Thanks Shazam!

Exactly what I expect from the writers on this site, thank you. Matt's call % hits well above the market and his analysis always makes sense. I am still very novice in digital, but by following his advice over the last year+ I have made well over my subscription with almost no loss.

I also like that you explain the theory behind your picks, it helps me understand the influences so I can determine if a play is right for me (risk, investment cost, time of hold, etc).

I couldn't find a good comparison to Wolfir Silverheart to serve as an example.

Generally cards from the most recent block receive a bump in price at rotation, but I wouldn't rely on this except for staples such as dual lands and other cards that have proven themselves in Standard or are mythics priced at their floor. It's the nature of investing on mtgo, unless you spend time to buy directly from people, you have to surrender the buy/sell spread to the bots.

With this in mind, let's look at what might happen. Wolfir Silverheart wil probably go above 2 tix in October, to 2.5 to 3 tix. If I bought in today at market prices, a jump to 2.5 tix mean I just about break even. A jump to 3 tix means I turn a small profit. For me, I want it to go to 3+ tix because then your are close to making 1 tix on each card. If I could reliably buy these at 1 tix today, then I would be on board with Wolfir Silverheart as a good speculative investment.

I've done my work, I've made some predictions based off of it, and I've put my money down on Sorin. If Wolfir Silverheart breaks out as a top card in Fall Standard, then it'll probably push to 5 tix. At that point, my analysis will have proven to be incorrect. I look forward to seeing what happens!

are there examples of cards that have fallen in price due to the transition of block format? or is this a more unique scenario due to an untested quantity in tokens

See this thread for the pre cursor to this article. http://www.quietspeculation.com/forum/index.php/t…

As I mentioned above, my timing was off on the current standard staples. I hope to do better next time for you Dave!

Casting cost makes all the difference in this case. With the guilds of Ravnica on the horizon, anybody who wants to should be able to squeeze bonfire into their deck. The same cannot be said for Entreat the Angels.

They are both hard to judge and I haven't thought about them much. If they approach their respective price floors of 8 and 13 again, then I would be more interested. As it stands, they are powerful cards which don't currently have a home in Standard. Most likely they will see some bump up in October as brewers get to work.

I like Tamiyo better than Entreat. We've seen a 5cc planeswalker from a 3rd set/large set go up to 40 tix before in Gideon Jura. Tamiyo will fit into a control deck, but will it be a 3 of? Maybe. It's almost a certainty that Tamiyo will make an appearance as a useful piece in a control deck this year.

Entreat is much harder to judge. And I don't like to gamble on cards that I don't know very well.

Thanks for the feedback! I agree that we should have published this last week. It was a matter of scheduling (now fixed) that complicated that–Matthew was on top of things. as he wrote this while on a biweekly publication cycle.

After this week, however, Matthew has his own weekly column, which will allow his content to stay timely.

It's actually worse than a week out of date, it's closer to two weeks out of date!

Something changed with the pre releases of M13 that makes the thesis of this article basicaly incorrect. WoTC lowered the prices of pre releases to 25 tix which allowed enough product to come onto the market that people got interested in Standard again. This started pushing prices up on all Innistrad block cards that are currently played in Standard earlier than expected.

Previously, my top pick had been Restoration Angel, but it's price started increasing sooner than I anticipated, I think due to this change to the pre releases. The DKA zombies saw something similar happen. Sorin was largely unaffected due to not being played to any great extent, and so I had to rejig my top pick.

Thanks for the constructive critcism; I recognize that the timeliness of this article is poor and I will work hard to write more timely articles in the future.

Cheers,
Matt

So next year, a little bit earlier!

In your second paragraph, you are correct in reflecting that tokens being a possible deck in Fall Standard will have a negative impact on Jund. As you also suggest, Fall standard is difficult to predict. We just can't know how powerful the block tokens deck is compared to Jund, but we can surmise that it is pretty good based on cards being banned in block. The last cards to be banned in block were affinity related cards from Mirrodin block.

Also, prices on Jund staples such as Huntmaster of the Fells and Wolfir Silverheart are more elevated than they otherwise would have been in a block format with tokens. This is where the value trap comes from, and I would put Huntmaster in this category too.

Both cards are powerful and have seen a lot of play, particularly in block. This has driven prices up. If their playability in Fall Standard is reduced compared to block, then we should expect a slow price decline as players realize these former all stars are just not as good as they were.

The critical juncture is this mix of current playability and a price that is not too expensive. If Wolfir Silverheart were less played, then it would be easy to say it's too expensive. If it was cheaper, then it would be easy to say it's a good investment. As it stands, it's played enough but is somewhat expensive so it's in a range where it's upside and downside risk are close in my opinion.

I hope this helped to clarify my thinking, feel free to ask more questions!

Also, what do you mean by jund being over-represented? Isn't a deck's playability a good sign for the cards contained within? Or could you be referring to tokens being reintroduced negatively affecting this deck's position in the metagame?

Looking forward to your response. Cheers! 🙂