All told I just think its unwise to buy anything expensive in Modern right before a new masters set comes out. It’s impossible to really predict what wizards will do with these – we did not get serum visions or goblin guide in MM15 which felt like locks the same way Liliana of the Veil and Snapcaster Mage feel for MM17.

Wizards hasn’t printed land cycles before – but who’s to say fetchlands or enemy fastlands don’t make the cut for Mm17?

Too hard to predict, safe bet is to wait for spoiler season to buy anything pricey just to be safe. As soon as what you want is alphabetically/mathematically out of the picture scoop them up immediately before they can spike.

A very fair point, Jason. I simply was pointing out that Jim did, in fact, offer an explanation as to why he would suggest someone buy it now. Hey everything comes with risk. I am still crossing my fingers WOTC releases “Goyf Masters,” a set where every pack features a tarmogoyf guaranteed.

So I think there is a common misconception about Modern Masters sets here. The pattern seems to be that the Mythic slot only is the explicit “this card needs a reprint” slot, and the rest of the set is largely “this mechanic is good for drafting, what cards are modern legal that we can put into it that fit this draft mechanic?”

The game design team just did landfall in BFZ. Set design starts roughly 2 years ahead of a set release. They knew that they had just done BFZ when they started this set, so my assumption would be that landfall wouldn’t happen in MM17, which is a draft set. Mostly because its boring game design space.

So if it does get a reprint it would probably be in the rare slot since its not really a chase modern card. But the rare slot is usually focused around draft mechanics more than the mythic slot. That’s what makes Bloodghast an unlikely printing in this set to me. If they do put it at mythic (I’d be surprised), then we’ll see the tarmogoyf effect on the price of it because originally a rare, reprinted at mythic, for a deck that is inexpensive leads to the “oh! Now I just need 3 more of these!” which would in the long run lead to a price increase on the card and on the rest of dredge.

The rest of dredge’s price is also likely to go up in the event that Bloodghast sees a reprint at rare. The card is a casual all-star, so its price probably won’t ever hit bulk. Its been on a steady incline for a long time. The card is brewed with all the time. It is used in any deck that abuses creature recursion in EDH. Its a great card that didn’t have a home in modern before now. Even if you buy in at $25, and dredge stays tier 1, GGT will probably climb in price to offset your loss on bloodghast (assuming only 1 of them gets printed). And Bloodghast will probably not stay super low forever.

I’m in the “if you want to play the deck, just buy the card” camp. Don’t speculate on it, because that ship has sailed (if you wanted to spec on Bloodghast you should have done it at $10 because of its casual appeal and the fact that people have been trying to make dredge a thing in modern for so long). But if you buy the whole deck, you probably won’t take a huge hit on the entirety of the collection unless BOTH GGT and Bloodghast get a reprint in MM17… which I would doubt.

If the deck doesn’t get banned in January, and Bloodghast doesn’t see a reprint in MM17, expect the card to continue to climb. For the record, I think this is the most likely outcome.

I assumed he meant difficult to reprint in a standard-legal set. Keyword means nothing to getting printed in supplemental product (not the question here but still) and very little to getting printed in modern masters – these sets routinely support like a dozen keywords and as per Jim’s comment can have as few as 3 cards with the word on it.

Landfall has even recently been de-keyworded (Tireless Tracker) and if they do include it its not like Infect – it is perfectly fine as an ability on one or a few cards in the set. But it could also be a full blown mechanic to support reprinting something like Scapeshift at rare,

Anything is possible but not everything is probable. It’s probable that the cards that were chosen to be reprinted in MM17 were chosen over a year ago. Bloodghast was a $12 rare until Shadows over Innistrad this year. They also don’t like putting one keyworded card in a set. Exalted had 3 cards in MM15 which is probably the minimum. I’d say the chance of bloodghast getting reprinted is pretty low due to how much support the set needs for landfall as a mechanic and the lower price of the card at the time.

Keep in mind, this is Jim’s (informed) opinion, but it’s not fool-proof. I agree with him that a dredge theme in draft is unlikely, but it’s certainly not impossible. Ultimately all this stuff comes down to the concept of “risk”—what he’s saying is that the buy-in on Grave-Troll is worth it in his estimation, but as with all forms of investing you want to be diversified across lots of specs so as not to get totally screwed by a missed prediction.

Tl;dr: There’s basically no such thing as a “safe” spec.

To quote the author in that exact section:

“It’s on the harder side of things to reprint, due to a fairly unique mechanic”

So it is a safe buy despite being expensive because he believes it is a less likely reprint. Gotta bear in mind WOTC looks at modern masters not only as a reprint set for constructed players but a cool draft environment to sell it to limited players as well.

Maybe I’m just scared of commitment even in MTG haha.

I really enjoyed the way you presented this information. I think it was one of the most catching financial articles yet, especially the part where you defined what the core of the deck is and how much it would cost to achieve.

Having said that, you and I are both Burn players at heart, so I’d love to see the actual breakdown of what is traditionally the “beginner’s” deck from a money perspective. Perhaps a small note of the chances of Goblin Guide being reprinted in MM17?