Today I'll share with you the positions I focused on this past week, either buying or selling, with some explanations and perspectives.

Modern is the driving force of my investment these days. While most of the cards are trending up, following the PT path, others we saw last week, such as Oblivion Stone or Karn Liberated, are clearly at a bottom now and constitute a perfect pickup for healthy profits in a couple months.

Here is what happened in my portfolio last week.

Buying

Serra Ascendant

Serra Ascendant is a pillar of the Soul Sisters deck. Relying on small creatures and huge quantities of life gain, this deck is fairly popular on MTGO and pretty unattractive for pros during a PT. Therefore the deck was nowhere to be seen in Valancia, creating a nice opportunity for us here.

Currently at 2-2.5 tix, with a potential ceiling of 6 tix, Serra Ascendant is at a perfect price to pick up. With Modern season still ahead of us and ceilings always trending higher, this is a 100% easy profit in two months.

Phantasmal Image

Phantasmal Image is a versatile card that can appear in at least two decks: Pod and Merfolk (Modern and Legacy respectively). It lost a bit of its magic with the modification of the legend rule, but it's still unmatched as a two-mana clone.

A little bit above 1 tix right now, and at an eight-month low, this is another safe bet for the Modern season.

Grim Lavamancer

M12 Lavamancer is currently sitting around 1.5 tix, its baseline for the past year and a half. Curiously, the Torment version is worth close to 5 tix and was constantly trending up since last summer. Will the M12 version close the gap during the Modern season? Most likely they will meet half way, at around 3.5 tix.

Amulet of Vigor

Will you take another ride? Prior to PT Born of the Gods I had started to accumulate the Amulet at around 1 tix, and sold the few playsets I had into the hype. Probably one of my best ROI's in such a short period of time.

After this unexpected explosion and these even more unexpected returns, Amulet of Vigor is almost back to a 1 tix value, exactly where I want it to be just before the Modern season. The Amulet deck is probably far from Tier 1, but it's interesting and competitive enough for Amulet to sustain a 2+ tix price tag during the Modern season.

Hive Mind

Because of the Amulet deck, Hive Mind also saw a crazy jump from 0.2 tix to 1 tix in two days, and then nothing. Almost back to 0.2 tix, Hive Mind represents a nice investment for smaller bankrolls. Here again, aim for doubling your tix--it is uncertain that Hive Mind will hit 1 tix again this season. Nonetheless, this card is playable in different deck archetypes, and 0.5-0.6 tix is a legitimate goal.

Anger of the Gods

Two weeks after the PT, the price has settled a little bit. It is tricky to speculate on currently drafted Standard cards. But as I mentioned before I firmly believe in this card, both as a major new addition to Modern sideboards and a potential first-choice sweeper in Standard (this year or next). I'm accumulating Anger of the Gods whenever the price gets under or close to 0.5 tix.

Selling

Shadowborn Demon

I bought this card back in August at 3.3 tix, waiting for a spike or moderate increase between January and April. I sold a few copies in early December when the card spiked because of Conley Wood's brews. I should probably have sold all my stock at that point to move to Modern targets. Now that the demon is spiking again, I won't miss this opportunity. I'm gradually selling playset after playset above 5 tix.

Chord of Calling

This card is a major, non-reprinted, staple in the current Modern metagame. Chord of Calling is breaking record after record since the end of February, and Pod decks made a huge splash at GP Richmond this weekend.

However, if Pod Decks are good they are also not easy to play optimally on MTGO. I wonder if we are not close to a bubble here with prices flirting with 25 tix. I'm willing to let go of some of my copies now at 22-23 tix now, and I'm watching the trend carefully.

Thanks for reading,

Sylvain Lehoux