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Accumulated Knowledge, ProTrader, Unlocked ProTrader

UNLOCKED PROTRADER: Homo Magiconimus and Darksteel

June 12, 2015 Ross Lennon

By: Ross Lennon

Do you listen to a lot of podcasts? I do¹. Most of them are Magic-related, and the rest are mainly football, news, and finance. I was listening to Freakanomics on Monday (or as I like to call that program, “Game Theory, Who Knew?”), and I instantly got an idea for something I wanted to write about. My original plan for this week was to finish up the Mirrodin block in our Modern set review series, and we will take some time to go through Darksteel, but that series is not terribly time-sensitive, so I say we ride with the hot hand.

The program I was listening to was about “Homo economicus,” the fictional character/species which embodies the “ideal” human in economic models. Basically, when economists say, “Well, X should happen, because people will know that it is the best option,” they are assuming that all humans know at all times what is best for them, or are able to quickly and cleanly compute the best fiscal course of action.

This, as anyone with a humanities background will tell you, is absolutely not true. Many economic theories and models are predicated on Homo sapiens acting like Homo economicus, which is why some academic economists can seem out of touch with how the world really works. Meanwhile, the entire field of advertising is intended to make us do the opposite of what Homo economicus would—the reason why new cars are literally always on sale is because nobody needs a new car. The Freakanomics program was interesting and you should check it out if you haven’t already.

Talk About Magic Now

What I want to discuss today is whether Magic finance has its own inaccurate views of how the market works compared to our expectations. For the sake of me needing a title for this article, let’s call our little best case scenario straw-man Homo magiconimus.

I’m going to tell you a short story about how Magic finance finally “figured out” casual Magic, with some brief justifications why Homo magiconimus missed out on it.

It may seem crazy today, but for a very long time, the casual Magic community got no respect. Even though Wizards “discovered” the Invisibles during Time Spiral, it really took a while for the community as a whole to embrace them (and for Magic finance to adjust to their needs). At the time, cards that only saw casual or non-sanctioned play didn’t command high prices. For example, during its time in Standard, I bought a couple of foil copies of Woodfall Primus for 25 cents each. They weren’t bent-up copies tossed in a vendor’s foil box at a PTQ, and they weren’t scummy trades where I ripped off some doe-eyed little kid—these were NM copies listed on the website of one of the largest Magic retailers on Earth (to protect that company’s privacy, let’s just call it… “Pool Stuff Games”). And honestly, I wouldn’t have even thought to buy them, except the non-foil copies were out of stock, and I needed them because I was starting to get into Type 4. Homo magiconimus would have bought one copy (even though he probably doesn’t like foils as much as I do), but it’s unsure if he would have grabbed the second one. My gut instincts on getting both were a combination of “mise” and thinking, “I can always give it to a buddy for his Type 4 stack,” two sentiments a “strictly upside” sentient being isn’t likely to be moved by. In the end, however, I was able to move the cards for about $30 each, which is something Homo magiconimus can get behind, so hopefully he used that quarter for the foil rare and not jelly beans.

At the time, dealers and finance people weren’t as diversified as they are now. Their goals mostly revolved around making sure they could meet the needs of the tournament players, as well as learning what they could from that group to know what the good buys were.

“Casual staples” at the time weren’t things like Primus, they were just Extended and Legacy staples. I remember trading Mutavaults (which were about to rotate) for Maelstrom Pulses to a friend/vendor (who later went on to open a couple of Florida’s best Magic stores), because I knew I would need the Pulses, and that he would have better luck moving the Mutavaults at a GP booth or something out of state. Was this the correct trade to make? The prices at the time were similar, but I had extra utility in trading for the card with the longer lifespan in Standard. Homo magiconimus, or at least those of the “plays a bunch of Standard” tribe, would have likely taken the deal, since the ability to roll the upfront investment made on the Mutavaults into two more years of Standard is a great way to avoid continuing to spend money.

Prior to the explosion of popularity for Commander, most dealers had a very poor idea of what cards were popular with casual players. This is likely due to the lack of a uniform format (which we got with Commander), so cards that were good in Emperor but not massive Free-For-Alls didn’t seem to garnish a premium. The only card that sticks out in my mind from that era is Underworld Dreams, which was the de facto casual staple. It seemed that anyone who wasn’t interested in playing “real” Magic just wanted to try and kill people with Megrim.

Cards like Wrath of God were obviously still good (more so when you are killing seven other players’ creatures), but most of the price there was because of Standard, or so I assumed. As a low-level binder grinder at the time, I wasn’t exposed to the casual community as much as I am now, even before factoring in great equalizers like PucaTrade. It wasn’t worth servicing the casual community at the time, because so few people understood that there even was a casual community worth serving!

Lorwyn was when WOTC was first getting its data back on Time Spiral, and when Maro and the gang were just figuring out that the Invisibles existed. Time Spiral’s failure in terms of mass appeal spurred the change to New World Order design, which first manifested around Zendikar, which led to the Zendikar Boom, which led to unprecedented player growth and grew the casual base, too. It’s easy to know all that now, but those are a lot of factors (some private) that led to the discovery and growth of a previously unknown market. Homo magiconimus is an animal that acts on rational thought and logic, but he can’t tell the future. This is the reason why so many financiers and dealers were completely surprised when Commander and casual Magic took off, and why I sold all my Tarmogoyfs at $25.

Enough of that for today—let’s hit Darksteel.

Darksteel

Something that gets thrown around a lot is the “death” of Magic. Newer and less enfranchised players claim that Magic‘s expensive secondary market and rapid product releases will be its imminent undoing. Tournament veterans assert that a broken format, a woeful Magic Online offering, or greener pastures (Hearthstone, SolForge, poker) could possibly mean the end of MTG. Of all of these doomsday scenarios, the “broken format,” has probably come closest. There have definitely been some close calls, but the impact that Darksteel made could have very likely become a killing blow.

The set’s salvation was very likely its namesake: Darksteel introduced indestructible, which is something that reads very well to all levels of players. Something like scry or cycling may or may not immediately make sense, nor does it excite younger or newer players the same way that, “THIS ROBOT IS INDESTRUCTIBLEEEEEE!!!!!!!” does. The set sold pretty well, despite tournament attendance driving off a cliff Thelma and Louise-style about a month after release.

Non-Foil Cards of Note

Sword of Fire and Ice: This is the most expensive card in the set by about $20. This card was actually a Legacy staple for a long while, but Batterskull and Jitte now get higher billing. This is still one of the better Cube swords, and the limited printings it has gotten in the last eleven years have only helped bolster it as a chase rare. The judge promo is gorgeous.

Aether Vial: This uncommon clocks in at about $27, although it’s been in the twenties for a good long while. Like Sword of Fire and Ice, it has really only gotten reprinted in Modern Masters, along with a very small promo offering (an early From the Vaults in this case). Any tribal deck in Legacy or Modern is going to need four of these, as well as the deplorable Death and Taxes archetype (seriously, that deck is dumb). These trade well though, and are a “four or zero” card much like Tarmogoyf is.

Sword of Light and Shadow: According to the free market, this sword is worse than its in-set cousin by about twenty bucks. That sounds about right, as this card really doesn’t see the same kind of play that Fire and Ice does, which in today’s Magic is pretty limited anyway.

Arcbound Ravager: I am shocked that this card wasn’t in Modern Masters 2015. I will talk about this card in the analysis section at the end (spoiler: it’s pretty good!), but here is a little financial nugget for you: since most of the non-Ravager pieces for Affinity were in MM2, you can expect that deck to be out in large numbers at Modern PPTQs. Plan on selling many Ravagers in the near future.

Mycosynth Lattice: MTGPrice has the Fair Trade Price listed at $21 for this card, but that number has been there for a long while, and I had a copy that I felt like I couldn’t give away for years. The $12 buylist price is tempting. I really don’t know how much demand there is for this card.

Blinkmoth Nexus: Reprinted twice, and the higher price here is likely for the original art. Don’t expect these copies to hold a premium when people still need Mox Opals to play the deck.

Memnarch: One of the best mono-blue commanders, which is saying something. I can’t wait to see what his foil price is… $25… huh. That… seems very low.

Foils of Note That Aren’t Just the Same as Above

Retract

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

*takes deep breath*

…AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

We talked about this card already recently, so I won’t rewrite last week’s article, but notice that the blue line (the most important one!) has barely moved at all, and that the only vendors selling foil Retract at this absurd new price are eBay and Amazon vendors, which means they are speculators and financiers trying to cash out on their (soon to be failed) spec.

Leonin Shikari: I wasn’t sure which section to put this card in, but I went with foils because its foil multiplier is higher than two. The price on this card is impressive, considering I had forgotten that the card exists shortly after I stopped opening Darksteel boosters. It also sees zero competitive play, so this card is only being kept alive by casual players. I wouldn’t even consider it for Cube. I’m trying to figure out if a “Shikari” is a thing, or if the creative team got this name by switching the “i”s and “a”s in “Shakira.”

Slobad, Goblin Tinkerer: Commander. Not sure if you really even want this guy if you’re playing a mono-red deck, but whatever.

Sundering Titan: This card sees a little play in Modern and Legacy,and is somehow banned in EDH, most likely for being a card that I like. The Commander banned list is very dumb.

Trinisphere: Somehow only $13 for a foil that is restricted in Vintage. I bet they’re super hard to find, too.

Skullclamp: FTV foils are pretty controversial (unless they are the only version available), but the set foil of this card is still just shy of $20. Impressive, given how insanely broken this card is. Speaking of insanely broken…

Noteworthy Standard Decks

Ravager Affinity: It is important to remember that the Magic hive mind (or “cultural zeitgeist,” if you’re a pretentious jerk) existed in 2004, but not in the same way that it does now. There were not nearly as many tournaments as there are now, Magic Online was still fairly new, and the lack of modern social media meant most discussions of Magic were still relatively private. This is why it took about a month or so for Arcbound Ravager to be “discovered” by the Magic world as a whole. Sure, some people may have known on day one, and others (like myself) found out when the card shot up to $20. Ravager would go on to be banned in Standard, along with seven (!) of its closest friends, all of which were commons. The majority of all decks before that point were either Affinity or “Beats Affinity.” It was a dark time.

Literally Anything With Skullclamp at One Point: I mentioned that it took longer to figure stuff out, which was at least in part because Skullclamp was Standard-legal for three months, which seems about four months too long. For the brief time that this card was legal, it made seriously every deck—good, bad, or otherwise—playable. Factor in that some of the strongest decks from the previous block (Onslaught) had small, aggressive creatures, and you can see how out of hand things got.

Beats Affinity: Literally there where decks with just a bunch of Shatters and Oxidizes. It was awful. No wonder so many pros went over to poker.

Analysis

Ultimately, Darksteel is going to be remembered more for its failures than its successes. There are a few cards worth money in this set that I didn’t mention, but many of them are Commander (Savage Beating) or eternal (Serum Powder) cards with limited upside. Ravager, Swords, and Aether Vial are going to buoy packs of Darksteel for the foreseeable future, which are $11 a pop, and there is not much else to be had besides those headliners.

Darksteel was also the first small set to have 165 cards, and trust me when I say they aren’t all winners. To put it bluntly, Ageless Entity (foil) and Steelshaper Apprentice are probably the two cards with the most potential (although this is largely because they are basically free).

Thanks as always for reading, and let me know what you think of Homo magiconimus—I have a feeling we’ll be seeing him again.

1Hopefully you do too, because [REDACTED] with [REDACTED] is going to be [REDACTED] [REDACTED].

Finding Value, ProTrader, Unlocked ProTrader

UNLOCKED PROTRADER: My Bets for GP Charlotte

June 11, 2015 Guo Heng Chin 5 Comments

By: Guo Heng

So much for taking notes during last weekend’s Star City Games’s first ever Modern Invitational in Columbus. Two of the cards that were sorely undervalued upon the conclusion of the Invitational—Olivia Voldaren and Huntmaster of the Fells—spiked fast and hard over the last few days, forcing me to change my initial plan for today’s column. Instead of discussing four cards I think will emerge more expensive by this time next week, I am going to talk about two things today:

Will Olivia and Huntmaster remain at their lofty new prices?
My bet for the archetype that would be performing the best at Grand Prix Charlotte and the card that would spike with it.

The New Jund Overlords

First off, we have a new queen in Jund. Olivia Voldaren saw some play back when the deck dominated the format, in an era when Birthing Pod was legal, but she wasn’t as powerful back then as she is today in a metagame full of grindy creatures and Lingering Souls. An unanswered Olivia takes over any creature-based matchup and she is not exactly easy to answer if deployed properly (a.k.a. with 1R open to grow her toughness to four in response to Lightning Bolt).

Olivia was hovering at $6.60 when the Invitational concluded and spiked hard over the next few days to the $17.32 she is at today. Is her $17 price tag justified for a card that sees play as a two-of in the 75 of Jund and occasionally as a one-of in Grixis Twin‘s sideboard?

My answer is yes. She is a mythic from Innistrad, which was opened nearly four years ago (how time has passed!), so it’s probably about time that Olivia’s price hits double-digits as a mythic that sees Modern play. Olivia seems to be a trump card in grindy creature matchups and fits in any decks that runs BR and wants to grind out the long game.

I don’t think $17 is the ceiling for Olivia if Jund continues to perform this weekend or if Grixis Twin starts to adopt her as a sideboard mainstay. On the other hand, Olivia is at most played in twos and that limits her price ceiling. I’d say $25 is the highest she could go in best-case scenario.

The hunt is on again. We’re hunting fair decks this time.

Huntmaster of the Fells is a wholly different beast. Like Olivia, Huntmaster spiked from the $6 to $18 within days following the Invitational. Remember, Jund made top eight of both the Invitational and Modern Open. However, I don’t think Huntmaster’s price is done spiking yet.

While he was just found as a two-of in Jund’s sideboard, Huntmaster sees play in a larger variety of decks compared with Olivia. While Olivia’s role is to break open creature mirrors, Huntmaster serves as instant value in a format where removal is generally one-for-one. He is a bit like a planeswalker in the fact that he is a card that does multiple things: create board position, gains life, takes out small creatures, and domes the opponent.

While Huntmaster can be found in a variety of midrange lists that runs his colors, his current surge in price is solely driven by Jund’s recent performance.

However, I think that he has yet to hit his ceiling. Huntmaster was present as a four-of in the sideboard of a variant of an archetype that I think is very well-positioned for this weekend’s Grand Prix, which segues perfectly into the next segment:

Next-Level Delver

Check out this new take on Delver that took down a 273-player StarCityGames Modern Premier IQ in the weekend before Modern Masters 2015 weekend:

While Delver decks went down the Grixis route to get access to the black Tarmogoyf, Kolaghan’s Command, and efficient creature removal suites resulting in an overall better midrange game, Jordan Boisvert took Delver down a whole different road. He shifted the deck’s gear to tempo and went full speed ahead.

His version of Temur Delver plays the protect-the-queen strategy to the max. The playset of Disrupting Shoal protect your turn-one Delver of Secrets or turn two-Tarmogoyf or Hooting Mandrills. Stubborn Denial adds another three copies of an efficient counterspell to ensure the survival of your early, undercosted threats.

Instead of looking for an improved mid-to-long game capability, Boisvert’s Temur Delver just aims to deploy multiple undercosted threats within the first few turns of the game and protect them with highly efficient counterspells. Disrupting Shoal transforms card advantage into tempo, playing a similar role in Modern as with Force of Will in Legacy Temur Delver. With the most popular Modern removal spells costing one mana (Path to Exile and Lightning Bolt) and half the spells in the deck consisting of one-mana blue spells, there is no shortage of cards to pitch to ~~Force of Will~~ Disrupting Shoal.

Jordan Boisvert’s write-up on how he came to the list and the decks choice of cards is well worth a read. In his article, Jordan mentioned that Huntmaster of the Fells excels in any matchups against fair decks. Based on his individual matchup analysis, Huntmaster seems to be brought in post-board the majority of the time, even against aggro decks like Burn and Affinity, against Grixis Delver, and even Twin decks in anticipation of grindy post-board games.

The question now is: was the deck merely a one-hit wonder?

Adam Fronsee, impressed with Jordan’s list, brought a Delver deck that runs the same core as Jordan’s Temur Delver list (delve creatures, Disrupting Shoal, and Stubborn Denial), but contains black instead of red, which gave him access to more Delve creatures and Abrupt Decay. His list was one of the best-performing decks in the Modern portion of the Invitational. Adam Fronsee finished 12th, probably let down by his Standard showing.

It looks like the pure tempo version of Delver running the Disrupting Shoal and Stubborn Denial core may be the next direction of Delver’s evolution. It’s hard for Delver to play the midrange game with Jund and Abzan doing it much better. The addition of powerful Delve creatures like Tasigur, the Golden Fang and Hooting Mandrills gave Delver more options for undercosted creatures, improving the archetype’s tempo game.

The Modern Force of Will, Finally?

Should Delver move towards a tempo-centric build, Disrupting Shoal would be the card that stands to gain the most price-wise.

Disrupting Shoal Price — Finally fulfilling its destiny as Modern’s Force of Will?

Disrupting Shoal is not the Force of Will that Modern needs, but the Force of Will that Modern deserves. Having dodged reprint in both Modern Masters, the supply of Disrupting Shoal is dangerously low. I dare not even posit its ceiling shall Delver decks move towards the Boisvert’s tempo core that runs a full four Shoals. After a spike in January 2014 due to Travis Woo’s ephemeral Ninja Bear Delver, it is now back down to $6. I think it is a safe bet to buy in a this price, or at least pick up your own playset if you ever intend on playing Delver in Modern.

Delver for Charlotte

One of the reason why I am bullish on cards related to new Delver tech is that Delver, be it Grixis, Temur, or Sultai, seems to be in a good position for Grand Prix Charlotte, assuming the metagame shifts in response to last week’s Star City Games Invitational and Modern Open results.

At level zero, we could expect more Green-Red Tron decks, seeing that Green-Red Tron took down both the Invitational and Modern Open. Delver decks have a great matchup against any deck that attempts to resolve seven- and eight-mana spells. Temur and Sultai Delver probably just eat Tron for breakfast with their slew of undercosted threats that survive Pyroclasm.

The Tron decks would probably eat up the fairest-of-the-fair Jund and Abzan decks. While Delver can handle Jund, Abzan is an atrocious matchup, so having to face less of those decks improves the odds for Delver. Luckily, Abzan is falling out of favor and players are opting for Jund once again, which is good news for the tempo-oriented Delver builds: no more Path to Exile and Siege Rhino, the best answers to Delver’s undercosted fatties. Abrupt Decay is plain useless against Delve creatures.

At level one, we can expect more Twin and Infect, two natural predators of the Tron decks that can scarcely interact with them in game one. Delver has a favorable matchup against both these decks, as Boisvert explained in his write-up.

Based on the above, I think there is a good chance we will see at least one Delver deck finally make top eight of a large event in the post-Treasure Cruise-and-Pod landscape. It’s hard to predict which build would be the one to make it all the way, but after watching Boisvert’s Temur Delver demolish the popular Grixis Delver in Jeff Hoogland and Mat Bimonte’s Crash Test series, I think the tempo-based Delver decks running Disrupting Shoal stand a better chance. After all, if Delver decks are king at the Grand Prix, the Delver that eats other Delvers would be emperor.

Thanks for reading today. Do share your thoughts and predictions for Grand Prix Charlotte in the comments section below or catch me on Twitter at @theguoheng.

Jason Alt, ProTrader, Unlocked ProTrader

UNLOCKED PROTRADER: Gods and Generals, Part 1

June 10, 2015 Jason Alt 9 Comments

Maybe the title could have been “Gods as Generals,” because that’s what we’re going to talk about this week.

I feel like all of you are teaching me more than I am teaching you, which is edifying for me to say the least. Last week, my article had been up for 24 hours with zero comments, causing me to wonder whether anyone at all had read it. “That’s silly,” I thought to myself. “I bought my mother ProTrader access so she could read my articles and print them out and put them on the refrigerator so every time she went to get out some OJ she could be reminded that her favorite son was a writer and that spending $60,000 on a chemistry degree wasn’t a waste of money but rather a sound investment in a bright future.” I put a comment about how no comments meant no one was saying anything negative, and I got a lot of comments after that. Some of them were even about the article and not about the fact that it was behind the ProTrader paywall! Some of them.

And the ones that weren’t whining from poor people (it’s $5, guys. You make more than $5 a month if you get in a month late on a mediocre spec tip) were very insightful. I would have eventually gotten around to tackling the Theros block gods as spec targets in a future article. In fact, I’m such a professional, it’s likely I would have gotten around to it before rotation. Possibly before every other financier wrote their articles about what to dump and pick up at rotation. This isn’t my first rodeo. Also, I’m not so bad at this that I think the upcoming set rotation is a rodeo. That said, there are a few cards that, come rotation, I will be… bullish… about.

Let’s talk about EVERY THEROS GOD and how I feel about their current prices, because the gods are sicko EDH cards, after all. Let’s start with the monocolored ones and get as far as we can today.

Erebos, God of the Dead

This guy is falling off as we pass peak supply and Standard players realize they don’t give a wet fart about a Greed that can attack for five. That’s cool! While I don’t necessarily know I want this guy as my general, I have found quite a few decklists that feature him, including one I featured in an article. Erebos is also pretty dandy as part of the 99. He’s a damn Greed on feet, remember? In a deck lousy with black enchantments like Painful Quandary, No Mercy, and Polluted Bonds, this guy is dope.

I actually don’t think he’s done plummeting, though, and I think he could be around $3 at rotation. I would say I am like a 3/5 when it comes to how excited I am about picking this guy up at $3.

Before we move on, let’s talk about something I should have introduced at the very top but didn’t think about until now. Gods strike me vaguely like the planeswalkers did, but back in Lorwyn. Remember when there were only five planeswalkers? They were all money. They continued to be money approximately forever. Like, until the exact second that I said, “I feel pretty good about targeting any planeswalker that isn’t named Tibalt that’s under $5,” and then WOTC went, “Really, douchebag?” and printed approximately infinity RTR Jaces until they were $3 (and yet the price of Remand remained relatively undisturbed, go figure) and now people are emailing me saying, “Hey, you said planeswalkers under $5 were good so I spent my kid’s college fund on Duel Deck Vraska! Keep up the good articles,” and it makes me want to see which make and model of pistol has the tastiest barrel. Planeswalkers are the new hydras, readers. But I guess that’s okay since gods are the new planeswalkers.

It seems like they always will be, too, right? Gods are way harder to reprint in another block. They are legendary as hell and they need to be enchantment creatures with devotion. What are the odds we get both mechanics back if we revisit this plane in like five or ten years? Even if we do come back sooner than that, we will have made a ton of money on gods before then and won’t care. I feel good about a lot of them. Durdles will want to treat the gods like Pokémon and catch ’em all, and since most of them don’t suck in EDH, they’re pretty solid. So I guess I’ll give each god we discuss today a score out of five about how bullish I am about them at rotation.

I don’t know why I’m sort of asking you. This is my column, I can do anything I want. I could grade them on a scale from fart noise to confetti and you couldn’t do a thing about it.

Anyway, let’s get back to Erebos and look at his foil price.

That’s a graph only a mother could love. I am really loving this price/spread overlay view because it shows what two different “markets” are thinking. Players are thinking, “Yeah, $15ish foil seems fine,” and dealers are thinking, “Get that out of my face.” The price is tailing off a bit and it’s lagging behind the dealer buy price, which is tailing off precipitously. Dealers are not buying these before rotation and you shouldn’t either, not even the foils.

Since Erebos is useful as a general as well as in the 99, I do think the foils are pretty good. This seems like this could be a $20ish card in a few years. Why not? It’s a foil mythic that sees EDH play both as a commander and as a role-player in decks that aren’t necessarily multiplayer. Basically every new player who bought the Eternal Bargain deck and saw a Greed in it will drool over Erebos (or has already, hence the initial demand) and I don’t expect anything to make Erebos obsolete in his role as “best Greed variant ever.” If you wouldn’t play a 5/7 for four mana, or a Greed, or an “opponents can’t gain life” enchantment, perhaps you’d play all three. This card is fine, and if the foil dips below $10, I may crank my enthusiasm for the foil up to 4/5. Yeah. Ballsy. I am not going to give half measurements like “4.5/5” because at that point, you’re saying “9/10 but do some math, readers,” and I’m not about that life. A rating of 4/5 seems okay for a foil god like Erebos at around $8, a number that seems almost absurd because you’re approaching non-foil Garruk Wildspeaker money at that point and gods can be your generals, which is even cooler.

Heliod, God of the Sun

Wow, the market price is like, whatever, but the dealer price is showing fascinating behavior. It appears that Heliod, by virtue of being mana-hungry and durdly, made dealers hit a minimum “shits given” threshold and it looks like players were right there with them. The TCGplayer price is relatively flat, and that could be due to a lack of sales as much as it could be due to price equilibrium establishing itself. I feel like there is a pretty sweet narrative going on here and I bet it took place at a lot of PTQ and GP booths.

Dealer: “Those are the cards I want.”

Player: “What about Heliod?”

Dealer: “Yes, what about Heliod? What about him indeed?”

Player: “What will you give me? I paid $8 for this guy, give me something.”

Dealer: “I am not the least bit interested.”

Player: “Come on, man! I need money for [spray paint or drugs or diapers or whatever the hell kids these days are buying].

Dealer: “I will give you one whole dollar.”

Player: “… yeah, fine.”

As a dealer, you can’t really pass up a chance at a card that’s likely $5 to $6 in a few years if someone is coming off of it for $1, even if it is Heliod and no one is that jazzed about him. After a while, the conversation took a turn.

Player: “Got a Heliod with your name on it.”

Dealer: “I will give you seventy-five cents.”

Player: “I wouldn’t fart in your mouth for seventy-five cents.”

Dealer: “Okay, a dollar. Damn.”

When dealers could no longer get them for $0.75, they bumped the price back up to a “still insulting” $1. I think this is just about the minimum buy price at rotation. If any god goes below $1, or hell, goes below $2 and wasn’t dirt cheap already, that’s probably a decent snag. If you can pay at rotation what dealers are paying now, congrats, you’re thinking like a dealer. They know there is upside at $1. I’m like a 5/5 at $1 or less on these at rotation, which is handy because I don’t see rotation making the price go up.

Personally, I want to build an entire Heliod deck. Serra’s Sanctum is just yearning to tap for a million mana and fart out a ton of 2/1 clerics. Can you imagine Sphere of Safety if you have two dozen enchantment clerics out? Norn’s Annex, Ghostly Prison, hell, Test of Endurance for all the life you gain when you spit out a ton of clerics with Suture Priest in play. You can build pillow fort and use Heliod to give you all the enchantments you’ll ever need. This is a non-traditional general and mono-white tends to feel bad in EDH, so I expect the foil to be reasonable right now.

While dealers had to raise their buy prices a bit to keep the supply steady, no one seems to pay the foil much mind. I imagine it dips even more at rotation. I think if the foil hits $5, I’m in, but I’m like a 2/5 on the foil here. Foils have higher upside, but they do have some “new card smell” tax built in when they first rotate. This isn’t a super exciting EDH god for people who aren’t lunatics like me, so I am not going that deep. Obviously, under $5 is absurd for a foil mythic god as you approach its current non-foil buy price. At $1 for the foils, I would spend enough money to make the price go up by sheer virtue of how many I bought. At its current price, I’m a 1/5. I imagine this dips at rotation since none of its price is predicated on Standard or Modern or… being played by anyone at all, really. Sure, maybe I’ll revolutionize 75% EDH with my clericgasm deck, but this is probably just the weakest of the cycle and his price won’t recover until people forgive him for shiv-ing Elspeth in the McRibs.

It’s fair to say that I have talked too much at this point and I’m not going to make it to the ten multicolored gods. I was told to keep my articles “around 2,000 words” and I’m going to hit that before we finish this paragraph. Could I cut some preamble or my dealer skit? Yes, maybe. I could also cut your face. Cut you bad. Cut you so bad, your mama would cry. You want your mom to cry? Okay, then. How about I vastly exceed my word count mandate, upset my editor, give you some bonus content, and see if I can’t squeeze the rest of the gods in next week? I didn’t expect to find this much to talk about when I conceived of the topic, but discovering things that bear discussion is always fun for me and gives me the enthusiasm to barrel through. Three more gods to go—don’t get squeemish on me now. This next one should be easy.

Nylea, God of the Hunt

I figured we’d see stronger behavior from this card, as it’s played in a (fringe) devotion deck in Modern and isn’t a terrible EDH card. I actually kind of like this in decks like Omnath if you need a mana sink or a win condition. Giving Omnath trample is non-trivial and if Omnath dies, dumping the mana into an alpha strike at one or many players is worth doing. The Modern devotion deck is silly but functional. It seems like that modicum of non-casual play gave the card a multiplier over the price of Heliod, but the dealer behavior is even less encouraging. Dealers want to pay the exact same $1 for Nylea that they’re paying for Heliod and it seems like players, enchanted (pardon the pun) by dargons and knuckleblades and commands, are letting go of the gods.

You don’t want Nylea as your general. At all. Ever. That limits the upside of this card quite a bit. The Modern play only appears to tack a buck or two onto the price and dealers don’t seem all that convinced they need to pay competitively to get these. Their total lack of enthusiasm for this card is contagious. I like these at about a 1/5 unless they are like a buck at rotation. Could this get back to its current price in a few years? I think maybe it could. I think you are safe paying what dealers are paying right before rotation if people are dumping. Still, the slight rise in Heliod’s buy price shows that players are reluctant to take an insulting number on a god, and paying more than “an insult” may be a liability. I’d be careful here.

Ugh. $10ish? Why? Modern? It’s not EDH doing this. Dealers are paying just about 50 percent of this card’s value on the button and their price is roughly descending along with the retail price in a curious way. They are reluctant to stop paying real numbers on this card, but who’s buying? This has been a $10 foil for like an entire year and it’s puzzling. I’m sure this dips at rotation because it can’t hold its current price, but unless the bottom falls out entirely, I’m not bullish on the foil. Still, if this hits $5ish, I will feel very differently. This is seeing no Constructed play outside of that fringe Modern deck and it’s only okay in EDH, and that has kept the price from fluctuating much. That said, Erebos’s foil hasn’t tailed off much, and maybe that reflects dealers’ reluctance to rock the boat and TCGplayer sellers’ reluctance to race to the bottom.

Curiously, there are a lot of foils available on TCGplayer. Even with competition amongst dealers, these aren’t really moving a ton. But with foils, people who want them for EDH will buy immediately or wait quite a long time. Rotation could be what the patient players are waiting for. Still, with a lot of loose copies that need to get soaked up before the price will increase along with tepid demand compared to better gods, I’d need to see the foil hit $4 or $5 before I even give this a 2/5, which is so odd considering Nylea has more non-EDH utility than Erebos or Heliod. Still, who’s foiling their fringe Modern deck that has Primeval Titan in it? Curious goings-on here, to be sure.

Purphoros, God of the Forge

This is demonstrating some odd behavior. The spread became virtually non-existent very recently, then dealers backed way off. Let them. This is the money god.

Out of all of the original five, Purphoros is the best in EDH. At his current price, I give him a 3/5. If he hits $3, my score opinion will change to, “What score do I give him out of 5 at $3? His power and toughness.”

Purphoros is nutty. He’s unfair in Prossh decks. As a commander, he’s equally nutty, allowing you to KO people with a single tap of a Krenko. He’s bannably good in EDH and he may be the best god of the 15. Let that sink in. He can be had for twice the cost of Heliod, a god that failed to garner a following to such an extent that his buy price fell to below a dollar. This is the guy to watch, this is the guy to pounce on, and this guy alone is the one that had me wrack my brain for reprint scenarios. How do we get blown out here? FTV Gods? Commander’s Arsenal? I don’t see it. Commander’s Arsenal, by the way, is basically the only way we will ever see a foil reprint. What’s the foil doing?

Yes…yesss. Plummet, buy price. Drag the retail price down along with you. Good. GOOOOOD.

I am bullish at below $15 here, honestly. That said, with essentially none of this price predicated on Standard play, I have no idea how much the foil will go down at rotation, if at all. Still, any discount you get is good. If you can buy these for cash from players at rotation, go ham. I am in for X of these at $12 or below. This is a $20 minimum foil in a few years, barring a catastrophe like a reprint, but the foil seems safe from that fate.

This card is bugnutty in EDH and I’m very excited about the prospect of the price going down. If the price doesn’t move at rotation, I’d leave it alone. The price is probably currently too low, but I don’t know if there is a ton of upside. I’d give this a 2/5 for the foil at its current price just because it feels so… correct right now. Could this be $50 in a few years? Sure, but is EDH that much of a driving force? We’d need something in a four-of format to boost prices that much, so let’s take a hard look at this price and wait for rotation.

Thassa, God of the Sea

This is what a price predicated on four-of formats looks like. It’s actually basically as sad as the others, honestly. Gods have been all but abandoned in Standard in favor of multi-color decks that worry less about permanents and devotion and worry more about KOing faces. Mono-Blue Devotion rocketed this plucky god to superstardom, but these days the former star is closer to Marky Mark in the second half of Boogie Nights than she is to Marky Mark in the first half of Boogie Nights. I think this card has the farthest to fall, which is handy because it has the most reason to. Price memory is propping this up to a large extent, even though it sees only a modicum of play in Modern and its days in Standard are basically over.

This is pretty good in EDH, actually, but I feel like it’s underplayed. The scry is non-trivial and making a creature unblockable is sweet. I can see Thassa making all kinds of creatures connect: Thada Adel, Daxos, or basically any general. It’s underplayed in EDH and that may continue, as it’s also pretty much useless as a general.

Its current price has me hesitant, but with dealer confidence plummeting, I feel like the retail price could be $3 or less at rotation, and with its Modern playability and EDH potential, I’m a 3/5 or 4/5 at that price point. Dealers are paying that now, but they want to pay less, clearly. If you look at dealer buy price a few weeks before the fall set is released and target that as a retail price, you are probably going to be okay at rotation. If you can pay a couple bucks less and get copies from players, even better.

I don’t like the foil price at all, and I’m not sure what’s doing it. Price memory? Even the dealers aren’t that eager to pay less than they are right now and that seems really dumb. I don’t know if this is going to dip enough at rotation for me to care about it and I’m super bearish on it unless it cuts more than half of the current price. With the current value predicated mostly on price memory and Modern playability, the picture is very muddy. I’m calling this basically a 1/5 unless it gets so cheap that you don’t need my advice about whether to buy it. Corbin wants to foil out his Modern Merfolk deck—maybe he’s propping the price up. I’m just so meh about this foil.

Whole Lotta Words

There you have it. This was way longer than I was supposed to make it, but I wasn’t about to make this sub-series take a month or write about fewer than five gods today.

Keep giving me feedback in the comments section, because even if I come up with a good idea, I’ll write about what you want me to write about, unless your idea is terrible. In that case, I’ll send Corbin or Travis a text making fun of you, but I won’t do it publicly because I’m trying to work on being more “approachable” and “managing my brand” and “not getting any more death threats.” So keep the comments coming. Thanks for reading, nerds.

City of Traders, ProTrader, Unlocked ProTrader

UNLOCKED PROTRADER: Is Modern Masters 2015 Bottoming Out?

June 10, 2015 Travis Allen 3 Comments

By: Travis Allen

I normally try to write some sort of opening that segues into my article in order to ease readers into dense material and establish my voice as a writer. I’m on a bunch of painkillers today, though, so we’re just going to jump in.

Study 1: Modern Masters

Two years ago, when the first Modern Masters released, prices drove off a cliff. On many price graphs of original editions, there’s a right angle heading south in mid to late May 2013. Future Sight copies of Tarmogoyf, which had been $170 to $180, were now in the $110 to $120 range. Cryptic Command dropped from $45 to $30. Vendilion Clique from $60 to $45 or or so. Wizards’ goal was to take a whack at staple prices without flattening them, and the set did a great job—in the first few weeks.

It only took a month or two before prices on original printings began rebounding. Stores had trouble keeping boxes of MMA in stock at 30 percent above MSRP, which was driving prices up across the board. Lorwyn and Morningtide copies of Cryptic Command and Vendilion Clique didn’t wait long to begin regaining their lost value.

Meanwhile, the MMA copies didn’t waste any time at all. They came out of the gate at prices reduced from the original printings, of course, but that would be the lowest they’d ever make it. Take a look at the MMA printings of the same two cards, Cryptic and Clique, from day zero.

Both cards either stayed steady or rose immediately, at no point dropping below their initial prices.

Overall, here’s what we saw during the first MMA release: Original printings dropped in value around launch, as was to be expected. After all, it was the first time many of these cards were seeing a second printing. Several weeks later, they began regaining their lost value, and about a year later, they were fully recovered, if not above where they had been before Modern Masters. MMA printings of the cards started out at the lowest price they’d ever be, climbed immediately, saw little or no meaningful loss in value, and eventually skyrocketed in the spring of 2014, when the set saw huge gains across the board.

You got all that? Everything started low, gained value within a few weeks or even immediately, and never looked back.

Study 2: Modern Masters in 2015

Let’s turn our attention now to the cards in Modern Masters 2015 that were also in the original Modern Masters. The major question on everyone’s mind is, “When will the set hit the floor?” The obvious implication is that when we find the floor, that’s the time to buy.

I’m of the belief that we’re probably either there now, we’ve passed it already, or we’re within five to ten percent of it. While initially many of us were expecting to see considerably reduced prices on some of the rare staples, I don’t think we’re getting that low. Jason Alt and a few others, myself included, were discussing at one point getting in on Noble Hierarch at $14. I’m now about as confident as one can be in this field that we’re never getting that low, nor even close to it.

Let’s take a look at the behavior of a few cards to see how things are shaping up. Keep in mind that we’re only a few weeks past the release date, so we don’t have boatloads of data to work with yet. We’re looking for small indicators that are going to tell us where things are headed. Don’t expect to see major upward movements on price graphs yet, because that would mean that we had already missed the floor.

Here’s the MMA printing of Tarmogoyf in the last fifteen weeks.

We see that the Fair Trade Price has drifted from $210 in the middle of December last year to between $180 and $190 today. That’s a loss of roughly 12 percent, and the price hasn’t started to turn up yet. Check out the buylist prices, though, which is the blue line. It’s at its lowest point early in May: $106. On June 6, just a few days ago, it was $110. We’re already seeing the buylist increase on the MMA copy, just a scant few weeks after the release of MM2. Buylist prices are often indicators of future retail pricing. They’re an excellent way of gauging true demand.

How about the MMA copy of Vendilion Clique?

We see a big drop in the Fair Trade Price in mid-April, from $75 to a low of about $58. A few days ago the price was already up to $60, and hasn’t been below that point yet. Meanwhile, the buylist price bottomed out at around $38, and has since climbed to $40.

Cryptic Command has seen more noticeable changes.

Prices in early March and April were in the $55 to $60 range. On June 1, we can see a sharp drop to $35 (although this may be the result of some funny data). The price quickly springs back up, and as of June 8, the Fair Trade Price is already $44, up considerably from June 1.

The buylist line shows that there’s more to this than just retail prices behaving oddly. It cratered around May 10, but has already begun to see a good uptick at the end: from a low of $21 to $25 today. Is this the beginning of a rapid recovery for Cryptic Command?

New Phyrexia’s Karn Liberated has perhaps the most impressive stats of any of these.

In the last 30 weeks, his price has…not really changed. On November 11, his Fair Trade Price was $46.36. As of June 8, it’s $46.58. You can see the launch of MM2 between the May and June markers, with a drop in his trade price to $42, but by the time we hit late May, it’s already climbed back up. His buylist numbers remain consistent as well: $28 on November 10 and $28 today. What we’re seeing here is that Karn has barely been affected at all by the reprint.

Let’s do another recap. Since MM2015’s release, the previous edition of staples (Tarmogoyf, Vendilion Clique, Cryptic Command, and Karn Liberated) have seen the loss in value we expect with a reprint, and have since either begun to level off or increase in price since their recent lows. What we may be seeing here—I can’t be certain—is that the floor of format staples has been reached. If the trends established with those four cards remain consistent, it means they’ve already bottomed out, and will be increasing in price as we move forward. How are the MM2 copies of some of these cards looking?

Study 3: Modern Masters 2015

We’re seeing virtually no change in the MM2 edition of Tarmogoyf’s price. It starts at $165 on May 8 and is $160 as of this writing on June 8. That’s a three-percent loss in thirty days. It’s a loss, yes, but three percent is arguably negligible in a market as volatile as this. There’s certainly no indication that a major downturn is on the horizon.

Hierarch has lost about seven percent since May 8. Notice that around May 23, the price is actually a bit lower than it is today. In fact, it’s visible in Tarmogoyf’s graph as well, although it’s a bit tougher to see. Is it possible that prices bottomed out on the 23rd, just a day after the Modern Masters 2015 official release?

Fulminator Mage is funky compared to the others, and I’m not sure what to make of this data. It’s worth noting that it both starts and ends at $20 though.

Vendilion Clique looks like Hierarch and Tarmogoyf: the lowest point on the graph is the 23rd, and today’s price is only a few percentage points away from the starting price.

I’m not sure that everything has bottomed out yet, though. Here’s MM2 Elesh Norn:

We see a pretty steady 20-percent loss from release.

Iona has suffered similarly.

Conclusions

We know that after the printing of Modern Masters in 2013, across the board cards lost value. This wasn’t surprising. Then, while cards like Stonehewer Giant languished in bulk bins, and still do today, the true format staples bounced back quickly. Meanwhile, the MMA copies of format staples such as Dark Confidant never got much lower than their price upon release. If we use these findings to guide our expectations, we see that the same trends are already emerging in Modern Masters 2015.

Similar behavior is noticeable in two places. The most recent printings of cards in MM2 (MMA Tarmogoyf, NPH Karn Liberated, etc.) seem to have already stopped dropping, and in some places, may even be rising. MM2 copies of high-demand cards, such as Noble Hierarch, have seen either no loss or negligible loss since release.

Here’s where I am right now: I’m getting the impression that true format staples, the four-ofs, have just about found their floors. The other accessory rares and mythics that are powerful but that aren’t quite at the level of Tarmogoyf and Noble Hierarch are still suffering.

Our takeaway is that now is probably the time to buy into the absolute cream of the crop, because if they aren’t at their floor, they’re damn close. If you buy Tarmogoyfs and Cryptic Commands now, there are two outcomes: either they aren’t cheaper again for another two years, meaning you couldn’t have done any better, or they drop from where they are today, but probably only a few percentage points, and you don’t have to feel bad at all.

Why shouldn’t you feel bad if you didn’t buy at the absolute floor? At any time, any of these cards could spike hard. There aren’t as many new copies in the wild as people seem to think, and vendors have gotten a lot more aggressive with forcing the issue in the last few years. Maybe StarCity decides that Cryptic Command shouldn’t be less than $40, and just buys every copy on the market. Or Noble Hierarch. Or Mox Opal. Basically, if you buy now, you’re either getting in at rock-bottom prices or extremely close to them. If you wait, you only stand to save yourself a few bucks on what could easily be a $100 to $200+ purchase, and you also run the risk of getting blown out by sudden market movement.

Consider Mox Opal. Copies are available for about $35 right now, down from $60+. How much cheaper do you really think it can go? Do you expect it to keep dropping and dropping down to $20? If it hasn’t happened already, when three GP’s worth of cards were just opened and 60%+ of MM2 stock that will be opened this year just hit the market, why would it suddenly occur weeks or moths from now?

Recommendations

Here are the mythics and rares from Modern Masters 2015 that I wouldn’t feel bad about buying today:

If I don’t have it listed (Leyline of Sanctity, Splinter Twin, etc.), then I’m advocating staying away for now. These cards still seem to be on the decline. Is it possible they don’t level off, and instead just bounce straight back up? Sure. And if you are in desperate need of Splinter Twins, then you could do worse than locking in at today’s prices and being comfortable with that. If you can manage waiting, though, I would.

The list above is also my MM2 trade list—I’ll be happy to pick up any extras of these. I don’t think you can go wrong trading for any of these cards at retail today, and I think we’ll see pleasant gains on all of them between now and the end of the year. Hopefully they won’t have skyrocketed by October and I’ll be able to shovel money into them ahead of February next year.

Lessons Learned

It’s wild how fast the staples in Modern Masters 2015 seem to have leveled off. Initially we were thinking a month to three. Now it’s looking like half the chase cards in the set are on the rise and we aren’t even at Origins yet. We can probably stop using Chronicles as a reference point.

This set is a good indicator of how to think about reprints in the future. If it’s a tier-one staple and we’re expecting reprints in a non-Standard legal product, then we have nothing to fear. Supplemental product reprints just don’t seem to move the needle much on competitive staples.

Casual staples get hit hard, though, as we’ve seen time and time again. I’d warn against stockpiling too much money in any pricey casual specs. Kozilek, Butcher of Truth has lost 25 percent of his value so far, and I don’t think he’s done falling. That’s a big hit for such an awesome kitchen-table card. I would bet a card like Consecrated Sphinx would take an even larger hit, maybe a 50- to 75-percent loss if reprinted.

Do you agree with me that we’ve found the floor? Are there cards you think we’re better off waiting on, or that we should be buying now?

MTGPrice Blog