lull is over.

Next week (or the week after) I will be interviewing a local player turned card shop owner. Do you have any questions you’d like to ask a binder grinder that has taken the step into a business owner? Leave them in the comments below!

MTGPrice Blog

Tag Archives: Grinder Finance

Grinder Finance – Weathering the Eldrazi Winter with Standard

Grinder Finance – Analyzing Buyouts

Why calling price increases a buyout is bad

How to react to these price increases

Cards to keep an Eye on

Grinder Finance – A New Frontier

Grinder Finance – Kozilek’s Return

MAGIC: THE GATHERING FINANCE ARTICLES AND COMMUNITY