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Welcome to the MTGO Market Report as compiled by Matthew Lewis. The report will cover a range of topics, including a summary of set prices and price changes for redeemable sets, a look at the major trends in various Constructed formats and a "Trade of the Week" section that highlights a particular speculative strategy with an example and accompanying explanation.
As always, speculators should take into account their own budgets, risk tolerances and current portfolios before buying or selling any digital objects. Please send questions via private message or post below in the article comments.
Redemption
Below are the total set prices for all redeemable sets on MTGO. All prices are current as of June 5, 2018. The TCGplayer market and TCGplayer mid prices are the sum of each set's individual card prices on TCGplayer, either the market price or mid price respectively.
All MTGO set prices this week are taken from GoatBot's website, and all weekly changes are now calculated relative to GoatBot's "full set" prices from the previous week. All monthly changes are also relative to the previous month's prices, taken from GoatBot's website at that time. Occasionally, full set prices are not available, and so estimated set prices are used instead. Although Hour of Devastation (HOU), Amonkhet (AKH), Aether Revolt (AER), and Kaladesh (KLD) are no longer available for redemption, their prices will continue to be tracked while they are in Standard.
Redeemable sets are highlighted in green and sets not available for redemption are highlighted in red. Ixalan (XLN) and Rivals of Ixalan (RIX) officially go offline for redemption this week, but as announced on the MTGO client home screen, both sets are being reprinted and will be available for redemption in about a month.
Standard
Each set except for Ixalan (XLN) was down this week in the wake of the Pro Tour. This is a normal market reaction as players sell their pet cards and their decks coalesce around the metagame established by the pros. If you haven't already, check out the top decks here. I don't speculate much on the Standard pro tours anymore, but if you are holding cards that have benefited from the pro metagame, it's time to be a seller.
Goblin Chainwhirler is well represented in Charlotte and this is having a chilling effect on the price of former top cards in Standard. Legion's Landing was 3.5 tix when Dominaria (DAR) was released and it now sits at a little over 1 tix. Have a look at the chart, courtesy of MTGGoldfish.
This is exactly the kind of card that will benefit when Standard rotates. Although Goblin Chainwhirler will be in Standard as long as Legion's Landing, Hazoret, the Fervent and Chandra, Torch of Defiance will both be on their way out in October. There's also the matter of Core Set 2019 (M19) that releases in early July. The chances that red continues to dominate all summer and into the fall are slim so looking for cards that have bounce-back potential, such as Legion's Landing, is a great idea. I don't think the current downtrend is over though, and a price in the 0.5 to 0.7 tix range is in view
The release of M19 will shake up the MTGO economy beyond just what it adds to the Standard metagame. That's when DAR will stop being opened heavily in Draft, which will signal a buying opportunity for that set. M19 will also herald the end of XLN block draft queues, which means XLN and Rivals of Ixalan (RIX) boosters will be valued solely on the expected value of their contents.
The next month is the time for speculators to be building up their stock of tix. Sell underperforming positions, particularly Standard ones. There's a countdown on with the summer lull on the way and fall rotation in the medium term. Holding onto cards from Kaladesh (KLD) block and Amonkhet (AKH) block and hoping for a price rebound is not a good strategy.
Foil Mythic Rare Strategy
One strategy that has performed very well is DAR foil mythic rares. At this moment it looks like the price of full foil set has peaked at around 350 tix. On top of that, the sum of the buy prices for foil mythic rares makes up 82 percent of that full set price. This is a good sell signal as RIX peaked at 83 percent while XLN peaked a little lower at 77 percent. You can see how these metrics have evolved for DAR in the chart below. Note that the left axis is in tix and corresponds to the blue and red lines, while the right axis is in percent and corresponds to the green line.
Further upside on foil mythic rares is difficult to see at these levels. DAR is the most expensive foil set in recent memory; at a certain point, it becomes difficult for any set to rise in price further as it becomes more and more economical to just open product. The link to the paper market through redemption helps to establish this cap, even when there's no positive expected value in cracking boosters on MTGO.
The foil mythic rare strategy has worked very well for DAR. Prices have been rising since the set was released and value has been flowing to foil mythic rares. The tricky part of employing the strategy this time around was the fact that prices for singles were high relative to foil mythic rares from past sets. Those who gritted their teeth and plunked down their tix have been rewarded handsomely. For the portfolio, on paper returns are on the order of 80 tix per set or forty percent.
For players and speculators, this is a great strategy that I expect will continue to perform with the next chance at employing it coming in July with M19. The best buying window on foil mythic rares has been shrinking so be sure to have your tix ready to employ this strategy as soon as M19 is released.
Modern
Modern prices were not as strong this week, with many cards giving back their recent gains. It's very important to realize we are in a period that is different from the winter when grassroots demand is strong and prices have a strong upward bias. There's just going to be less broad bases support on all Modern cards and speculators will have to plan accordingly.
We have to be cautious in deploying tix over the summer, as the best opportunities are always available in September and into the fall. We don't want to be heading into October needing to raise tix; we want to be ready to be liquid and ready to buy! This can be hard and a good test of patience as having tix in your account doesn't give you anything. The important thing to realize is that having tix gives you options. You can choose to buy whatever you like. Once your tix are running low, your options are getting narrower as you become tix-constrained.
What this all means is that we have a few weeks prior to the release of M19 to consider what to be selling. That's not much time in advance of the next big draw on market liquidity. Players will be interested in M19 and will be selling their cards in order to draft. Karn Liberated is an example of a card that has seen a recent dip and a rebound and is getting ripe for selling, have a look at the chart, again courtesy of MTGGoldfish.
You can see where the winter peak occurs, just prior to the release of RIX and then again just prior to the release of Masters 25 (M25). That's the key time to be a seller, but I think a return to over 40 tix is going to happen in the next month, which will reward those that bought below 30 tix with about a 20-percent gain per copy.
Trade of the Week
For a complete look at my recent trades, please check out the portfolio. I took the opportunity recently to sell down my stock of Hazoret the Fervent after it bounced back up into the 13- to 14-tix range. Just to reiterate, it's time to be selling cards, especially those cards that are set to rotate out of Standard in the fall. This wasn't a great spec, but they can't all be winners. Holding on too long will just yield to bigger losses as the market grinds forward into the summer.
Pair this with the taxing effects of Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, or Leonin Arbiter stapled to a Ghost Quarter, and it can become difficult for the opponent to resolve any spells at all. Being light on mana while facing down a Chalice on one and a spell-taxing effect is not a good recipe for executing a game plan. At this point you can throw down a Thought-Knot Seer both to end the game quicker and steal an opponent's out for when they eventually will have enough mana to actually cast something. Perhaps you just bash with a Reality Smasher to put your opponent out of their misery sooner.
local player that was developing a very similar deck and he, rather dejectedly, informed that it "didn't, really." He also explained that his reason for playing the deck was that it was unexpected and had many ways to land Ensnaring Bridge around Meddling Mage.
I've found sideboard Spell Snare more valuable against control and combo than any other counter. Storm is still a huge player in the meta, especially in my local one, and Snare counters the most important combo pieces. Against control it hits Snapcaster and Negate. More importantly, it answers 
My opponent begins by fetching an untapped Blood Crypt and Thoughtseizeing me. He then doesn't do anything else except shock in another Blood Crypt. Having no clear idea what's going on, I stick to my gameplan and slam a turn three Geist of Saint Traft. Again, my opponent does nothing on his turn. I attack and he kills the angel token. The following turn he starts digging with Faithless Looting, discarding several Lingering Souls he can't cast yet. I keep swinging and stop Souls with Queller.
My opponent misses his second and third land drops, but has a discard spell every turn. I had only answer cards in hand so I'm unable to punish this slow start. Eventually he gets lands and I find Spell Queller and Quell a Liliana the Last Hope. Then, when he's at seven, he sneaks in a Blood Moon, and I didn't see any fetches to play around it. I burn him down to four, swing in with Queller, then proceed to lose as I brick while he kills Queller and gets out Death's Shadow and Young Pyromancer.
My opponent's first action is to Collective Brutality me before landing Blood Moon. I was able to play around it this time, and land Geist turn three. He plays Young Pyromancer but no other spell, so I just Bolt it and Geist goes the distance. His Moon hurt him more than me because he didn't have a Swamp until after I killed the Pyromancer.
and Helix to not die when my opponent decides not to play the Bedlam Reveler he's been telegraphing for several turns nor his graveyard Lingering Souls. This means I get to draw Relic, crack it to remove the threat, and draw the Lightning Helix I need to survive the next attack.
Game 1 (Play; 7/6)
The double mulligan is bad enough, but my turn three Geist is salt in the wound. He's taken aback by Geist and asks if it's actually maindeck. He apparently thought I was pure control. There's nothing he can do but kill the angel several times and try to play blockers, but I have Path.
What I saw during the tournament corroborated my earlier format observations. The meta was primarily BRx and Company Decks, which are robust enough to survive Humans' disruption and have the tools to withstand Jeskai Control. In this case, it was going in on Blood Moon and just racing, but I saw a number of other strategies including Phyrexian Arena. I also didn't see a single Tron piece, and there were several players that had previously been huge Tron fans.
A huge draw to Traverse Shadow is the deck's eminent customizability. Players can splash white for Lingering Souls or Ranger of Eos, forego blue altogether and play three colors, pack bullets like Grim Flayer or Ghor-Clan Rampager to staple additional utility onto Traverse, or dip into efficient delirium enablers like Tarfire or Architects of Will if they prefer more consistency. The very nature of Tarmogoyf, Modern's most flexible combat creature, is at play here, and Traverse Shadow's got all the reversibility of the infamous beater it's built around. Deckbuilders can easily prioritize one end of the aggressiveness spectrum over another by ramping up on Temur Battle Rage instead of the aforementioned midrange options.
Even skilled pilots must find remedies to the deck's strategic weakness: its fragility. 
Strengths
Strengths
That pressure is often supplied by Young Pyromancer, the deck's Tarmogoyf analogue. Mardu also boasts a Snapcaster analogue in Bedlam Reveler, a creature it uses to pull ahead in midrange mirrors. Kolaghan's Command returns these two creatures to the hand from the graveyard, negating the need for more threats in the main besides Lingering Souls, which plays multiple roles.
Newcomer Teferi, Hero of Dominaria does a lot for Jeskai's most reactive builds. 
Those same hosers also give UW a favorable matchup profile against Tron, especially relative to that of other interactive decks. Maxing out on Spreading Seas and Field of Ruin helps defeat that deck, making UW appealing for control mages sick of turn three Karn.
