If not, now is a perfect time to join up! Our powerful tools, breaking-news analysis, and exclusive Discord channel will make sure you stay up to date and ahead of the curve.
For even more on Kiki-Pod, check out Doug Linn's interview of Brian Liu, who won Grand Prix Richmond with the deck.
If not, now is a perfect time to join up! Our powerful tools, breaking-news analysis, and exclusive Discord channel will make sure you stay up to date and ahead of the curve.
There's a Conspiracy brewing, and we all know it.
Of course, the coolest thing about Conspiracy, the draft-ready set coming out this summer, is that many of the cards will be made to be drafted, and as a result not all of them are legal in Legacy, setting a new precedent for Wizards.
So the set is going to be a lot of fun to play. We all know that. What we didn't know, at least until today, is how much of it there would be. Would we be looking at something like From the Vaults, or even Modern Masters, where there's a limited number printed? This is pretty key information, and until today we were guessing.
Mark Rosewater, speaking for Wizards on the matter, announced that the print run won't be limited. That doesn't mean Conspiracy will be around forever, but it does mean they'll print more if stores ask for it, like they did with the most recent Commander product.
Now that we know, we can get back to what's really important. Figuring out what Dack Fayden does!
If not, now is a perfect time to join up! Our powerful tools, breaking-news analysis, and exclusive Discord channel will make sure you stay up to date and ahead of the curve.
MTG finance is becoming quite the daunting endeavor. If you wanted to count every possible stock trading on some exchange in the US, you would crest 10,000 in total. The number of Magic cards, in all their varieties and printings, which you could track for financial relevance is likely in the same ballpark, if not higher.
Reading through finance articles online (like these) is a valuable tool to educate and develop speculation and investing ideas. But even these articles can be overwhelming at times. If you were to follow the advice of every writer each week you’d be sinking thousands a month into cards you may not have even heard of.
While this can be reckless, it could make you money. But the approach is much like that of a novice stock market investor. Reading about what analysts are buying and blindly following suit cannot be the optimal strategy.
To really optimize investing strategies, one could spend hours a day reading websites, browsing buy and sell lists, and interacting on social media in order to stay ahead of the curve. And in today’s MTG finance environment, this almost seems necessary in order to make this hobby more affordable.
It isn’t.
I will argue that making this hobby cheaper for a newer speculator or investor (yes those are two different groups of people) is possible straight out of the gate. All it takes is a few changes in habits and shifting your mindset a bit. It may be gradual, but within a few months you’ll notice your trade binder growing without your bank account shrinking. You’ll need to make some sacrifices along the way, but if you are willing to prioritize value for a few months you’ll definitely benefit in the long run.
Over the last few months I've heard routine local players complain about how expensive Modern is. Legacy doesn’t even come up in conversation, it’s so difficult to enter financially. I normally chuckle when I hear this and make a serious claim that Standard is expensive.
It really is, trust me.
The initial cash layout isn’t as significant; I’ll grant this much. But Standard does something that Modern and Legacy never do--it rotates. When Standard rotates, a large set of once-valuable and in-demand cards plummet in value. Some never recover again, rendering your no-longer-Standard-legal deck useless and worth significantly less.
I couldn’t imagine holding Bonfire of the Damned to use in Standard when it was a month away from rotating. The red sorcery went from $45 to $5. Holding a set of these through rotation would mean a $160 loss from your collection!
Not every drop is so pronounced, but the fact of the matter is most Standard cards are prone to price drops. To navigate around this, you could hop around from Standard deck to Standard deck to try and protect your value. This becomes time-consuming however, and my intent with this article is to recommend ways to spend minimal time while making MTG more valuable. Not infinite time.
My advice: sleeve up a budget Standard deck for six months. Or better yet, skip over a Standard season altogether. It’ll still be there when you get back, I promise. The format has grown stagnant now anyway, and rotation is rapidly approaching. Now is the perfect time to neglect this time-intensive format and focus on a different priority. The time it takes not to play Standard: zero.
No, this isn’t a recommendation to cease acquiring equipment in Magic. I actually think strong equipment like Umezawa's Jitte is a fine place to park some money.
Once you’ve accepted the fact you’re not going to be playing Standard for a bit the next step to making MTG a cheaper hobby is to remove emotional attachments from 99% of your cards. Nothing should be sacred. In fact the cards people want the most are often cards you should be eager to unload.
A great example right now would be Legacy staples. These are all skyrocketing in price: Force of Will, Wasteland and duals are all hitting record highs.
Let the economics guide you in these situations. When Legacy spikes it means players are eager to acquire these cards. That means they have a ton of liquidity. There used to be a time when Jace, the Mind Sculptor was equivalent to a $100 bill. In fact Jace may have been easier to move than the $100 for a brief time (hyperbole). Now that card is NM Force of Will.
This isn’t the time to hold Legacy staples close to your chest. If you want to make MTG cheaper you should consider moving what Legacy stuff you have that you’re not using into cards that are a bit out of favor. Modern cards have been pulling back slightly in the shadows of this Legacy boom. That trend will shift come Modern PTQ season this summer.
Traders may even be willing to give you a value advantage if you’re moving a Legacy staple their way while you pick up tons of Kitchen Finks and Path to Exiles. Three months from now you’ll have an incredibly liquid binder from which to trade.
Don’t have Legacy staples? That is perfectly fine, especially since casual cards are all the rage right now. If you have some Commander generals you may want to consider moving those today. As in not tomorrow or the day after…
These Commander generals are all very hot right now, which means you want to be moving them into Modern. If you insist on ignoring Modern then go for the Theros block Temples. Those won’t move downward in the next six months, and when you are ready to play Standard again you’ll be surprised how much value you preserved by picking up safe Standard cards that are guaranteed to be in demand post-rotation.
Total time it takes to trade away your hot cards emotion-free? Well, you likely already do some trading so there is no incremental time requirement. The biggest challenge will be overcoming emotional attachments and knowing which formats are hot and which are likely to be hot in the future.
But I have two handy resources for you: MTGStocks/interests and the Pro Tour schedule.
The former is a link to the hottest cards according to price increases on TCG Player. It is updated daily and takes about two minutes to read through. I’d recommend checking this every day, which equates to about fifteen minutes a week of your time. When you see trends showing up on this list (i.e. there sure are a lot of casual cards on there right now) you’ll quickly identify which formats are most popular.
The latter link brings you to the Pro Tour schedule. Leading up to each Pro Tour is the PTQ season, and the chart on this website will tell you the format played for each Pro Tour and preceding PTQ season. Once a year that format is Modern, and so late summer you can expect these cards to take off with one last hurrah during Pro Tour Honolulu in October.
Keep this information in the back of your mind--knowing when Modern and Standard will be most in demand (during their respective PTQ Seasons) will help you predict trends. Then you can trade accordingly while investing minimal time in endless research.
My last piece of advice should also resonate with those who are short on time: ignore the noise. I don’t always believe the cliché, “less is more,” but in some cases it can work wonders. If you are truly strapped for time then you’re likely to get bogged down by every speculation tip and buyout that occurs. Chasing after these can be a time sink.
Imagine you saw that Ghave, Guru of Spores was suddenly bought out yesterday. You could spend an hour sifting through websites looking for the remaining underpriced copies that everyone missed. This behavior may even make you a few bucks, but at what cost? Even if you found ten copies at $5 each and decided to pull the trigger, you’re likely to net only $7 or $8 a copy after fees and shipping. And if this buyout turns out to be a bust and the card falls back down to $8 your profit will be wiped away.
Worst of all, you would have sunk an hour of your time into something that may make you a few bucks at best. There are times when chasing a buyout can be worth your while. When SCG upped their prices on Underground Sea, Ancient Tomb, and Volcanic Island there was an opportunity to make significant profits. But when Marton Stromgald doubles in price overnight I don’t even blink an eye.
The information likely won’t help you in the near term, and you’re much better off focusing on macro trends. By looking at the big picture and focusing on format shifts you’re less likely to get bogged down by the details. By avoiding the daily hype you’ll save time and energy (not to mention money).
If you have limited time to speculate on MTG finance but you still hope to make this hobby a bit cheaper, you have to focus more on the macro trends. The day-to-day speculation and buyout will distract you too much. Look at what formats are most attractive and help to meet that demand. Convert your hot cards into assets that will become hot next season.
Eliminate your emotional attachments wherever possible. Remember that Magic cards are commodities--there are dozens if not hundreds of stores you can access to purchase a card and the card will have the same abilities no matter who you buy from.
Just because you are trading away your favorite card right now doesn’t mean you can never acquire it again. Focus on the numbers and on macro trends and move accordingly. This will pay dividends in the long term.
Finally, I want to stress yet again that playing Standard is a major resource drain. You either lose value as rotation approaches or you lose time trying to navigate around it. There are definitely times when investing in Standard is correct, but you have to be careful with what you target.
By focusing on the cards furthest from rotation and the robust card most resistant to metagame changes, you’ll maximize your Standard collection’s value. This will enable you to trade into cards you’ll want to play with in the future at a much lower cost.
Remember--you’ll never make the most money possible if you have limited time. But you will mitigate the hobby’s cost and possibly even make money along the way. Identify what’s most important to you. If your Magic time is limited, do what you can and focus in the right areas. You will not be disappointed as long as you keep your goals in mind.
…
If not, now is a perfect time to join up! Our powerful tools, breaking-news analysis, and exclusive Discord channel will make sure you stay up to date and ahead of the curve.
It's rare to see anyone brewing this late in the game with a new set about to come out. It feels like a lame duck weekend for Standard so I was surprised to see my buddy Ken Crocker on camera at SCG Detroit for two reasons.
Since Journey Into Nyx is not legal yet, I wanted to share this list with everyone so we had a new shell to try and plug JOU cards into because I think the deck is potent and its mana is about to improve slightly with the printing of City of Mana Confluence of Brass. Are there other cards that can work in this shell? Let's see what he had to say during his deck tech interview.
See what I mean about him not being photogenic?
Creatures (24)
1 Aetherling
1 Arbor Colossus
4 Elvish Mystic
2 Scavenging Ooze
4 Stormbreath Dragon
4 Sylvan Caryatid
1 Sylvan Primordial
4 Courser of Kruphix
3 Polukranos, World Eater
Planeswalkers (9)
1 Chandra, Pyromaster
3 Domri Rade
1 Kiora, the Crashing Wave
2 Ral Zarek
2 Xenagos, the Reveler
Lands (24)
3 Forest
1 Mountain
4 Breeding Pool
4 Steam Vents
4 Stomping Ground
4 Temple of Abandon
4 Temple of Mystery
Spells (3)
2 Cyclonic Rift
1 Mizzium Mortars
Sideboard
1 Pithing Needle
3 Mistcutter Hydra
2 Negate
1 Simic Charm
1 Syncopate
2 Turn//Burn
1 Unravel the Aether
1 Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
1 Bow of Nylea
This deck sure is pretty. Is there anything from the new set we want to try out?
How about this bad boy? With the ability to save mana from turn to turn, your creatures with Monstrosity are suddenly real forces to be reckoned with. Polukranos, World Easter becomes a Wrath of God. How good will this be in the deck? Is there room? What to take out? I don't know! Test it and find out, man.
Because obviously.
This card seems pretty good in a deck with moderate amounts of card draw and cards like Courser of Kruphix. Your opponent will play differently with your top card revealed if they know you can draw it, and they play differently if they know it is a nonland and they are about to take some damage. Courser lets you keep land off of the top leaving you free to bolt them every upkeep. Courser and Keranos seem like a good team and this is a good shell to try them together.
We don't have to completely re-invent the wheel with our brewing, and a deck like this may be a great place to start. What do you think?
If not, now is a perfect time to join up! Our powerful tools, breaking-news analysis, and exclusive Discord channel will make sure you stay up to date and ahead of the curve.
Put away your godbooks everyone, we've got the full spoiler!
Going into the weekend, I was thinking the entire spoiler didn't come out until next week. Clearly, though, either I'm an idiot (likely) or someone leaked out the set. I'm going to guess the former.
With the remaining cards, there are no more big surprises, but one I think worth talking about is Felhide Petrifier, if only because the Minotaur deck finally has the pieces to try and form. I don't think it's actually good, mind you, but it's at least out there for people to begin playing around with. Hell, it will be probably be a popular casual or FNM thing regardless.
So what are you waiting for? Enjoy the full spoiler!
[catlist name=journey-into-nyx author_class=author_name author=yes excerpt=no numberposts=10]...read more
Click each card to read our team's analysis!
If not, now is a perfect time to join up! Our powerful tools, breaking-news analysis, and exclusive Discord channel will make sure you stay up to date and ahead of the curve.
The spoiler is more spoiled than the single child of a Kardashian. It is like a Dothraki tradition to Irri and Jhiqui- it is known. You get the picture. People are making like prohibition's on and they're home brewing.
So what are people up to? Atheros, God of Passage looks like a good place to start, and Redditor /u/the_nayr is on the ball with a tasty Atheros brew to get us started. Is it perfect? Can't say; haven't sleeved it up. I will say it's a start, and it won't bear fruit if you don't run it up the flagpole and see if anyone mixes their metaphors. Here's the list he recommends.
Land (23)
4x Godless Shrine
4x Mana Confluence
4x Overgrown Tomb
2x Plains
1x Swamp
4x Temple Garden
2x Temple of Plenty
2x Temple of Silence
Instant (5)
2x Abrupt Decay
1x Doom Blade
2x Orzhov Charm
Enchantment (1)
1x Spear of Heliod
Creature (31)
3x Athreos, God of Passage
4x Cartel Aristocrat
2x Imposing Sovereign
4x Precinct Captain
4x Soldier of the Pantheon
4x Tormented Hero
2x Varolz, the Scar-Striped
4x Voice of Resurgence
4x Xathrid Necromancer
Sideboard (15)
1x Deicide
3x Golgari Charm
3x Sin Collector
2x Thoughtseize
2x Ultimate Price
4x Unflinching Courage
As someone who's been hoarding Solider of the Pantheon like a Ron Paul supporter hoards gold bars, canned food and tin foil (you know, for hats), I hope this deck has legs. I think there is significant upside for Xathrid Necromancer and the price for that is low due to panic brought on by great black removal and a reprint in an event deck. Now you can tell your opponent to bring that Bile Blight on. With Cartel Aristocrat and Varolz, the Scar-Striped as sac outlets you have a potent engine here and the junk archetype is no stranger to these kind of shenanigans. Pretend it's 2013 and you're Brad Nelson and sleeve this bad boy up. Or don't. I'm not your supervisor.
If not, now is a perfect time to join up! Our powerful tools, breaking-news analysis, and exclusive Discord channel will make sure you stay up to date and ahead of the curve.
The title says it all. A bet in which a random Redditor said he would eat a Misty Rainforest if Lucent Liminid wasn't in Journey into Nyx.
Guess what? It wasn't. And it's time to pay up.
Apparently he doesn't own a Misty, so there's a Marsh Flats sitting in to do the job.
Here is the link to the Reddit thread he made, as well as the time and date he'll eat the Marsh Flats. Spoilers: It's April 19, 2014 (today) at 5:30 p.m. Pacific Time.
Enjoy. Or something.
If not, now is a perfect time to join up! Our powerful tools, breaking-news analysis, and exclusive Discord channel will make sure you stay up to date and ahead of the curve.
Modern is a complex format, and nowhere is this complexity seen more than in its sideboards. The format has a very deep cardpool of quality cards to draw from, and the great number of possible sideboard cards make honing in on the optimal fifteen difficult. The format presents a huge variety of archetypes to be prepared for, so it is impossible to bring in cards dedicated to every possible matchup. There is an art and science behind crafting effective Modern sideboards, and I will attempt to explain the thought processes behind some familiar sideboards in the Modern format.
I started out writing this week intending on comparing and contrasting sideboard strategies for each archetype in the format, but I quickly saw how in-depth the project is, and that it requires thorough explanation of each deck, its sideboard, and its contents. I am going to continue my trend of focusing on sideboards and provide a matchup sideboarding primer, but I am going to really focus in on the fifteen cards in the sideboard, and explain the thought process behind including each card, why the sideboard is constructed like it is, and how it is used.
Modern is a diverse format with over twenty decks commonly played, and the top ten most commonly played decks online don’t even make up 50% of the metagame share. Knowing the theory and strategy behind a sideboard is more important than a strict sideboarding guide, and by the end of this article I will have covered each card in the sideboard and when and why to bring in each card. I’ll also show how I’d board against some of the most popular decks in Modern.
Green Urzatron has long been a staple of the format, and it’s been seeing a resurgence in success on Magic Online. It’s a great example for teaching lessons about Modern sideboards, and it’s the deck I’m focusing on today.
Urzatron is essentially a combo deck. It relies on artifact cogs to draw through the deck and assemble a combination of lands that generates big mana, and it uses the mana to cast huge spells. Like any combo deck, it's liable to be broken up. In Modern, many aspects of the strategy can be exploited, whether it be the artifacts, the lands, or the huge spells. Because the Plan A of Urzatron will overpower nearly every deck, Urzatron’s sideboard is focused on preventing and answering the disruptive and restrictive elements it is likely to face throughout a Modern tournament.
Few opponents have access to much maindeck land destruction, but Urzatron decks frequently come up against hate cards in sideboarded games. Tectonic Edge is the most common maindeck and sideboarded land destruction card, and cards like Molten Rain, Fulminator Mage, and Avalanche Riders are commonly seen from the sideboard.
One of the most common and powerful hate card Urzatron comes up against is Blood Moon, and it’s the sort of card that requires answering because it prevents Urzatron from ever generating the massive amounts of mana it needs to cast its most powerful spells.
The artifact cogs of Urzatron are quite susceptible to Stony Silence. Turning these artifacts off will render Urzatron unable to filter through its deck and find the action it requires. This card is one of the best sideboard hate options in the format against Affinity, which is a popular deck, so Urzatron is hit in the crossfire. Answering Stony Silence is quite important.
Nature's Claim is a very efficient answer to enchantment hate cards, and it generates tempo advantage by costing one mana to their two or three. The enchantment hate cards have the nature of global prison effects. They are quite restrictive when in play, but once removed they create no memory of their impact, as opposed to something like Sowing Salt, so they are quite susceptible to removal like Nature's Claim, so their removal allows Urzatron to operate freely
Nature's Claim also has the benefit of being effective sideboard hate against many of the other decks in the format, including the Big Three of Affinity, Twin, and Pod. It’s a functional Oxidize against Affinity, and it gives Urzatron an instant solution to their most threatening card, Cranial Plating. It’s also a pinpoint answer to Splinter Twin and Birthing Pod.
Nature's Claim is also broadly effective against the format. It kills Phyrexian Unlife and artifact mana from the Ad Nauseam combo deck, and it’s an answer to any enchantment from the GW Auras deck. It removes Bitterblossom and equipment like Sword of Feast and Famine.
In a pinch Nature's Claim can be cast on Chromatic Star or other cogs to gain 4 life, so it fills the role of lifegain against burn!
Once Urzatron has completed its gameplan of assembling Urzatron, it seeks to leverage the mana into board advantage. The way to accomplish this is with powerful spells, and it turns to enormous artifacts, typically Wurmcoil Engine and Karn Liberated. This deck also uses All of Dust as a board sweeper, and Sundering Titan to crush opponents playing many shocklands.
All of these spells are expensive, and as such they are quite vulnerable to counterspells. Commonly played cards like Remand and Cryptic Command are clean answers that generate massive tempo, and they generate the time opponents need to execute their own combos of gain enough board presence to bury Urzatron.
Urzatron is susceptible to combo decks, which are capable of winning before Urzatron can generate enough offense to win. Urzatron is built to crush fair decks, and it relies on select cards including Karn Liberated and Mindslaver to beat combo opponents by destroying their hand, and are usually too slow to be effective against strong combo draws. Bringing in disruption against combo decks is an important part of Urzatron’s sideboarding strategy.
Your expensive spells are ineffective against counterspells, and furthermore they leave you vulnerable to losing to the combo. Cut the clunky cards and become a sleeker deck full of hate cards that seeks to stall the game long enough to resolve Emrakul, the Aeons Torn. Mindslaver is actually not very effective because they lack many ways to leave them devastated afterwards.
Against Tarmo-Twin, you do not need Nature's Claim, and I’ve leave in a Wurmcoil Engine and an Oblivion Stone.
Sideboarding for the worst matchup is extreme, and I’d like to hear how others approach it.
This is one of the best matchups, and Nature's Claim shuts down Birthing Pod. Mindslaver can be effective, but the other cards tend to be more useful.
Against Affinity, sideboarding is easy, and simply cut all of the cards that have no impact against them for all of the artifact removal in the sideboard.
Sideboarding for this matchup employs all of the principles I’ve discussed throughout the article! The best piece of advice here is to stay flexible and adapt to what the opponent plays.
With any questions or comments, turn to the comments and I may have an answer!
-Adam
If not, now is a perfect time to join up! Our powerful tools, breaking-news analysis, and exclusive Discord channel will make sure you stay up to date and ahead of the curve.
Recently I’ve had trouble finding other players to go to events with and I imagine lots of people have this same issue. I have a rather large number of players I know that I have or would travel with to events. Sometimes though, they are all busy or lack the desire to travel as much as I do. Regardless of the reason, there will be times when you or I can’t find anyone to go to an event. When faced with this decision, it’s important to consider all of the financial implications of going it alone.
There are quite a few monetary details we tend to forget about. For instance, even though I’ve been to Philadelphia a number of times, it slips my mind every time that the parking in the city is outrageous. I was on site all three days this past weekend so that meant I spent $75 parking alone. That was not an expense I was counting on for this trip.
Even though all these fees like tolls, parking, and lodging add up, if you are going with a group of friends, it averages out to be inexpensive for everyone involved. If you have not been traveling because of the expense, find a group to start traveling with.
Although my expenses were quite high for this trip, it would have been much less had I found anyone else free to go with me. Something I never see in articles is the exact breakdown of trip costs, so here’s how it broke down for me.
2 Tanks of Gas $100
Tolls $20
Parking $75
GP Registration $40
Hotel for 2 Nights $150
Food $50
Total for the trip $435
Luckily for me, I am sponsored by RIW Hobbies so they helped me out with part of my expenses. If you are ever at a GP, most likely they will have a booth there. They are good people that offer some of the best buy and sell prices in the hall, so make sure to check them out at your next GP.
Despite the fact that this trip was insanely expensive for me, it would have been incredibly cheap if I had some friends to split it with. Most of the time I travel with 2 to 3 other friends so the cost would have been $145 or $109, both of which are easily manageable.
The main reason I was eager to foot the bill myself was due to the volume of cards I needed to move. I have purchased a number of collections lately and needed to unload them for profit rather than letting them sit around until summer. Playing in a Grand Prix is an amazing experience and I love them, especially ones that are Limted. So, for this event, I was not only going to be able to unload a ton of cards, but also have a great time playing cards.
I had the opportunity to play a lot of sealed matches in Philly this past weekend and there were there were some major concepts I learned while I was there. The most important aspect I discovered was one that we all know deep down in our hearts which is, to build your deck with a plan.
Sometimes when looking at a sealed pool we are distracted by the powerful cards in it, but many times those same powerful cards are distractors from what we should actually be playing. If you have a bomb in one of your colors but not many other playable cards, forcing that color can often not be optimal. Many sealed pools have similar power level decks you can build from them, so you need to decide which one is the best of the possibilities.
The best example I can give you revolves around one of the most prevalent archetypes in the format, heroic. In every sealed pool for Theros block there will be some type of heroic deck you can build. Many of these options should be dismissed because there are not enough cards to support the heroic ability. If you don’t have many ways to trigger heroic, your amazing heroic creatures become quite lack luster and underpowered.
No matter which strategy you decide on, make sure you have a plan about how you are going to win the game. Will you control what your opponent is doing with a UB Control deck, or kill your opponent early with a RW Heroic deck? Maybe your plan is to play both Charging Badgers you have in your pool because you have three ordeals and that combo wins games. Make sure you do have a plan though.
For me, my plan was to play Mono Green Devotion with a couple of green heroic creatures and surprise kill my opponent who thought they were at a high enough life total. I had Boon Satyr, Fated Intervention, double Aspect of Hydra and Hunter's Prowess to accomplish this goal. There was room for a handful of blue cards to generate tempo as well.
Although my deck was not the best in the room, I had a plan and I played my games toward pulling off the plan. There were many games that I would not have won had I been just playing without a plan. The one that sticks out in my head was a mull to five on the play against an aggressive red black deck. With my five cards I basically had nothing to do for a while. On turn four I top decked Vaporkin and played it. My opponent had a couple small creatures in play and was attacking me but not for much damage. The next turn I hit for two and the turn after I bestowed Boon Satyr and swung for six more. At this point I was racing and hoping to draw more pump spells to win the race. Fortunately I drew Hunter's Prowess to go with my Aspect of Hydra in hand to deal him exactly lethal the turn before he would kill me. My opponent was nearly as baffled as I was that I had won a seemingly unwinnable game. Have a plan and play towards it.
Even though I had a reasonable plan and a decent deck to go with it, I fell short of day two by one round. Ending a tournament just short is always frustrating, but my play was solid for most of the event so I can’t complain. Fated Intervention was amazing for me during the event so much so that I think it could transition over into Standard so keep your eye on that card.
Even though my GP didn’t go as well as intended, I was there for a second purpose: make some money. There is so much financial knowledge I gained from this event, hopefully some of what I can formulate into words will help you as much as it helped me.
The first step is determining what cards you will sell at the event. Most financiers agree that the cards you want to unload to buy lists are the lower end cards usually not over $20. The reason for this is because your margins will be better if you sell the higher value ones on Tcgplayer or Ebay. The buy price of a $3 card may be $1 while the buy price of a $50 card is most likely around $30. Because of this larger gap, you can easily pay fees and make more money than you would using their buy list.
One thing to consider though is if you are planning to use the money obtained to buy more cards, you can still buy list higher value cards and get a store credit bonus to more than make up for the money you would have lost trying to sell it yourself. Every financial aspect in life has choices surrounding it and you need to make the best choice for your situation.
Step two is to determine who to sell to. There are many opinions about which dealer is the best, ultimately it’s your decision who to give your business to. The most important aspect about this process is to be on top of your game. Just like playing Magic, there are skills you develop from selling cards. Here are some highlights.
Know your stuff. Know when to say no, know when to ask for more and most importantly, know when to say yes. If you never are happy with the prices offered and you never sell, you won't get any profit from it. If you give a little they are more willing to work w you on the cards you want a little more for.
It’s rare when a vendor will offer to buy every card you put in front of them and if they do, they certainly won’t give you the best price on every card. The trick is to prioritize your time between who will give you the most versus who will buy more cards.
If time permits it, go to many vendors especially if you have a lot of cards to move. I let 6 vendors go through the same long box and all of them took cards the last one didn't. Each vendor approaches their business differently than the next so they will focus on different things. For example, some dealers value great deals on played cards while others won’t even offer you a price on them.
Most vendors will offer you similar numbers on commonly traded in cards, but don’t be fooled, if they think you will accept less, often they will offer less. Dealers are hungry to buy cards especially at sealed gps, but make sure you know what you expect to get out of your cards before you are sitting down in front of whichever dealer you’ve chosen.
Imagine the world of Magic a year from now. Wizards has done such an amazing job marketing Modern that hordes of new players are leaping into the format. "Last summer" (whch this summer cause we’re in the future, remember?) we opened packs of the new Conspiracy set. Sure it had some Modern reprints in it, but they didn’t really help the prices come down on the cards. Then came M15, where the reprints there helped out quite a bit, but still, the barrier to Modern is fairly high. Then there was a block full of hardly anything relevant to Modern. Now here we are, looking back over the last year and you know what the most important thing I learned was? I should have been loading my boat with Shock lands.
Thinking about the future may be hazy, but there is one bet that is almost guaranteed to make you money in the long run: Shock lands. Shock lands are the lowest they will ever be. Let me type that again for effect. Shock lands are at their price minimum and already trending upward. I see no reason for any of them to drop in value once rotation comes around because players should all be keeping them for Modern. Over the last couple of months most of the Ravnica lands have slowly moved up a couple dollars each so now most of them are at or near double digits in price. The longer you wait, the more expensive they will be. Maybe it’s about time you became a real estate agent.
Props to Philly for some of the best food I’ve had in a while. The next time you go, make sure you get a real Philly from Pat’s or Geno’s. Your food is definitely worth the effort it will take to get it. Secondly, the convention center is in Chinatown, so don’t miss out on some great Asian food. Even the most run down places have amazing homemade food.
GP Philly was an awesome experience and as you can tell, I learned a lot while I was there. Hopefully some or all of this information will help you on your next road trip. Since I've run out of time for this week, I'll have to take a look at Journey to Nyx next week. Until then...
Unleash the Financial force!
Mike Lanigan
MtgJedi on Twitter
Jedicouncilman23@gmail.com
If not, now is a perfect time to join up! Our powerful tools, breaking-news analysis, and exclusive Discord channel will make sure you stay up to date and ahead of the curve.
Arbitrage: the practice of taking advantage of a price difference between two or more markets.
Trader Tools is a convenient platform when looking to unload magic cards to dealers, or for figuring out how much to spend on your next speculative purchase. Convenience has a price though: an incomplete or misleading picture. Older players will remember Arabian Nights for its light/dark common card variants. Trader Tools is presently unable to discriminate between these light and dark variants, leaving the savvy buyer with a great opportunity to take advantage.
I stumbled across a card seller I will refer to as "Store A" when looking for deals on a pet card of mine that recently spiked.
[cardimage cardname="Oubliette"]
While shopping TCGplayer I noticed one merchant had multiple copies at $3.99. The only thing a buyer might be turned off to was the high shipping cost. I decided to just do a quick Google search of Store A's name, hoping I would find the seller's site and reduced shipping cost. This seller does have their own site and while I was disappointed that reduced shipping wasn't available, I found many more mispriced Arabian Nights cards available for purchase. Excited by my find, I opened up the buylist page of my favorite dealer, "Store B", and compared prices. Here is where I ended up:
After adding $2.99 for shipping, I could buy those cards at a 27% discount to buylist pricing from Store B. I was so happy with the initial Arabian Nights finds that I did a quick check of Store A's other Antiquities singles. Only Shatterstorm presented similar pricing. That guided me to the conclusion that the value I was realizing in one set was due to the inconsistent way people account for the light/dark cards in Arabian Nights.
After a quick search of the QS forums, I found reseller reviews for Store A that were generally positive. I also realized the owner of the store was a member. I decided to go ahead and place an order with them for 8 copies of Oubliette, four dark and four light. Once they arrived (quickly and in pristine condition) I decided to check the site to see if pricing had been updated. Not yet!
Thinking about how to uncover similar opportunities when hunting TCGplayer has lead me to the following trinity: mispriced, abundant, and buried. Cheap cards on TCGplayer are often buried under more expensive cards thanks to the default sorting of price+shipping the website uses. When this "cheap" card is a one-of, it rarely makes sense for a buyer to consider purchase. But more often than not these cheap cards are offered in multiples by a seller. That abundant supply makes for opportunity.
Even if a card is seemingly rendered no longer cheap thanks to high shipping and doesn't come in multiples, taking the time to search both that seller's name on Google and store on TCGplayer is worthwhile. Many sellers are still using TCGplayer to guide traffic to their own website. A seller's personal website often offers reduced/scale-able shipping and a much more searchable card database. If a seller doesn't have a website, they likely price what they've listed on TCGplayer similarly across the board. That means eating shipping once to buy different cards can be just as profitable as finding many copies of a single card at a cheap price.
When a card spikes, new sellers move in. You can still find arbitrage opportunities when this happens simply by changing price sorting so it excludes shipping. You should feel comfortable buying cards at or below buylist given the incredible growth of this game. If Magic continues to grow for the next five years as it did in 2013, demand alone would account for a 200% increase in card prices from 2013. In the real world that means that while Modern pricing looks completely unsustainable, it would only take two years of similar growth to explain the doubling of card prices in such a short period. In other words, demand is increasing to justify these prices. While many fear reprints, Mutavault, Dark Confidant and Tarmogoyf suggest to me that reprints are more likely to increase demand. As players get a hold in format staples, their desire to play in those formats will support prices.
[cardimage cardname="Mutavault"][cardimage cardname="Dark Confidant"][cardimage cardname="Tarmogoyf"]
If not, now is a perfect time to join up! Our powerful tools, breaking-news analysis, and exclusive Discord channel will make sure you stay up to date and ahead of the curve.
This weekend I was at Grand Prix Philly, where I met a lot of awesome people. I rarely get out to paper tournaments these days, and there’s nothing like the buzz of a room right before a GP starts.
I spoke to a lot of paper players, many of whom told me that they avoid Magic Online. When I asked why, they usually cited two factors: 1) the cost of the cards (they didn’t want to manage two collections, or didn’t like the idea of spending real money on virtual products); and 2) the temptation of being able to enter a draft queue at any time of day.
The first concern is something of an illusion—as I’ll discuss in future articles, money invested wisely in an MTGO collection can deliver enjoyment and more than pay for itself. But the second concern—the siren song of drafting—is completely legitimate.
Ryan Spain, co-founder of the Limited Resources Podcast, once coined the phrase “the slow bleed” to refer to Magic drafting. He noted that it’s virtual impossible to “go infinite” online, but that by playing tighter (and more selectively) you can slow the bleeding and get more play for each dollar you spend.
Drafting online is a lot of fun, but it’s a mugs game. How bad are the odds? While it depends a bit on the set, the numbers are almost invariably grim. The following numbers are lifted from MagicEV, a terrific tool designed by a QS member who goes by giambi777. They take into account the value of cards opened and expected booster pack payouts.
Unless you have a strong stomach, don’t look at this chart:
As you can see, with a 50% win rate, you are losing about 4 tix for every draft you enter. And just to break even in Limited you need to maintain a 65-70% match win record—something almost no one can sustain.
To put this in perspective, Lars Dam was Limited Player of the Year on MTGO and managed an insane 69% win rate, which is almost unheard of in a sample of that size. Top tier grinders like Dmitri Butakov (“Butakov” online), Bing Luke (“Prolepsis”), and our own Paul Nemeth (“Zwischenzug”), are among the top online players in the world, and the Magic Online Championship Series showed their lifetime win rate is closer to 60-65%.
Everyone thinks they are an above-average driver—and an above average drafter. Sometimes you go on a tear and feel like you’re crushing a format. But chances are you’re within a standard deviation of a 50% win rate—meaning that you’re losing tickets every time you hear the crackle of digital wrappers.
Why does drafting have a worse Expected Value (EV) on Magic Online than with paper cards? There are multiple reasons, but the short answer is that Magic Online is populated by degenerates who draft around the clock and flood the market with singles.
Because relatively few people play Constructed online, there is not adequate supply to soak up the thousands of boosters that flood the market each day. Redeemers do their part to pull excess cards out of the market, but even they cannot counteract the overflow from drafting.
In paper Magic, boosters cost about 30% less (when bought in bulk) and the median single price is about 30% more. It is possible to draft paper Magic without bleeding, though it can be time consuming to turn your winnings into more drafts. But on Magic Online the deck is stacked.
MTGO card prices also have a higher level of variance, with the best mythics costing more than paper and the average rare holding much less value. It’s a winner-take-all world. An extreme example is Dragon’s Maze, where 65% of the value of resides in just two cards (Voice of Resurgence and Blood Baron of Vizkopa.)
One reason is because there is virtually no “casual” demand on MTGO. Cards either slot into a tournament deck or they are relegated to binder trash, with value only to redeemers. We’ll talk about this more in later articles.
The odds are against you. But if you must draft, following a few basic tips will make your cash go further.
For “bang for the buck”, Swiss is the way to go. If you’re skilled, 8-4s may offer greater EV and stiffer competition, but I personal enjoy the guarantee of three rounds with your deck, especially when you’re learning a format. There is nothing more frustrating that drafting a sweet deck, dying in the first round to mana screw, and netting two games total for your 14 tickets.
Playing all three rounds will also keep you out of the next queue—-thus preventing you from incinerating more tickets. Remember every time you hop in a Theros draft the value of your collection shrinks a little.
4-3-2-2 queues take out a pack from the prize pool, making them cost roughly $0.50 more per draft. That means that if you average two drafts a week, you’ll lose an average of 50 tickets per year just based on your decision to do 4-3-2-2s over Swiss or 8-4s.
The 4-3-2-2 payout is a conspiracy by WoTC to subtly mess with your utility curve. Win one match and you’re almost even! Win two matches and you’re ahead! But it’s an illusion, like the slot machine that shows you two cherries before rolling up a diamond. Don’t fall for it.
Ever draft an awesome deck only to lose in round one of an 8-4? You put in all that time and money to draft the thing, tweak the deck, and then you’re landscrewed in game 3. You’re done, right?
Think again. A great way to get more gaming out of the deck you drafted is to duel draft decks with a friend. Ping your buddy and tell him what’s what. Then right click his name and issue a challenge. Select your most recent draft deck (it will be in the “TournamentDecks” folder and have a string of numbers representing the date and time it was drafted.)
Now you have a best-two-out-of-three match with a friend that costs you nothing and gets you more play out of your deck. Make sure you are both playing the right format (Freeform) and that you haven’t traded away any of the cards in the deck.
After a while you can build up a list of buddies who you know like to battle draft decks, which will get more mileage from your gaming dollar.
Drafting is bad EV, but the math changes a little bit when high stakes promos are in play. The past two months players have had a chance to compete for Lion's Eye Diamond (selling for 50-60 tix) and Force of Will (which will probably sell for 65-75 tix once they hit the market next month).
Fifteen QPs gets you a promo, meaning the value of a QP during Force of Will month is roughly 6 tix. That makes this a relatively good moment to play sanctioned events. That said, even when you add in this value, draft is only 1 tix less, and remains a losing proposition.
And if you are angling for promos, the draft queues are probably the last place you want to be, since 8-man Constructed queues give away twice as many QPs for a win (and you even get a QP for making the finals.)
Some people act like they want to cram in as many drafts as possible. Drafting should be seen as a bit of an indulgence—remember, you are spending $4, on average, to draft. Enjoy it. Play when you’re at your best.
If you just lost a rough game three and are feeling tilted, go take a break, walk around the block, work out, or play a couple games in the tournament practice room. Better still, challenge a friend to duel decks so you get more play from your draft.
Unless you are practicing for a Pro Tour (or are a reclusive billionaire on your wifi-eqipped yacht) it makes sense to rare draft. The logic to raredrafting is that you’re playing the long game. Even the best card in your deck only marginally increases your win percentage, whereas a rare in your pile is money in the bank.
I always keep a browser tab open with a pricelist from the set I’m drafting. When drafting Standard-legal sets, I prefer Goatbots because they list buy and sell prices for every card in the set, including money uncommons, and it’s super fast to Ctrl-F a card. For flashbacks I use MTGO Traders, which doesn’t show buy prices, or MTGOWikiprice.com.
Never pass a card unless you first know its value. The other night I was drafting Odyssey block in a Swiss queue and was passed a Tarnished Citadel (buy price: 6 tix) followed by Gravestorm (2 tix). I didn’t know their value…but MTGOWikiprice did. I wasn’t through the first pack and I had already almost made back my cost of entry. It didn’t hurt that I won the draft.
Everyone has a different threshold for what they will pass, but I basically never pass anything worth more than a pack. After pick four, I’ll basically take anything 1 tix or more. This is an important strategy to slow the bleed. Of course, your exact threshold will depend on your strength as a player and the payout structure of your queue.
It’s an obvious feel bad to take a marginal mythic over a key card for your deck, and ultimately you are playing Magic to have fun, so feel free to disregard your rules once in a while. It’s also possible to raredraft and win-on Limited Resources, Brian Wong sometimes talks about his friend Charles Wong, who is both a strong player and a savage raredrafter. Charles takes anything over $0.50, and wins via late-pick commons and synergy.
One final tip: never pass a foil mythic—even bulk foil mythics are valuable because they are the bottleneck for redeemers who want to trade in foil sets. Did you know a foil Medomai the Ageless sells for 12 tickets? Neither did I.
It goes without saying, but if anything related to Wizard’s infrastructure causes you distress, you should file a compensation request. Even if it doesn’t directly lead to a game loss, if it’s an ordeal that impinges on your enjoyment you are entitled to reimbursement for your entry fee.
Make sure not to bleed value because of technical difficulties. Wizards currently has a fairly generous policy on reimbursements—be honest and don’t abuse it or you will ruin it for everyone.
Bottom line is that playing Limited online is a losing proposition. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either a world-class player or a world-class self-deceiver.
If you want to go infinite playing Magic Online, do it the way the pros and grinders do—play Constructed. Through its incentive structure, Wizards is basically bribing you to play Constructed, though most people don’t realize this.
We’ll talk about how to get started in the next episode, when I reveal the trade secrets of some top MTGO grinders.
-Alexander Carl (@thoughtlaced on Twitter)
If not, now is a perfect time to join up! Our powerful tools, breaking-news analysis, and exclusive Discord channel will make sure you stay up to date and ahead of the curve.
I'm glad in hindsight that we produced Brainstorm Brewery Satyr tokens. I'm not sure about the lore that explains how Xenagos went from Planeswalker to god to fallen god, but it looks like the $@%& has hit the fan in Theros. Are we paying 7 mana to make some dudes? Compared with Army of the Damned it's a poor investment, but in Limited, this seems OK. I don't think we want this in Constructed, though. I don't know what this is preselling for, but it's too much. Could be good in a sealed pool with Purphoros, god of the forge, I guess. So good luck with that.
So. Skybind. This has a constellation trigger that has a lot of potential. However, so much of the format is enchantments. You won't be setting up loops with this, but you won't be removing many of their blockers, either. This has utility outside of Theros where you have more things to flash, but you have to play it in a deck with enough enchantments to trigger it but few enough that you have something to flash. This is tough to play with. You can flash their lands for a turn, I guess, but how good is that? This has a lot of potential and it's begging to be broken. Cards like that have potential. If you think you can break with, wait for it to go to bulk and scoop it.
Relevant reprint I guess? Now that this is Standard-legal again... do nothing? No one foils a Standard deck. I don't see the foils going up based on Standard. Is that a thing? No...that's not a thing. This was already legal in Modern so this does nothing.
This isn't financially-relevant, but why is this card so bad? It's so bad. This could have been good and then at the last second someone said "can we add 3 to the mana cost for no reason?" Compare this to Lightning Rift. If this cost 1R it might enable a new archetype. It would be terrible, but it would be the kind of thing someone would try to build. Scry cards cost too much, this costs too much to play and its activation cost is too much. No one has that much mana. Why didn't they make this good?
This set getting a 1-drop minotaur could be what the deck needs, and this is a good enabler. Look, I am scraping the bottom of the barrel here because the uncommons in this set are going to have to pick up some slack price-wise and I think this could go up. That's saying something considering 99% of the cards are going to go down. The older minotaurs could go up as well. I'm not saying buy these, I'm saying pay attention and prepare to be able to find these just laying on draft tables.
If not, now is a perfect time to join up! Our powerful tools, breaking-news analysis, and exclusive Discord channel will make sure you stay up to date and ahead of the curve.
Everyone loves a good Mesmeric Fiend, right?
Definitely a powerful card back when it was printed, it's an effect we haven't seen in quite some time. Until now, that is.
So that art is sweet, right?
Besides that, I expect that this will see some play. Not a ton, since Sin Collector kind of fills the role even better right, but more effects that take the best card out of your (usually Control) opponent's hand are always good. If you take their Supreme Verdict with this, they're going to have to do something they usually won't want to in order to get it back. This allows your guys to continue to beat in while they have to deal with a 1/1 just to get their Wrath back.
Like I said, it's a role that Sin Collector excels in right now, but I think Maggot will have a place before it rotates.
