Lol, MTG Finance is crazy attractive right now and the more people that pour into speculation, the more price movement there will be…for better or worse.

Staying ahead of the curve will be so key. The QS forums, our Insider Content, Email Blasts, etc. will provide you with access to what people are watching. If you wait until the next Monday after an event to read about it, you’re too late. That’s what technology has done – and there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s just the new reality!

Mark,

I apologize for the negative tone (and consequently the negative tone of this comment). I could have definitely written this article in a more optimistic way. The glass wasn’t always half-empty.

In the case of Nykthos gains vs. Heliod losses, Nykthos was only $8 or $9 when I wrote the article and now two days later they’re $15. So my tone here would have been different. I’m estatic with my Nykthos gains and they will likely outweigh the Heliod losses, which should be minor because I paid a reasonable price for them.

I’m frustrated by Boon Satyr because I am still waiting to receive a few copies because I had to travel on business. This was my own lack of foresight. Still I assumed I had at least a couple weeks to out these profitably – and I still may. But the absence of Boon Satyr from the Pro Tour Top 8 does give me doubts.

In any event, thank you very much for the feedback. I’ll try to be more conscious of my article’s tone in the future! I really appreciate your taking the time to share these thoughts. The only way I can improve my writing is with feedback!

Sig

Yuka, this is an excellent point! In reality, it’s impossible to expect perfection here. We can’t buy at the absolute bottom and sell at the absolute top. Especially considering how much inefficiency there is in the MTG market. Thanks for sharing this example as it actually does make me feel a little bit better 🙂

“Sadly, I was trying to follow an alternate path for speculation. I correctly latched onto the devotion mechanic, but I had focused my funds on Heliod, God of the Sun and Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx. The former has thus far been a bust, but acquiring fifteen Nykthos for $3.50 a copy has paid off well thus far. It turns out that devotion is as good as I thought–just not in white (yet).

The result: I now have nearly 20 copies of Heliod, which I either have to move for a small loss or sit on in anticipation for some powerful white devotion cards in the next set. As for Nykthos, that one will pay off nicely at least, perhaps balancing on my losses from Heliod.”

Perhaps? Depending on when you bought them, you’re going to lose a buck or 2 on the heliods. You’re making over $10 each on the nykthoses.

Overall my 50% success rate isn’t terrible as long as I bank more profits on Nykthos than I lose on Heliod. But to be honest, I’m walking out of this Pro Tour with a sour taste in my mouth. After two weeks of SCG Standard events giving us ideas for speculation targets, the Pro Tour jumped in a significantly different direction.

“What happened to the likes of Advent of the Wurm? Where are all the Boon Satyrs?”

Advent could still spike before it rotatates. If not you can always sell now to cut your loses. Boon satyr I would have sold after it spiked, but I don’t think the price has crashed on it yet. You can still sell and make money off them.

Did people even play these cards? Probably, but I didn’t hear anything about them on Twitter. All I heard about and watched was a blue devotion deck and a green-red devotion deck tear up the Pro Tour. While Thassa, God of the Sea has jumped from $12 to $25, Boon Satyr has pretty much leveled out.

This brings me to the title of this section: speculation has become difficult these days. The instantaneous flow of information is a direct cause.

“If you plan to maximize profits from speculating on a new set after rotation, you basically have to drop everything and monitor event results from the get-go. Also, make sure you cancel any social events or travel plans the weekend of a major event early on in a Standard season. You’ll need to be at your computer making purchases.”

This weekend was a huge opportunity to make money. I made much more from this pro tour than I did from my full time job this week. All you had to do is scoop up the hot cards once they start buzzing. Master of waves, thassa, tidebinder, nykthos. Youre right that you have to spend a lot of time monitoring results, but it’s probably worth it if you want to make money. If not then don’t worry about it, and leave more $6 master of waves for the rest of us. I don’t get why you’re talking about this like it’s a negative thing….

Polukranos seems pretty good right now (because of Nykthos), but it did see a price increase.

Heroic is tough because competitive decks don’t usually play spells that target your own creatures. Control decks have almost no creatures, so those are right out. Mono-green / Gruul wants Domri and/or Garruk and almost all creatures. Same goes with Mono-blue and RDW (whose only targeting spells are burn).

I feel that it’s a mechanic that needs a LOT of support to be viable in Standard. Spells with buyback, auras that bounce cheaply, top-quality spells that target two or more creatures.

I know that feeling of not have been able to maximize profits. But I always think to myself this way. Say I had spent $2k on some stocks and three months later I sold them for $4k. I might think, if only I spent $5k on it, I would’ve ended up with a lot more! But suppose I actually had spent $5k on it and walked away with $10k. I would have thought the same way: why haven’t I dump all my cash on it (say, $20k) and win much more? And why haven’t I borrowed $100k for some months to invest in it?

This last thought borders insanity. What if there’s as small as a 20% chance that I don’t end up get my investments doubled, instead I lost them all? That’s a 20% chance my whole life would have gotten ruined.

Say you have $20k, and you invest exactly one half of it on something. If you end up winning, you walk away unhappy because you should’ve invested much more. If you lose, you walk away unhappy because you shouldn’t have invested anything at all, or perhaps you should even have selled short. This is ridiculous – if we can’t be happy whenever our profits aren’t maximized, we can never be happy until we go to extremes and go insane.

Heroic reminds me of Cascade: you get an “uncounterable” spell even if your initial spell is countered. It’s hard to ignore that kind of value. Now, we’re not Ancestral Recalling ourselves with Heroic (there’s not enough Fortune in those Tides to Hunt!) but there’s still some potential.

However, if Paul “Boros” Rietzl wasn’t playing RW heroic at the PT, then I’m a little worried that it’ll take another set or two to shine.

There’s definitely merit to this approach. It’s much safer. I cannot fault you for following it.

I hope you’re right about Naya and Selesnya. But I’ve definitely become less excited about stuff like Boon Satyr after seeing this Pro Tour.

Great point, Brecht. Heroic is severely underutilized right now in Standard. Maybe there’s an opportunity out there but no one has uncovered it yet? It’s definitely a speculative play, but worth thinking about.

Has anyone seen any successful heroic decks? Maybe there are some sweet targeting spells coming in the next set?

Glad you liked the article.

Yeah, I definitely missed the Master of Waves jump on Friday. I saw the card was moving “mysteriously” and I didn’t have the confidence that the rise was legit. Apparently something linked. Ahhhh…technology.

I am also tempted to play the mono U deck, but I only own 1 Master myself.

Underworld Connctions could be interesting. It may be wise to pick up a few in case the black devotion deck gains traction.

An interesting quote:

” But I should have trusted Wizards–they do quite thorough testing nowadays and I find it highly unlikely they’d create a new mechanic only to have it be irrelevant.”

Does this mean we should see an heroic deck too?

Maybe it’s possible, Boros heroic.

Looking at the decklists at PT Dublin,there were plenty of Naya and Selesnya decks in the field of +400, just none of them were very successful. I believe Advent of the Wurm and other GW cards still have upside, but we might have to wait…

While I hit with Nykthos and Master of Waves, it was only because I was buying during the event, rather than before or after the event, something which I had learned from watching the Worlds stream (where Lifebane Zombie and Burning Earth got hot). You might forego a bit of profit but at least you’ll know if you’re on the right platform for hype-train.

One other card that I noticed was the 4-of Underworld Connections in the Mono-Black Devotion list. Those are under a buck each still. Does that deck have legs? It was certainly out-shined by it’s azure brethren but a PT T8 is still a PT T8.

Nice play, Gerard. I didn’t preorder anything but I did acquire a couple sets cheaply. Then I sold them for like $7 each before fees, shipping. I don’t feel awful for selling these early and locking in profits though. It’s our nature to try and maximize profits, but it also seems like a psychological paradox when we get frustrated for making less profits than was possible. Profit is profit – making money on MTG is the goal. Not making more money on MTG than anyone else. We all have our own strategies and comfort levels.

Thanks for the comment!