Sure, but that doesn’t suddenly make it move significantly up from $5 because casual players are actually picking it up, in fact now months later it’s still in roughly the same place.

Was just re-reading my comments here to research an article.

Both are wrong,

the average casual player plays whatever he has. Some care about the life loss, others don’t. My guess is that most realize that losing 1 life is worth it when you start with 40 life, certainly if it allows you to cast whatever you have in your hands.

Mana confluence and city of brass are not worth their value from competitive play alone. I assume casual has a big share in this too.

You took a decision at that time with the knowledge and insight you had at that moment. With that information, it was the right decision and there were no signs that the first MM set was going to make the mythics more expensive instead of cheaper. I’m sure even WOTC was surprised by that effect.

When evaluating decisions in the past, context is very important.

good article!

You were the one to say “fetches and shocks”?

I covered the more budget minded people in my first comment and did accept that there were people who would play it.

Also isn’t your hope that it increases from $5 so you can sell with profit?

The 2 colors are not a problem because you use the large number of fetches to get exactly what you need. You’ll likely play a few Command Tower / Rupture Spire / Vivid lands / Mirrodin’s Core / Gemstone Mine / Shard lands and other multicolored lands if you are worried about getting color screwed, but you wouldn’t really need many if any. Your average casual player is going to prefer many things over losing a life every time you tap a City or Confluence.

The VAST majority of lands you listed above cost more than Mana Confluence. And those above are mostly restricted to 2 colors (fetches are an exception, but also most expensive). Mana Confluence gives you all 5 colors and is $5.

Assuming you don’t have the money for real Duals and 4-color:

5 ONS Fetches

5 ZEN Fetches

5 MIR Fetches

6 Shocks

3 BFZ Duals

2-3 SHM lands with basic land type, Murmering Bosk and/or Dryad Arbor if appropriate (the B, G and W SHM lands are very good)

Any number of (Snow) Basics

6 Man Lands (plus mono-colored ones if appropriate)

6 Filter lands (possibly the original 3 too)

X Utility lands

Etcetera etcetera etcetera.

You just don’t have the room for it.

I see no indication that EDHREC filters out duplicates, we may be seeing different versions of the same deck by the same player or different decks by the same player who just happens to like Confluence. It may be the best source, but if your best source is actually a poor source it may very well lead you to the wrong conclusions.

I’m not denying it being an interesting card from a finance perspective, however, I just don’t believe in the Commander interest (especially not just because EDHREC says so).

While I certainly wouldn’t argue that EDHREC is perfect, I do think it is the best available source (as compared to anecdotal evidence based on local metas, or theory-crafting). I also think that even if EDHREC is not particularly representative, the fact that the competitive subset that posts list online has 12k copies of the card in decks is actually enough to move the needle all by itself — especially since that subset is likely to care less about cost than the casuals do.

And the needle is in fact moving — the card is trending up, and will eventually spike when the online supply dwindles some more (assuming it avoids a mass reprint). This is a third-set card, so there aren’t a ton of them. Even now, there aren’t actually that many listed on tcgplayer. SCG and coolstuff are sold out, although the other majors seem to have plenty.

Lastly, the price of this is still too close to the floor set by city of brass, which is 4-5 bucks despite a load of printings.

I have to say I disagree with you on this one, pi. I do put stock in EDH REC. It has correlated fairly well recently on some of the hot Atraxa and Breya cards that have seen price movement. If there’s a random card that jumped and I suspect Commander was the culprit EDH REC is where I check first. It may not be 100% perfect, but it is the best resource we have for EDH card play.

I believe Mana Confluence is a fine card for 4-color and 5-color decks. It’s a logical include, even on top of fetches and shocks. If you need four colors by turn 4 for your Commander, you may not draw multiple fetches to help you get there. It’s about maximizing flexibility – there may be BETTER ways to do it, but Mana Confluence (and City of Brass) increase consistency drastically.

So to each their own :). Hope the rest of the column was useful at least.

Sig

EDHREC is a really bad source for EDH playability information from our finance perspective. This is a very good example of why. It bases itself on online decklists, which do not accurately reflect the EDH community as a whole.

The problem is that most EDH players don’t bother with discussing or posting their decks online. Those who do tend to fall at the more fanatical end of the spectrum and more fanatical players tend to be those trying to win. This leads to the EDHREC data being very skewed by competitive EDH players who actually form a small minority among EDH players.

It’s no surprise that more competitive players play Mana Confluence as it allows them to combo earlier. As a group they are too small to have a significant price influence though.

Setting aside whether it should be played in commander, it certainly appears to be. EDHREC shows it as the third-most played card from Theros block.

Obviously the card makes little sense when you play a single color, so this just leaves the 2-color decks. At this point you will find that there are still a lot of 2-color lands, in fact you could easily play your deck fully highlander and have a good mana base if you are in 2 allied colors without having to go down to Mana Confluence unless you absolutely positively need to play as many lands as you can that don’t come into play tapped (AKA playing a combo deck). Your choices in enemy colors are a bit worse, but the card would hardly be a top pick unless, again, your lands should absolutely come into play untapped.

Obviously this is assuming you have the funds. When you don’t the card moves up as a reasonably affordable option to give you multiple colors. However, for such players, if they know how to build, they can reach better decks bij simply playing fewer colors or by focussing on land searchers that worse case can just fetch the right basics. You also get to a point where the card is beaten by more affordable options (Rupture Spire is a fine replacement in many decks) or beaten by slightly more expensive options (fetches, shocks and BFZ duals). As Commander players they probably like to build several decks, but in how many of them would Mana Confluence be in exactly the right spot for their needs?

Basically your Commander audience for Mana Confluence is players who want to build a mana base with 3+ colors on a medium budget or who want to combo. These players will not likely build many decks in which it fits. I don’t think your Commander audience for this card is going to cause significant increases.

Don’t forget that fetches don’t have a color for color identity purposes, you would be allowed to put a Flooded Stand in a B/R/G deck if you wanted to, more realistically, you may very wel want to play a Polluted Delta in such a deck if it can fetch Swamps that also give other colors (AKA duals and variants). This makes the 3+ color mana bases even easier.