Thanks to a providential chain of events, January and February will be one of the most profitable two months period ever for MTGO speculation. The Modern format saw big changes with the introduction of Treasure Cruise and was shaken even more with the recent ban of the two blue delve spells and Birthing Pod. From a speculative point of view this is a unique occasion to generate tremendous profit on several dozens of cards, all at once.

For sure there is/was a lot of money to be made with Modern these days, provided you can spend enough time online tracking, buying and selling all of theses positions. If your bankroll is big enough, time might be the limiting resource, especially if you have reasonable family life and invest on MTGO as a hobby in addition to your day job.

Because of imminent changes in my day job I know I'll have considerably less time available for speculations on MTGO. Although Dragons of Tarkir, Modern Masters 2015 and M16 are three big speculative events within the next seven months I'm looking for ways to reduce my time online while still investing my Tix.

A simple way to reduce the time spent speculating on MTGO is to buy the most expensive cards you bankroll allows. Instead of buying 80 copies of Living End buy 3 copies of Liliana of the Veil, or speculate only on the five most expensive cards of MMA2015.

Surely, the percentage return might be lower with more expensive cards, but buying 3 copies of Liliana of the Veil takes far less time than buying 80 copies of Living End, and that's the point of doing so.

Another way to massively invest Tix on MTGO and that is not often discussed is acquiring complete sets. Buying a set means that 80 to 100 Tix are going to be invested at once, as one position. Similarly to boosters, whole set values fluctuate slowly and in a fairly predictable way. Actually, following whole set value fluctuations of core sets led me to the idea that buying all core set mythics probably was a risk free and profitable move, and it really was!

Today I'll discuss the investment plan I'm going to implement with the Khans of Tarkir set, a valuable set said to be the most redeemed on MTGO.

Investing in Sets

Why Sets?

Why am I going to invest in sets that fluctuate by 50% at most over six to twelve months when Modern cards are jumping by 100% every three months pretty much all year long? As I mentioned in the introduction there are, in my opinion, two main reasons to invest in sets--a large amount of Tix available and little spare time for speculations.

With a several-thousand-Tix big bankroll, investing in cards priced under 2 Tix is getting very time consuming for the relative low return they bring (even if the return percentage per spec is high). Although composed of hundreds of cards, one set represents one single position worth between 70 to 120 Tix in average. Aside from the practical aspect of buying and selling 250 cards at once you can "easily" sink 3,000 Tix in 25 or 30 sets.

As you'll see below, the general price trends are very stable, slow and predictable. Heavily drafted sets tend to remain flat and under-drafted sets gain value. Typically, Standard sets drafted the previous year tend to gain value as most people draft the newest sets.

With easily identifiable buying and selling periods you basically have to be in front of your computer twice in six months, although selling sets is certainly more tedious than buying them. But this is a huge difference in time spent to speculate on MTGO compared to regular specs that are ongoing almost every single day.

Speculating on sets is not likely to yield a triple digit percentage return. However the advantage of speculating on sets is that it sort of immunizes you again any unanticipated metagame shifts. If the value of individual cards from a set fall, others are likely to rise to balance the value of the set.

Previous Set Trends

Although Pro Tour schedules were different, the trend of set price evolution is pretty much always the same. The value of sets tends to bottom during the release of the third set and reach a peak during the following Standard Pro Tour.

Scars of Mirrodin and Innistrad sets bottomed around New Phyrexia and Avacyn Restored releases and were the most valuable around Pro Tour Dark Ascension and Pro Tour Gatecrash.

Both sets gained about 50%, lowest to highest.

Return to Ravnica and Theros have several differences from the two sets above. First, the Standard Pro Tours happened after Theros release for RTR and after Khans of Tarkir release for KTK. Pro Tour Khans of Tarkir actually followed Pro Tour M15 which was also in Standard.

Second, Between the third set of these two block and the following core set, two major releases occurred on MTGO--Modern Masters and Vintage Masters. These two eternal format sets lowered somewhat the bottom of Return to Ravnica and Theros.

Although the absolute bottom for RTR was reached in December 2013, a decent dip was observed during MMA release events and the value of the set had increased by about 30% from the summer 2013 and Pro Tour Theros.

Theros is probably the fall set that saw the least variations of the past four years, and is also one of the least appealing fall set of the past years. Nonetheless the set gained at least 30% in value between June-July 2014 and Pro Tour Khans of Tarkir.

Note that these kind of trends are also mostly true for second, third and core sets.

Buying Khans of Tarkir Sets

When

Based on previous trends, the best moment to buy sets is during the third set release events. If there is a special set during the summer, the release events of this set may push the newest Standard set values to an ultimate bottom. The Return to Ravnica set got a little bit cheaper during MMA release events than during Dragon's Maze release events. However, Vintage Masters didn't change the price of the Theros set much compared to its price during Journey into Nyx release events.

For Khans of Tarkir I will closely watch price fluctuations during Dragons of Tarkir release events next April. Depending on how deep the price of the KTK set goes, I will invest 50 to 70% of what I intend to allocate for the sets. With Modern Masters 2015 to be released later in May on MTGO I'll keep 30 to 50% of my Tix to buy Khans of Tarkir sets at that moment; a great tip is probable here.

How

In a fortunate coincidence, about two weeks ago Goatbots implemented the option to buy full sets. Although you could probably have worked out a deal with other major bot chains to acquire dozen of complete sets, this new feature from Goatbots set a standard for this kind of investment.

So, to buy complete sets you have two options--buying individual cards or buying complete sets all at once.

Buying individual cards from different vendors is likely to get you the best price for a set. This option can be, however, very time consuming and would save you about 5% in average compared to the best complete set price available.

I did that last year for four sets of Theros. I looked for the best prices for all the mythics and most of the rares and bought accordingly. I completed my sets (valued ~90 Tix per set at the time) with an average 5-7 Tix discount compare to Goatbots price. For four sets it took me close to an hour complete the task. I would not do this for sure for the quantity of sets I plan to buy, as one of my criteria for buying sets is to save time.

Several vendors, bots or humans, sell complete sets on the Classifieds. There's not a lot of them and comparing prices is easy. If you want to go for several sets you should probably contact them in advance and see what's doable in terms of delivery and prices. Doing so certainly will save you time, and possibly even money. That's what I intend to do, working out a deal with a major bot chain.

Selling Khans of Tarkir Sets

When

The previous years showed us that a peak in value of oldest Standard sets occurs during Standard Pro Tours following the release of the new fall set. This trend happens as players shift their attention from the newest Standard block to the special summer set, then to the core set and finally to the new fall set.

Concomitantly, the emergence of a new Standard format lifts up expectations of numerous cards from the previous block. Once pros settle the metagame during the Pro Tour prices stabilize with some falling and other rising. Not many price changes are observed in set value after the Pro Tour.

According to this, I plan on selling Khans of Tarkir sets in September-October around the release of the next fall set.

How

There are various options to buy sets, but it's relatively easy. Selling sets on the other hand can be more challenging but several options can be used to sell complete sets.

Selling online full sets for Tix - With this option you're looking to sell the complete set for its Tix value. It can be done by posting your offer on the Classifieds or by answering buying offers from humans or bots.

Selling online full sets for cash - This can also be achieved on the Classifieds for cash, using your preferred method of payment, instead of Tix this time around. You can also sell digital sets on eBay. I did that with two sets of Theros last year. Here, however, you will have to increase your price as eBay/Paypal fees swallow ~12% of your revenue.

Selling individual cards - You might not extract the full value of a set with this but it can faster and easier. If it happens that selling the mythics plus the top 20 rares is enough to get you 90% of the value of the set you may want to opt for this option. You then try to sell the uncommons and commons for bulk for a couple of cents of Tix, or as full sets of commons and uncommons!

Redeem sets - This last option could be the one that yields the most profit. Redeeming online sets for paper sets has a cost, but if you are able to sell the sets at average paper prices you will capitalize on the margins, albeit small, that exist between online and paper prices. Having a brick-and-mortar or online store is the best outlet for that kind of spec.

With the Khans of Tarkir sets I intend to buy I'll keep the whole spec online and plan on buying and selling in Tix. If everything works according to plan I'll be keeping my sets for five to seven months for a target profit of 20-30%. These percentages could be higher depending on my time available to look for the best prices.

Overall, investing in sets seems like a perfectly valid strategy to invest on MTGO, especially if you have a large amount of Tix to invest and limited spare time to do so.

Thanks for reading,
Sylvain