Comments on: Unlocked Insider: The Current and Future State of Modern

By: B. Roome

B. Roome — Mon, 16 Jun 2014 02:00:36 +0000

In reply to Corbin. Yeah, I wouldn't say I'm upset about it. Merely interested in the extent to which speculators are economists, we should factor our own influence into our predictions of the market.

By: jedijules

jedijules — Fri, 13 Jun 2014 12:35:26 +0000

That the printing of more fetches will cause modern staples to go up (at least those that aren’t simultaneously reprinted — so this matters more if we see fetches before MM2) is a very nice point. I’ve sold much of my modern specs over last few months, but I’ll be looking to selectively pick things up again after this modern season.

By: zach5000

zach5000 — Fri, 13 Jun 2014 09:53:22 +0000

I actually was making a similar prediction a couple weeks after all the modern cards spiked. At the time I had been a little disconnected with magic community but still followed trends on the internet.
I asked a few local finance savvy guys, like myself, what they thought of the early spike. They assumed it was everyone trying to get ahead of the game. From that i made the statement that when PTQ season hit there wouldn’t be another spike. Everyone disagreed with me saying the trend is only up up up. I tried to point out how modern decks were reaching legacy pricing and the the spikes may be mostly players and speculators buying cards which means less demand and more supply when the season starts.
Everything i said fell on deaf ears. The only cards to sell in there minds were fetches due to the 100 dollar “mind” break point. I was a bit timid myself but still trusted my gut enough to sell off some cards i felt were well over priced and in danger of a reprint in a core set. Ensnaring bridge was my first card i picked just cause it feels like it could easily be in a core set. birthing pod due to possible banning of it, or key part to deck, celestial colonnade price just seemed to much for play it sees, and fetches of course.

By: Corbin

Corbin — Fri, 13 Jun 2014 05:26:49 +0000

In reply to Justin. Thank you very much for the kind words, I appreciate it.

By: Harry Colyer

Harry Colyer — Fri, 13 Jun 2014 01:37:21 +0000

This article scares me just a bit. The reason? It just sounds right! LOL. I, like Justin^ am entering my first season of speculation on a format. I have an entire Pro-Binder full of Man Lands, Shock Lands, Fast Lands, Pods, Restoration Angels, etc. that were acquired in the hopes that they would spike right about now. And they haven’t. This isn’t scaring me at all though. I mean, look at the cards that I just rambled off. How could it ever be a bad thing to have 360 of these lying around after having picked them up at what I still feel are bargain basement prices? My theory on it is this: While this binder of spec that I have is a lot of money tied up in cards that aren’t moving right this second, they still make up a relatively small portion of my overall investment. I can sit on these cards, feeling pretty secure in their long term value, and not have to pick them up again when the next catalyst hits. This will help me to avoid the rush of MTG finance folks trying to grab these all at once. I really, really, really hope that you are wrong about this, but I just don’t feel like you are. Great article, great to see a writer speak it out loud, thank you!

By: Justin

Justin — Thu, 12 Jun 2014 23:29:18 +0000

This is my first “season” since I have been seriously starting to spec and I have to say Corbin I applaud you for writing this article and it shows you have some moxie. It felt like the calm before a storm with modern season approaching and I kept hearing your “10% for the other guy” advice in my head and dumped my fetches and staples. Now let see if the storm unleashes or fades into the horizon. My vote is “gentle steady rain until rotation”. 🙂

Also great work on the BSB Podcast and your all writing, thanks for your time and hard work.

By: Corbin

Corbin — Thu, 12 Jun 2014 21:55:59 +0000

In reply to B. Roome. It's definitely possible. It's hard to be too upset though, because like I said in the article, this is completely unprecedented.

By: Corbin

Corbin — Thu, 12 Jun 2014 21:55:05 +0000

In reply to Jason CHurch. Thank you :)

By: Corbin

Corbin — Thu, 12 Jun 2014 21:54:50 +0000

In reply to Sigmund. Yeah, I think there's a few weeks of a window to wait and see if things begin to reverse. But historically prices have been trending up at this time of the season, not down. Hard to see that changing.

By: Jason CHurch

Jason CHurch — Thu, 12 Jun 2014 19:21:39 +0000

Such a bad ass, props to you for saying it.

By: B. Roome

B. Roome — Thu, 12 Jun 2014 18:10:57 +0000

I think its possible that the heavy spec on modern may have damaged the market somewhat. When people who weren’t in modern already saw fetches at $100, they balked and said “I guess I’ll wait until they reprint the fetches before I start playing modern.” For me, legacy was just out of reach for years until I started making a serious income. I think a lot of the staples in modern are being held by people like us, and that its actually driving demand to play modern down because people just think the prices are absurd. If the market starts to flood with people selling their staples rather than holding them on spec, and prices come down, we might see an uptick in demand. Whether that means the prices will go back up again is another question. Anyway, its definitely troubling that this month was supposed to be our dancing days, and instead we’re left watching downward trends. Something went seriously wrong with our prediction of the market, and I think it might be that we forgot to factor in ourselves.

By: Sigmund

Sigmund — Thu, 12 Jun 2014 17:07:13 +0000

I admire your bold claims. Sometimes my articles are too wishy washy but yours is clear and actionable. For this, I applaud you. (Oh, and also appreciate the mention 🙂 )

Here’s the constructive part: do you think it’s possibly too soon to claim Modern isn’t going up? Modern PTQ’s have JUST begun. They’ll be going on for months. Maybe local Modern FNM’s will pick up because people will want to test. Maybe more people will talk about Modern because it’s their ticket to the next Pro Tour. I just wonder if it’s too early to say there will be no PTQ spike.

Also, I expect SOME cards to go up at least. Not fetches. Maybe not the ones that overshot on the high end a while back. But there may be some that do move. I still think Fast Lands can fall into this category because they’re not very expensive yet.

Wishful thinking may be clouding my assessment here, but I don’t think I want to just bail on Modern just yet. I may wait a month. I don’t think things will drop in the next month, that’s for sure. Demand is only increasing now and supply is definitely flat.

That’s my initial reaction to your article. I definitely think Modern is a sell this season, but I was aiming towards the middle of the season (call it end July) rather than the very beginning. Interested in hearing your thoughts on my slightly modified approach.

Thanks,

Sig