Tag Archives: Magic finance

Corbin Hosler, ProTrader

PROTRADER: Analyzing Standard as Battle for Zendikar Nears

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Rotation is nearly upon us, and the spoilers are coming in hot and heavy. Full-art basics. New, fetchable dual lands. Full-art fetches and Shocks. Crazy, mythic Eldrazi. This set is going to have it all, and for the first time in my life, I plan on buying a case of the new goodies.

It’s true that we’ve seen a lot of things out of Battle for Zendikar. But there is one thing I haven’t seen in droves yet: Standard-playable cards.

Sure, Gideon is incredibly strong and will be played, and the lands of course will be good. But getting to 10 mana for Ulamog with what we have available doesn’t seem great, and while casting See the Unwritten into huge guys will almost certainly be a deck, I’m not seeing a ton of good ramp options to go along with Shaman of Forgotten Ways and Rattleclaw Mystic. Of course, those are two good options to start, so it won’t take much more to make it viable, but it’s worth mentioning that we’re not there yet.

Now, I know most of the set hasn’t been spoiled, so it’s a little early to start saying it’s not going to drastically shake up the format, because with so many cards leaving ,there’s no doubt that it will happen.

Still, given that Battle for Zendikar has all the makings of a set that will quickly become the best-selling of all time, I feel most comfortable looking at the current Standard format as a sign of things to come, rather than looking forward to Zendikar to being the driver in that equation.

With that in mind, looking ahead to next season begins with looking back. In this case, to the World Championship, where the world’s 24 best players met and battled it out (congratulations to Seth Manfield for winning, by the way). The World Championship was fun to watch, and I believe it’s a good place to start when we evaluate the decks that will survive rotation.

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Sigmund Ausfresser

PROTRADER: Battle for Zendikar Lands

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By Saturday night, I had a pretty rough idea what my article topic was going to be heading into Sunday morning. There were numerous loose ends I was planning on tying up from past articles – a conglomeration of ancillary thoughts and observations, of sorts.

Then I woke up Sunday morning and saw a barrage of news and spoilers from Battle for Zendikar. Naturally I would be doing a major disservice to MTG Price subscribers if I didn’t share my gut reactions to all this information. I will have to put my other ideas on hold for at least another week.

Perhaps it’s for the best.

Lands Lands Lands

We received three major land spoilers over the weekend, and each will have some sort of financial impact.

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Jared Yost, The Gilded Goblin

Thinking About Future Stars of Standard

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I’m writing this article mostly because I just saw Dig Through Time’s price and noticed that one of most powerful card selection spells in Standard reached its bottom in terms of price.

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Besides Standard, the card has burst onto the eternal scene and completely changed Legacy (it was already way too good for Modern, and along with Treasure Cruise quickly received the ban hammer). There has even been talk that this card should be banned in Legacy, right along with Treasure Cruise, because it just makes blue decks way too good – especially combo oriented decks like Omni-Tell, where if you have your combo countered initially you can just use all the trashed pieces in your graveyard to dig for another Show and Tell and Omniscience and still win even through an absurd amount of counter magic or hand disruption. For control decks, it makes them even more oppressive because they can also keep going through their deck until they again find a way to lock down whatever you’re trying to do again and again.

Now, Standard obviously can’t abuse Dig and Treasure Cruise like eternal formats. Even if they became more oppressive in the environment, because of the changes to the block structure Khans and Fate Reforged are going to rotate out earlier than they would previously (they rotate once the next large set after Battle for Zendikar is released). This means that there will be a smaller window for profit once we get into the accelerated Standard rotation window if cards like Dig become great. Picking cards before release should also become more profitable (or costly) depending on how good you are at it. For Magic Origins, many of the writers for MTGPrice were able to identify the vast majority of undervalued cards going into the set release so I highly recommend you follow authors like Derek Madlem, James Chillcott, and Travis Allen (if you have premium) so that you are better able to see which cards are undervalued. This way, you can make more informed decisions when it comes time to preorder if you like to add risk to your portfolio.

Besides preordering though, another way to profit on Standard cards is to pick up staples in the current block at undervalued prices before as rotation approaches. Of course, the counterpoint to this is to pick up undervalued casual or eternal cards in the rotating block, but here I would like to focus on cards in the current block that I feel have reached a bottom and have room to grow as Battle for Zendikar is released.

Dig Through Time

My strongest pick for value, both in terms of card selection and the current market price of the card, I would suggest that if you are a Standard player to finish your playset in the near future and if you want to speculate on the new Standard to pick up as many copies as you are comfortable holding. I think that this card is at least doubling up once rotation happens, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it headed to $15 or higher for a short period.

Languish

Another card that has reached a low point, this seems to be the direction that Wizards is taking Wrath of God cards. I believe that Standard players are going to be attracted to using it because a four mana board wipe that kills basically everything is the hotness. I especially think it will be a good pickup because Abzan is already an established boogeyman of the format and everyone will be playing aggro decks during the release of Battle for Zendikar to punish the slower decks. Well, this is an aggro punisher if I ever saw one!

I admit though, as Standard goes on I think that Languish will get worse and worse because I’m expecting some super large Eldrazi to come out of the next two sets (I mean, we might even see something bigger than Emrakul!) and Languish isn’t even coming close to killing them. I think the play here is to pick up copies now, and then get rid of extras once a spike happens because I don’t think it has a chance of a second spike during its Standard life.

Siege Rhino, Dromoka’s Command

  

The lynchpin of the current Abzan strategies, these cards were hit hard by the Clash Pack printing but should rebound nicely as rotation happens in the fall. We’re not going to see $10 Rhinos or $9 Dromoka Commands again but they each should go back up to at least $6, since I believe that many players are going to want tools to fight against Burn and super fast decks as the new Standard is being figured out. Also, both are applicable to Modern and should be buoyed financially if even they don’t experience a major spike in Standard. If you are looking for long term value, I think that since Siege Rhino and Dromoka’s Command were reprinted that both are good places to park some dollars in expectation of future gains, since they both have dropped in price considerably and have eternal application.

Dragon Whisperer

I’ve always ascribed to the philosophy that aggro tends to dominate Standard during the time of rotation, and this is a two-drop mythic rare that could fit nicely into a newly envisioned mono-red aggro deck. Another interesting possibility is its inclusion in a midrange deck which is able to take advantage of the Formidable ability, so you can generate 4/4 Dragons as the game goes on. Either way, for $2 you won’t be losing much if this doesn’t make a splash and have everything to gain if it does. On the plus side, Dragons of Tarkir will actually be Standard legal longer than Khans and Fate Reforged, so there is actually another rotation where this will be legal to see a spike. So you actually get two chances with this card to see a spike!

Whisperwood Elemental

Well, you know what they say, it’s always the quiet ones you need to watch out for… looks like both Whisper cards have hit their bottoms, and both being mythic rares means that if they spike then the price is going to go up higher and faster than their rare equivalents.

Whisperwood being green means that he’ll be better able to fit into ramp strategies, which I think players are going to experiment with once we get some large and imposing Eldrazis to work with in Standard. Whisperwood can keep generating 2/2’s as blockers to keep you alive until you get some Eldrazi online. Seems like a great card to me and I have big expectations for this guy.

Rattleclaw Mystic

I’ve been hyping the Rattleclaw Mystic money train for a while, and I’ve picked up plenty of excess copies of this guy in anticipation of a decent performance in Standard since this is predicted to be the best mana ramp creature we’re going to get. Going with what we’ve seen from Sylvan Caryatid, I expect Rattleclaw to start going up in price some time in October.

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Caryatid went from $5 to $15 in October, so going with Rattleclaw’s current price of $2 I expect it to be at least $6 by the time October hits.

Final Mention – Fetchlands

   

Wait a second, you say. How could these things possibl0y go even higher than they are now? Didn’t Polluted Delta and Flooded Strand recently see a significant appreciation in their price?

Despite both of these questions being valid concerns, fetchlands are in a league of their own when it comes to price and will be especially important to Standard since Landfall is being reintroduced in the coming-back-to-Zendikar block again.

I wouldn’t be surprised at all if the Khans fetchlands go over $20 retail in their Standard life, with the most heavily played ones reaching $30 or more. We also have to consider that Modern will be driving demand in addition to Standard, since we just saw a spike of the original Zendikar fetchlands because of Maro letting us know that we have an “exciting” new type of dual land coming out shortly… mhmm, I think I’ll keep my excitement in check until I see those original Zendikar fetchlands reprinted again, mkay?

While the fetches have been trending up nicely over the summer, especially the blue ones, I still think they have room to grow before they rotate from Standard. I wouldn’t expect to get killer deals on these things near or after rotation – remember, everyone is going to be looking to pick them up at rotation so retailers aren’t going to be budging on prices much. While the best time to purchase fetchlands is behind us, I still think it is a good idea to complete unfinished playsets before Standard and Modern hype start bringing the Khans fetchlands to lofty new price highs.

That’s all I’ve got for this week! Which cards are you guys looking at in Standard that have reached their bottoms for some nice fall gains? I know I only covered non-rotating cards, so is there anything from Theros that you think is even more important to keep an eye on than Khans/Dragons/Origins?

Jim Casale

Grinder Finance – Winter is Coming

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winter is coming

 

Yes, I realize it’s August.  I know it’s pretty much the middle of summer, and my article’s title makes little sense.  But give me a minute before you close the window to explain.  Winter is coming, and I don’t mean in the Stark way.

Note: Some of things I’m going to talk about are from the point of view of someone living in North America.  These examples may not be accurate to people living in Europe, Asia, and especially in the Southern Hemisphere.

So when people say “Oh yeah it’s Modern season,” what do they really mean?  Well there are two types of “seasons” in Magic.  One season has now become the Preliminary Pro Tour Qualifier (or PPTQ) season.  There have been many versions of the PPTQ seasons but now there is a specific format for each one.  There are 4 PPTQ seasons per year (one for each Pro Tour) and they can only be the constructed format that corresponds to the Pro Tour or Sealed Deck.  What that means is with 3 Standard Pro Tours per year and 1 Modern Pro Tour per year, we get 3 seasons of Standard and 1 season of Modern.  Basically,  it’s almost always Standard season.  Even during the Modern PPTQ season there are plenty of people playing Standard at FNM, Grands Prix, StarCity Games Opens, etc.  For this reason, Standard cards are not affected by the PPTQ Season.

Standard cards however, are susceptible to the changing of the 4 seasons of weather.  Let’s talk about the last year of season to explain how we got to where we are.

Fall / Autumn :

Theros

This is the season where the typical large Fall set is released.  Depending on the day of the week, most of these sets release in late September or early October (Magic products always release on a Friday).  In the previous rotation cycle, this is set entering Standard kicks an entire year of Magic out of Standard.  With the release of Theros, Innistrad block and M13 both rotated out.  The cards from this set are usually very powerful in order to shake up a lame duck standard format.  Typically cards from this set are also under very volatile conditions the first month as people figure out the “new” Standard.  This is generally a poor time to buy cards because prices are high due to lack of supply.

Winter:

Born of the Gods

The winter set was the middle set of a 3 set block but now will be the last set in 2  set block.  Born of the Gods, like many middle sets, was a small set that is supposed to greatly impact standard.  Unfortunately this time Born of the Gods was unable to be the big shakeup set that some middle sets, like Gatecrash, can be.  Currently there are only 2 cards in the set worth over $5 and this was true for most of it’s lifetime.  This set is usually released in early February.  It is critically timed right after the holiday break when most people will return to playing Magic.

Spring:

Journey into Nyx

The final set of 3 set blocks is released in the Spring.  It allows for the “final piece” of many decks to be assembled and become dominant.  Cards from this set have to push some boundaries to make a splash in an otherwise established format.  When this set is released, Standard’s card pool is almost at it’s largest.  It makes it a lot harder for cards to break into the spotlight.  In Journey into Nyx, Constellation was saved for this set to hopefully revitalize the enchantment theme.  It was not very successful but recent emergence of Starfield of Nyx and Herald of the Pantheon have completed the deck as Wizards may have initially wanted it.

Summer:

m15

All Magic blocks culminate into Summer Slam… Or maybe that’s wrestling.  I always get those two mixed up because they’re so alike…  Anyway, the summer set is usually released in July.  It usually has pretty poor sales compared to Fall sets and card scarcity is usually a big issue.  This set is not opened as much because a lot of people go on vacation or (in the case of college students) are out of school for the summer.

 

Now what does that all mean for a card?  Let’s take a look at Stormbreath Dragon for a historical analysis of how the seasons affect a card price.

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Click image to enlarge

Stormbreath Dragon was released in October of 2013 in the fall set, Theros.  We can see it starts at pre-order price about $20.  Many people compared it to the much loved Thundermaw Hellkite but still many were skeptical of it’s smaller stats.  Then within a few weeks, peopled played with the card and realized it was insanely good! Boom, over night basically it was a $40 card.  That’s typical of popular fall set mythic rares.  And then afterwards, we see the slow decline into winter.  The peaks and valleys of this price graph is typical of cards from the fall set because of the seasons.  People play a lot less Magic during the month of December.  Wizards of the Coast Organized Play events go on break for usually the entire month of December and people frequently go home to visit family for the holidays.  This is by far the best time to buy into the fall set.  The best time to buy Battle for Zendikar will likely be during December and January.  Why?  Well because right after this dip back into reality, there is usually a spike around February after the 2nd set of the block is released.  Some decks become revitalized with new cards and people are excited to return to what they used at the beginning of the last set release.  Stormbreath Dragon again climbs up for a few months.

The second best time to buy the fall Standard-legal cards is the summer following it’s release.  This used to be the time for much maligned Core set releases.  Prices dip once again because some people want to go to the beach or do stuff outside.  Personally, I don’t know why anyone would want to go out into the sun and ruin their perfect pale complexion, but to each their own I suppose!  Summer is also another break for students.

The next peak for Stormbreath Dragon is… in the fall again?  Yep, traditionally rotation occurs with the new fall set.  This means anything that was keeping a card down from the previous block rotates out and it’s a brand new format!  The thing that really shakes up at rotation is how many cards are leaving and entering.  With the release of Khans of Tarkir in the fall of 2014, 269 new cards were entering the format.  The rotation of Return to Ravnica block and Magic 2014 removed 928 cards from the format!  Players are often not prepared for this amount of churn.  It’s been a while since anyone has drafted the previous years’ sets and people are excited to open new cards.  This causes the single prices for the previous block to increase due to no increased supply but greatly increased demand.

And then as soon as it happens, it’s winter again.  December and January see large drops in card prices across the board. This year was a little weird because two set releases were a little sooner than usual.  Fate Reforged was released almost two weeks earlier than usual (January 23rd vs Born of the Gods, which was released on February 7th).  Dragons of Tarkir was released a MONTH earlier than Journey into Nyx (March 27th vs May 2nd).  This was change was to accommodate the much-anticipated Modern Masters 2015 (released May 22nd).  The last hurrah for Stormbreath Dragon was a little later than usual because Dragons of Tarkir, as the name might imply, has many synergies with Dragons.

Side note: Dragon’s Maze continues to be one of the biggest disappointments because you can’t name a set “Dragon” and have none in it.

Notice how the last hurrah ended in May?  With the release of Modern Masters 2015, many people decided they were done with Theros block cards.  Grand Prix Las Vegas was largely responsible for the huge sell off of Theros block staples that cause the sharp decline in the Dragon’s Price.  From here on out we can see what lame duck cards do until the end of the format.  Stormbreath Dragon will be a great card for many years to come and pretty difficult to reprint due to Monstrosity.  If you were waiting to grab these for EDH your prime time is closing in.

Now for the feedback part of this article.  How do you like the structure? Would you like to see how seasons affect cards from the Winter, Spring, and Summer sets?  My next article will explain how play seasons affect Modern card prices.