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Jason’s Alticle – Renewed Faith

Posted on January 7, 2014January 7, 2014 by Jason Alt

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Greetings, Speculatorcicles!

Anyone else have their weekend ruined?

{1G} - All Creatures Lose Flying

Since my life now involves celebrating Christmas Ad Nauseum (who am I kidding; Christmas rules!) I spent the weekend at my mother's house on the east side of Michigan. Her place is directly in the path of the snowstorm that threatened to descend over the weekend and bury a swath of the Midwest from Flint, Michigan to Sandusky, Ohio in enough snow to send people to stores to clear the shelves of bottled water and batteries for some reason.

Hailing from the same region as my mother, grinder Jon Johnson decided an eight-hour drive to a PTQ in West Virginia was better than a four-hour drive to Indianapolis for the Star City Games Open.

QS Insider/forum moderator and Indianapolis resident Nick Becvar opted out of the Open and warned other travelers to get out of dodge before the North Pole cast Whiteout on everyone's car.

Some stayed anyway and played some Legacy on Sunday, but a few people I was rooting for, including fan-favorite Ray Perez Jr., left a little early to avoid a terrible driving situation and missed Sunday. A few of my other favorites managed to stay in town (and hopefully made it home afterward) and played some Legacy, but we'll get to that later.

What I think is most important during this season is to check the stupid weather. Our planet's climate is changing and weather events are getting more severe than we're used to. I have been driven out of Philadelphia by a hurricane, out of Pittsburgh by a blizzard and I have abstained from a few other events because inclement weather was forecast.

My winning streak did not last forever, and my drive back home from my mother's place was a 40 MPH parade of cars in a single lane of traffic, flanked on either side by backward and upside-down cars filling the ditches besides the road. Jack-knifed semi trailers, cars buried in snow, minivans engulfed in flames--I've seen it all.

The worst may not be behind us, so make sure you stay safe and make good choices. Jon Johnson's relatively leisurely drive back from West Virginia was probably much easier and less stressful than what would have been a ten-hour, white-knuckle shuffle back from Indianapolis with zero visibility.

No blue envelope is worth the stress of ending up stranded, wrecked, or stuck. People die in bad weather, and not necessarily through any fault of their own.

Countries outside the United States are getting tea-bagged by bad weather systems, too, so no matter where you are, make sure you have a safe weekend or you'll have a bad weekend, no matter how well the tournament goes.

I never used to be a "check the weather reports" guy, but having had my bacon saved by a timely sortie on more than one occasion, I'm now a believer.

It looks like event planners could benefit from checking weather reports occasionally, as well.

Stay safe, stash cold weather gear in your vehicle in case you have to hoof it, and watch out for the other guy, too. It's just a children's card game.

007 Reasons for the Season

What's your favorite James Bond movie? Oh, Casino Royale? Yeah, mine too, actually. I'm clearly trying to steer this somewhere and you're not cooperating.

What was your favorite James Bond movie before the year 2000? From Russia With Love? You're not going to make this easy, are you?

What was your favorite James Bond movie between the years of 1995 and 2000 that had a best-selling videogame based on it and starred Alan Cumming and Sean Bean? Goldeneye? Mine too!

Goldeneye was a surprisingly tolerable film from the Remington Steele years.

The theme song was pretty bad-ass even for people who don't listen to Tina Turner voluntarily. Sean Bean died twice, which was one more time than he usually dies in every single one of his movies with few exceptions. The impetus was something cooler than "I am going to make the world go to war so I can sell newspapers! MWAHAHAHA" and there was a little bit of a history lesson.

Best of all, the mysterious villain was using the alias "Janus", a two-faced Roman God.

The month of January was named for Janus, a god who could look forwards and backwards at the same time. January is a month where we do just that, and while there is a lot of garbage in our rearview mirror, looking back can help us appreciate how much better 2014 is looking already.

Before I get to the source of my optimism, I will report something I'm doing my best to (pretend to) appear neutral about.

The announcement of the "You Pick the Card" finished product was coupled with an announcement that Wizards was changing the borders of Magic cards again, because they got all my letters where I begged them to do that. It's less obvious on a black card, but if you see it on a non-black card, it's more striking.

You will notice a difference between the red card and the black one--all rares and mythic rares will have a holofoil stamp to make them harder to counterfeit. This will force counterfeiters to stick to making copies of pre-M15 cards like Black Lotus and Underground Sea, a stark departure from their current practices.

Okay, snarkiness aside, just today I saw a tweet from Caleb Durward showing a fake MM Goyf next to a real one, distinguishable only by font.

So Wizards is cracking down on counterfeiting, crediting designers as well as artists where relevant and keeping the game fresh. I don't hate the new borders, but I didn't want them, either. I expect much less of a bitch fest than we saw back in 8th Edition, I expect a significant portion of the base to prefer the new look, and I expect the game to grow in 2014, not shrink.

All of Mr. Forsythe's article is worth a read. His 2013 restrospective is solid and he is as hopeful about 2014 as I am.

Why am I so upbeat and optimistic about 2014? Maybe because of the snow that kept my wife from being able to get down our street, forcing her to stay home and interact with me even though I spent all weekend with her including five hours in the car and I am starting to consider calling her downstairs for superfluous reasons hoping a combination of her long pajama pants and the staircase get her... where was I going with this?

Oh, right, the snow seems to have brought with it a cleansing of sorts, and the new year is looking great in terms of Magic the Gathering. I am going to base this all on the results of one tournament, a difficult-to-attend one at that, but since they are giving me hope that formats can truly change, none of you better talk me out of it.

Doesn't "Indianapolis" Sound a Little Greek?

In any case, weather notwithstanding, it seemed like the perfect place to stage a tournament, and the stars were out.

SCG Open Indianapolis Standard Top 8

So why am I so optimistic about the "new" Standard when the same old Owen Turtenwald won with the same old Mono-Black Devotion? Look at the rest of the Top 8!

There were two other boring decks in the form of Mono-Blue Devotion, and a slightly boring U/W control deck (though Levi Gaines at least bothered to run some win conditions). The other half of the Top 8 was Andrew Shrout in second place with a G/W aggro deck that, while it contained zero copies of Scion of Vitu-Ghazi, I thoroughly enjoy. There was a R/W devotion deck jamming Young Pyromancer and Assemble the Legion. There was also a resurgence of a deck we had thought was dead, R/G Monsters.

The Return of Big R/G

Dan Cato and Brian Bruan-Duin ran nearly identical 60s and very close 75s. Is Garruk or Chandra the play? Both seem very effective.

What also seems to be effective is the inclusion of Flesh // Blood. The only way to cast Flesh appears to be off of Caryatid, but with its hexproof ability and relatively high toughness, you can usually count on your tree dork sticking around.

The last time this deck was around it was a bit durdlier, running monstrous dudes like Arbor Colossus. Wannabe speculators seized on this low-hanging fruit, which look to be relegated to the box of shame for the time being.

Poised right on the edge of everyone's consciousness, though, is Mistcutter Hydra, certainly a beating against Mono-Blue decks. Andrew Shrout's deck ran the Hydra as well as Skylasher main, seeming to want to give itself as much game as possible against Mono-Blue, only to fall to Mono-Black. Can't win them all. We are seeing Polukranos and Boon Satyr continue to be mainstays in green-based strategies.

The return (and rebuild) of R/G Monsters makes me hopeful that Standard can continue to evolve. It was silly that Mono-Blue was so good for so long when a deck designed to beat it from the ground up like Shrout's deck could so easily dismantle everything they tried to do.

I don't think the Skylasher is particularly scary against any deck besides Mono-Blue and I might make room for something else, but it's hard to argue with results. Adding cards like Mistcutter Hydra and Banisher Priest give Mono-Blue fits without sacrificing game against other decks.

If Mono-Blue and -Black persist, it's going to make more and more sense to meta-game heavily against those decks. Banisher Priest in particular pulls that deck's pants down in a lot of ways and is never an unwelcome draw.

What's actionable here? I'm not actually all that certain. I think Mistcutter Hydra is a little bit narrow and is likely to be a victim of its own success. If it ever saw enough play that it made sense to buy these above $5, it's likely that they make Mono-Blue less popular, and to an extent that they become less necessary.

I don't like Hydra, even at $3ish, but if you won't bet money that Mono-Blue is going away (not a terrible bet) this is a card to look at. Plus it's a hydra, and those have long-term casual appeal. Will its uncounterability be more relevant than protection from blue post-Born of the Gods? I can't say, but I wouldn't bet against it.

Do as I buy, not as I say, right? I am not buying Mistcutters, but I won't try to talk you out of it. That sounds like I'm hedging, doesn't it? Ok, fine. Don't buy Mistcutters.

White Aggro

All of the B/W decks I expected to do better didn't manage Top 8, but I would ignore decks that the Japanese brew at your peril. I think a future event where people actually attend, I expect a better showing.

All of these W/x decks are making Soldier of the Pantheon a bit more expensive than I would like and I don't see it going down before Born of the Gods comes out. It may be too late to buy in if you haven't already, but if you need these to play with, they're only going up.

Was it just Standard that saw new innovation?

SCG Open Indianapolis Legacy Top 8

Not even a little bit! 2014 was replete with new decks for Legacy as well, with Jeff Hoogland and Tony Wong making prize with a Junk Dark Depths build and the event being won by Kennen Haas with a Jund Dark Depths build. Where did these come from? That doesn't matter, what does matter is there is a new deck in town and it doesn't care about your True-Name Nemesis one iota.

U/W/R Delver was well represented, due in no small part to a certain Nemesis, but that deck is nothing new. Three copies in the Top 8, however, is. RUG Delver, where are you? In the Top 8 as well, as it would turn out.

Jund & Junk

Looking at both the Junk and Jund Dark Depths decks, I don't see a ton of actionables, which is too bad.

Mox Diamond sees like zero play these days but its price hasn't fallen as much as it should have, leading me to believe its current price is largely due to price memory. I don't know how much greater adoption would cause the price to go up.

Thespian's Stage will be a slow gainer, and this deck won't do anything for it. Honestly, as cool as it is to see a new archetype get picked up like this, there probably isn't a ton of money to be made.

Given my druthers, I would go for Junk given how good Knight of the Reliquary is both as a tutor and a beater if something goes wrong and you have a yard full of land and nothing better to use them for.

Jund runs the Punishing-Grove combo I love so much, and there is probably no card I would rather pitch to Liliana than Punishing Fire in Legacy right now. The deck looks like fun and just when Legacy threatened to get a little stale.

I guess ANT is pet deck of the week, and the four-color Loam deck that got 9th could easily jam the Depths combo and probably should.

A New Hope

Legacy looks wide open right now, there is room for innovation in Standard and a new set is on the horizon. 2014 brought some murderous snowstorms but it also brings a feeling of renewed hope.

Magic is constantly changing, and it's not all weird borders, either. Innovation is the lifeblood of the game and it's a good time to be alive.

Insider: 2014 New Years Resolutions

Posted on January 6, 2014January 17, 2022 by Sigmund Ausfresser

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Note: Last week I broke my hand on the pinky side. My typing is much slower as a result and so my next few articles will be a bit shorter as I recover. Apologies for the inconvenience.

Happy New Year! I’m sorry for the lack of article last week--my broken hand has been quite the inconvenience, and with friends and family visiting around the holidays I was not confident I could write up a worthwhile article in the limited time I had. Alas one more week with this cast and I’m moving to a small splint, which should be a much smaller inconvenience.

I was still thinking MTG finance last week despite my lack of article. It seems MTG finance didn’t take the holidays off as I had anticipated. We saw many new card spikes, including the staggering rise of Stoneforge Mystic.

My projection has been $20 on this one, so when I bought in I neglected a number of copies in the $14-$16 range, in my mind “not sufficiently profitable” after fees, shipping, packaging, etc. Had I known $30 was the right price target perhaps I wouldn’t be kicking myself right now.

Still, I fully expect this one to settle down at a lower number than its peak…like every other spike these days. Example: Phyrexian Obliterator.

Resolutions

Through a year of roller coaster rides in MTG finance, I’ve developed a couple of 2014 new years resolutions. Much like last year, I pledge to become a better MTG finance speculator / investor heading into the New Year by focusing on a finite number of specific practices.

It becomes difficult to focus on a set of best practices when hype flies by on a daily basis. But by focusing on a few hard-and-fast rules, it becomes easier to remain focused and disciplined with our speculation strategy. Without further delay, here are my 2014 MTG finance resolutions.

1. No More Sealed Product

Did you hear the funny story about that guy who bought like 30 booster boxes of various sets like Innistrad and Return to Ravnica, and then had to move 850 miles with all these boxes?

This was poor planning on my part.

It’s not that these purchases are poor decisions in the absolute. Innistrad boxes will still appreciate in time. But the hassle of moving all these boxes is taking its toll--I plan on bringing them with me in my car for the final drive to Cincinnati. Call me paranoid, but keeping these boxes in my sights throughout the move will comfort me much more than having packers and movers handle them.

Then there’s the whole opportunity cost thing. These booster boxes are meant to be an alternative investment. In other words, I’m not looking for quick flips or hype-based speculation here. I’m attempting to capitalize on a reliable trend (but no guarantee) in the MTG market.

But I could have just as easily (actually more easily) bought some S&P 500 fund with this same capital. And while Innistrad boxes have actually dropped about $10-$15 on eBay last year, I’ve watched the stock market hit all-time highs.

From an opportunity cost standpoint, I made the wrong decision. Not anymore. I’ve learned my lesson for the time being. In 2014 I do not intend to grow my sealed product portfolio--there are just too many other opportunities out there with faster payoffs. And the logistics of a few clicks at the computer to buy stocks are just easier than receiving and shipping sealed booster boxes.

2. Trim Back My MTG Portfolio

Sealed booster boxes are a large portion of my overall MTG holdings, but I also have a collection of shocklands, Modern cards, Standard cards, etc. I do not want to sell out of an entire format, as I did last year with Legacy. Instead, I hope to trim back holdings proportionally.

My motivation here is threefold. First, recall that my endeavors in the realm of MTG finance are strictly to build up funds to support my son’s college education…albeit 16 years from now. It doesn’t hurt to start saving early, right?

Second, I continuously evaluate opportunity cost with my investments. Last year the stock market was much more generous to investors than many MTG investments. While small wins in MTG speculation are difficult to realize on Wall Street, my primary focus continues to be “long haul.” Thus I need to make investing decisions accordingly.

Finally, I am growing distrustful of the financial stability of Magic cards. This statement is bold and will likely require a separate article on its own to provide detailed explanation. For now, I will cite increased market instability, manipulation, and speculation as my primary motivations for growing discomfort with MTG investing.

Granted momentum has mostly been positive thus far, but we must remind ourselves that true prices should be driven by supply and demand in the long term. Market manipulators can drive movement for so long, but eventually true market value should shake out. I don’t want to be on the wrong side of the line when that happens.

3. Pay More Attention to the QS Forums

Twitter has alerted me to a number of speculation targets. MTG Stocks is an especially valuable tool when it comes to looking back at trends and market movers. But often times it’s the QS Forum that is ahead of the curve, identifying targets before they are bought out. This is where a lot of money is being made right now.

Good examples include Phyrexian Obliterator and Griselbrand, but there are many others.

What’s more, the active community in these forums is always sharing their thoughts on whether or not a market buyout is hype-driven or based on fundamentals. Valuable advice such as price targets, when to sell, and where to buy are also benefits of this community.

But these last couple months I’ve fallen behind on reading this valuable information. With my upcoming move, this will get worse before it gets better. But once I’m settled in my new location I do intend to visit the forums regularly, sharing my own thoughts on occasion. I’m simply missing out on too much money should I fail to keep up.

Three Is Enough

I wish I could list out all the ideas flying through my head as I write this article. But I believe that in order to ensure success in following my resolutions, I need to keep the priority list short and manageable.

The first resolution is easy to execute, as long as I maintain discipline. The second will take time, and to be successful here I’ll need to pay attention to my incoming cards relative to the outgoing ones. The third resolution will be most difficult of all to maintain, but it also may be the most important one. With buyouts happening left and right, I need to make sure I stay ahead of the curve.

What about everyone else? Do others in the community make similar commitments to strive for improved speculation practices? If so I am eager to hear what you're embarking on for 2014.

Have a Happy New Year, and here’s to a bright, profitable, disciplined 2014!

botg test

Posted on January 4, 2014April 3, 2014 by Kelly Reid

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some stuff here

Insider: Lessons from the Shocklands

Posted on January 3, 2014January 17, 2022 by Matthew Lewis

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Last year, shocklands were widely touted as a good speculative investment by many MTG finance writers, including myself. Previous cycles of rare lands, such as the Scars of Mirrodin (SOM) fast lands and the Innistrad (ISD) check lands, had seen good price increases (on average) in their second year in Standard. The perfectly reasonable conclusion was to observe the past trend, buy shocklands at or near their price floor, and wait to reap the gains.

Sticking to past trends is a good starting point, but understanding what contributes to the trend is needed for broader analysis.

The Expected Pattern

On MTGO, I would say there are two primary factors that contribute to the trend of real estate being a good investment over time. First, growth in the player base means that the supply of cards from the previous year is relatively small compared to current demand.

Second, when a card is being opened through limited play of the current set, its price tends to be low because players perceive it to be relatively abundant. Players then anchor their expectations of the price of a given card based on current conditions. When a card stops being opened, its price eventually finds a higher level as the market adjusts to the lower supply.

What has happened so far is that the shocklands have not followed the pattern as closely. This can be attributed largely to the strength of monocolour strategies in Standard and the fact that shocklands were widely viewed as a good speculative bet. The large number of people who speculated on them has depressed returns as the price floor was higher than it otherwise would have been, and the price spikes flatter.

Speculating on shocklands over the last year will not result in a loss for me. Sacred Foundry and Godless Shrine have been close to double their lows. Profits on these two cards alone are enough to pull my entire shockland position into the black.

Although technically profitable, the shockland strategy has not been costless. Tying up capital for a year in a marginal position means other opportunities had to be passed on. There were fairly straightforward opportunities for nice gains, such as many Modern staples over the summer. Having tix tied up in shocklands meant that some of these opportunities slipped by without being fully realized.

However, I'm not going to swear off speculating on real estate. There are always lessons to glean from what has happened.

One of the things I've noticed is the relative premium on Gatecrash (GTC) shocklands over Return to Ravnica (RTR) shocklands. Seeking to explain this difference might lead to greater understanding of how to fine-tune speculating on the scry lands of THS block.

The above chart plots two lines over the past year or so. The orange lines tracks the average price of an RTR shockland while the blue line tracks the average price of a GTC shockland.

After the release of Dragon’s Maze (DGM) and up to the beginning of July and the release of Modern Masters (MMA), we see that they are pretty close to one another. This makes sense as they are being opened simultaneously and using average prices means that any one shockland that is heavily played in Standard will be balanced out by others seeing less play.

After the release of MMA though, a gap opens up between the two lines. The average price of a GTC shockland has been higher than the average price of a RTR shockland. Over time, this gap seems to have widened considerably, now at about 1 ticket. Figuring out where this gap comes from might shed some light on the price dynamics of cards like this.

Mtggoldfish tracks the number of copies of cards in decks placing 3-1 or 4-0 in published Daily Events from MTGO. Looking at the most played lands in Standard tells us that at the moment Godless Shrine ranks 9^th and appears in over 20% of decks. Hallowed Fountain is 10^th and appears in nearly 19% of decks. Sacred Foundry comes in at 12^th in about 17% of decks. Watery Grave is 14^th in almost 11% of decks. Overgrown Tomb, Stomping Ground and Temple Garden are next and both appear in around 5% of decks. Blood Crypt, Steam Vents and Breeding Pool appear in around 2% of decks.

Although an imprecise measure of demand, Standard play is a driver of prices. This means it’s reasonable to suggest prices should be roughly in line with their play. However, in comparing some of the most played shocklands, we see Hallowed Fountain at 4.15 tix (prices as of January 2^nd and courtesy of Cardbotmtgo.com) while Sacred Foundry is at 5.8 tix and Godless Shrine is at 5.6 tix.

This is non-intuitive. Why would Hallowed Fountain, at similar levels of playability in Standard, be priced at a discount relative to the similarly played GTC shocklands?

Delving a little deeper, at the bottom end of the scale is Steam Vents at 2.97 tix, Blood Crypt at 3.22 tix and Breeding Pool at 3.99 tix. Even prior to the recent spoiling of Kiora, Breeding Pool held a price of 3.90 tix despite hardly being played at all in competitive Standard decks. Here's another non-intuitive result. Why would the price of Breeding Pool, at similar levels of playability in Standard, be priced at a premium?

Clearly there is some price factor that we are not accounting for. But it should be fairly obvious that GTC lands must be relatively scarce compared to RTR lands. This scarcity probably comes from the nature of the draft format.

Triple GTC draft was a fast format and drafting was fairly simple if you stuck to an aggressive mana curve. Triple RTR was a slower format in general.

Slower formats give more options and can be more interesting with marginal cards having obscure, but relevant uses in a limited format. A fast format is often unforgiving which results in many more cards being relegated to the bench. It’s almost certain that the player base quickly tired of Triple GTC draft, resulting in a lower supply relative to RTR.

The Scry Lands

With this in mind, the strategy for speculating on the scry lands of Theros (THS) block is clear. Due to being opened the most in draft, the THS scry lands should be avoided in favor of scry lands appearing in Born of the Gods (BNG) and/or Journey into Nyx (JOU). With so much less of BNG and JOU entering the market through draft, the potential price increases on lands from these sets will be larger.

Completely avoiding the THS scry lands is not advisable as playability does matter, but putting an emphasis on the non-THS scry lands will weight the basket towards cards with higher price ceilings.

As of today, I am still not interested in accumulating any scry lands for speculating. The optimal time to accumulate a real estate position in the scry lands of THS block will be after the release of JOU but before the release of M15. At that time, price floors for the scry lands should be established allowing for a good, low-risk entry point on a strategy that should yield a good profit over time.

Insider: 2014 — Laying the Landscape

Posted on January 2, 2014January 17, 2022 by Corbin Hosler

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Happy New Year to everyone out there! I know some of you experienced it sooner or later than I did, but I hope everyone had a good time.

Usually, the holidays are quiet for Magic finance. Not a lot of events are happening, and neither are any big moves. This year was a little different in that we had a few movers, but for the most part both Standard and other formats have changed little.

So, as Theros prices continue to bottom out and we move into 2014, what are the steps we should be taking?

Ignore Theros

I think this is probably one of the most important steps we can take this month. Prices are going to continue to tank, but it’s not like they’ll rebound any time soon, even if they do “bottom out.”

Yes, there’s a lot of talk about which Theros cards are at the bottom and whether or not they’re good spec targets. My take is this. Yes, there likely are some good targets (Stormbreath Dragon comes to mind), but the prices aren’t likely to come up any time soon since we’ll still be drafting the set for a while to come.

But that doesn’t mean ignore Standard. As Born of the Gods spoilers begin to drop, we’ll see some new strategies, or at least hype, emerge onto the scene. With the multicolor support expected from the set, as well as scrylands for the other five color combinations, two-color strategies should begin to pop up more.

Specifically, I’m looking at green-white to pick up steam. Mono- or nearly mono-white decks are having success now, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence the black and red splashes happen to be from colors with access to appropriate scrylands. Are you telling me that with a G/W scryland Voice of Resurgence doesn’t have a place in these decks? Or Fleecemane Lion?

Like I said, I don’t love Fleecemane because of how many are being opened, but looking at cards from those colors from Ravnica seem like good bets.

Besides Voice, I could also see Trostani, Selesnya's Voice rising in popularity. It has casual appeal, fits the colors and is a mythic. Advent of the Wurm could make a move as well. Voice and Advent in particular are from a third set and weren’t opened a ton. You should definitely be trading into these with an eye toward the future.

Remember the Season

And by that, I mean that we’re still a ways off from Modern season, but we’ve seen plenty of interest in the format if price spikes are to be believed. And again I’ll remind you that now is the time to get into Modern staples and spec targets. The closer we get to the summer and what I expect to be a busy Modern season, the more prices on format staples will rise.

Path to Exile, Inquisition of Kozilek, Deathrite Shaman, Birthing Pod--you know the regular staples we talk about regularly. All will see price increases by next Modern season, and now is the time to get into them while people are excited about Born of the Gods and not their Modern deck.

While we’re on the subject, let’s talk Born of the Gods, and in particular Kiora. I’m not a fan of the planeswalker at all, from the four cost to the two loyalty and the fact that while it sort of protects itself, it really doesn’t. $25 is way too high for this, and I’ll be staying away from it when the prerelease rolls around.

Anyway, back to seasons. With more multicolor likely coming to Standard, and Modern on the horizon, we may finally see the rise on shocklands missing thus far. I wouldn’t be surprised if this coincided with a fall in Mutavault, which has set the new record for a Standard rare price in the post-mythic era.

There’s very little way this $35 price can hold, so trading one Mutavault for a playset of shocks doesn’t seem like a bad idea. Standard PTQ season is coming, and if we see more multicolor and the rise in Modern popularity in the summer that we expect, I don’t see how shocks can’t tick up in the next few months.

Casual Staples

Over the last few years an interesting trend has been that casual cards seem to go through a price correction in the few months following the turn of the calendar, only to be stagnant the rest of the year.

I figure one of the reasons for this is that people are finally not strapped for cash after Christmas and use those funds to put back into their decks. I’m particularly targeting Commander cards like Caged Sun, which went up from a dollar to $2 last year and then $2-3. This will be a $5 card soon, and it’s a pretty sure bet to get there.

I also think Chromatic Lantern, Gilded Lotus, Darksteel Forge and Sanguine Bond are due for some upward movement as the reprint effect wears off. Lantern for its part has only been printed once and I see no reason why it won't be the next Coalition Relic and hit $5. For something you can still get as basically a throw-in in trading, there’s no reason not to hoard these.

I’m also a huge fan of Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite right now. Not only is it a Commander card, it also occasionally pops up in Modern. There’s nothing not to like about this card just based on the casual appeal, but add to that the fact that it could appear in a GP Top 8 alongside Gifts Ungiven and suddenly jump to $20-25.

Another one I have on my radar is Baneslayer Angel. It’s been steadily holding at around $12-13 right now, and barring another reprint it’s going to make its way to $20. It also fits the bill of “sometimes good in Modern” and has the potential like Elesh Norn to spike off of that.

Have a Great 2014

As we head into the new year, that’s pretty much where my strategy is at. I don’t want to mess around with Theros cards and I’m not looking for anything out of left field to take off. It’s just a great time to trade into the “blue chips” of Magic finance and look toward the future.

Thanks for reading,

Corbin Hosler

@Chosler88 on Twitter

Insider: As Seasons Change

Posted on January 2, 2014January 17, 2022 by Dylan Beckham

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As season's change and new tournament reports come in, we tend to focus on the things that matter now. New things that create changes in the market place, new mentalities, or even changes in process are usually very hard to digest without a firm understanding of where things are going in the future. 2014 is no different to this as things will change and some kind of progression will be made. However, over the last few weeks, I've delved specifically into the mentality of who, as a trader or financier, we are. For understanding where we come from, do we understand the complexities of where we are going.

Do you want to become better? I would think so. Becoming better though is a misnomer in a lot of ways. Taking a new direction or even beating the path less known can play a huge part in what it takes to become better. Most just look at becoming more than what you are as an exercise in becoming sharper. Crafting your portfolio until it is bullet proof to the changes of weather in the market place.

This is a mistake.

What happens if we missed a key part of information on the way to where we are now? What if a key cog in the understanding of how things work never revealed itself? Unlike banking, we individuals are never "Too Big to Fail." So, in order to learn, I've bucked the trend. I've delved deeper into the knowledge of what makes me capable of living off the earnings of buying and selling Magic: The Gathering to pass on to you the mentality it takes to truly improve.

Knowledge is power, but wisdom is how to use that knowledge, and without wisdom there is a lock on how far your potential will take you. Sometimes in order to become better, we must throw out everything we know.

Learn. Trade. Profit.

My fellow writer, Corbin Hosler, made a wonderful example of why wisdom is incredibly important in this field. His reasoning and logic behind why we will not see a reprint on ANY fetchlands gives a detailed point of view from Wizards of the Coast and how they go about their business.

He points out that:

They don’t love fetches in Standard because of the amount of shuffling they create.
They design sets one year in advance.
They wanted to determine how successful Modern Masters was before going forward with anything else similar.
They want to actively reprint Modern cards.

The knowledge of how Wizards operates leads to the wisdom that the time to invest has not yet passed. By now though, I'm sure your asking yourself - where does this all fit in with me? What knowledge can be gained now?

Finding Your Wisdom:

Wizards loves cycles. They love a formulaic approach. They plan new formats months ahead and this trend reveals many things to us. Standard has taken its first foray's into the new format it will become. What knowledge has shown is that prices for Theros block should be exactly where we want it to be. Previous October sets have revealed that 1-2 months after their release is the prime market for amassing large amounts of target cards. Focusing on preparing yourself for future formats is the first step in leveraging your investment into long term growth and maximizing potential swings of future cards. As the saying goes: "Buy low. Sell high."

All of the Temples should already be on your radar. If you've looked at past trends, you'll notice that multi-application lands, like the Temples, enjoy a brief period of time of depressed value before they skyrocket over night. This trend has happened relatively consistently over every Block base set in recent memory. I still believe that there will be the same routine explosion in price for Ravnica Shocklands, for instance. $20-$24 per land is not unheard of for Shocks.

Although now we have a new plot twist. This trend could come sooner than expected. Modern will begin in May/June this time around, and with that, a surge in the demand. By having two formats with not much overlap in what lands are used, you get an increase in what lands players need. Take a look at the examples, though. Looking at the price trends - paying careful attention to what has taken place in both Rotation periods. October is very friendly to the previous years dual lands. So either periods of time could see a large increase in both Temples & Shocks.

Daxos of Meletis is a card very similar to Geist of Saint Traft. In a number of ways though - it is not. The power level is what's consistent though. Although this will more than likely not be a multi-format all-star like Geist, the ability to cast opponents cards is what is important. This is nothing new, however, they have never let you cast an opponents card with the caveat of using any colored mana to do so. This is new territory and has honestly upped the ante for what this type of card can do. While this could easily have nothing happen, as removal is still the crux of creatures, I would not be surprised to see Daxos jump into the $4.00-$5.00 range. As this card is at bargain basement levels right now, it's hard to go wrong if he does become the next Nightveil Specter.

More than likely Anger of the Gods has already been on your radar. Red removal spells of this nature are usually put into a set as a catch all to help keep aggressive decks from taking over. At the same time, being a non U/W based control strategy puts this into a different territory. Some U/W/x decks will emerge after rotation in the fall, but as Anger approaches $2.00 "throw in" territory, continue to pick these up as often and as cheaply as possible. The price ceiling of $5.00-$6.00 is not unheard of, as it's already been there once before. This card is also seeing multi-format play and is an upgrade for many older renditions of this effect. Keep it on your radar moving forward.

Applying Your Knowledge

2014 is now upon us, and I am already planning for the October rotation. Theros block is prime real estate sitting in an unused part of town. Most of the prices have deflated to floor-like levels and the opportunity to set yourself up for Autumn & Winter 2014 is now upon us. Historically, most sets do not feel their full impact until the metagame Wizards of the Coast's Future Future League envisioned is fully upon us. They rarely invest much time in focusing on the short periods of time during releases that won't change things very much, but focus on the overall picture of a fully fleshed out format. This time between Born of the Gods and Journey is such a time.

Theros/Born/Journey/M15 Standard will soon be upon us, and the preparation that you do now will pay massive dividends come this Summer & Fall. ALL of that can be undone by not applying the knowledge of how formats change. How they evolve, and of course the times when supply outstrips demand.

Apply your knowledge. Gain your wisdom. Trade & profit.

Devoted to Mindsparker

Posted on January 2, 2014January 3, 2014 by Ryan Overturf

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This Standard season has been a pretty interesting ride for me. The weekend of Pro Tour Theros I picked up Mono U Devotion. The week after I started splashing black cards in the deck and it wasn’t long before I transitioned all the way to Mono B Devotion. After that I picked up Rg Devotion. I found the green cards to be underwhelming and tried Mono R for a while, and finally settled on Rw Devotion.

I know a lot of good players that contend that “the Pack Rat strategy" is the best deck in the format, and I personally never enjoy having to play against straight UW control, but I think that a strong case can be made for playing Big Boros.

All of the major players in Standard are either trying to win by having an above-average card quality or by having explosive starts. Monoblack, UW and Esper are all capable of burying their opponent under card advantage without really needing to rely on any bad cards. They can draw their cards in the wrong order to be sure, but a Thoughtseize is going to have a major impact on a game more often than a Judge's Familiar.

On the other side of the field we see decks jam-packed with any and every cheap creature the format has to offer trying to steal fast wins. Daring Skyjek and Frostburn Weird aren’t the most exciting cards, but Spear of Heliod and Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx combine with them to make quite formidable draws.

The Best of Both Worlds

The reason that I advocate Rw Devotion is that it offers both above-average card quality and explosive draws. Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx is easily in my top five most powerful Standard cards. I don’t know how I’d fill out my top ten, but I do know to a certainty that I’d put Sphinx's Revelation, Thoughtseize, Mutavault and Master of Waves as the rest of my top five. More importantly, I’d put all of the following somewhere in my top 20:

Not to mention the format’s most efficient removal spell in the form of Chained to the Rocks.

A lone Boros Reckoner can put the breaks on aggressive decks entirely or a Burning-Tree Emissary + Nykthos draw can put an opponent unrecoverably far behind as early as turn three.

That all said, there are a few problems with the stock list. The following cards fluctuate a great deal in relevance by matchup and by game:

The removal spells are functional mulligans against most of the control variants (drawing Chained to the Rocks against Blood Baron of Vizkopa being particularly frustrating) and Hammer of Purphoros is most often terrible against aggressive decks.

Purphoros fluctuates between being the difference-maker in a close game and being completely worthless. I found myself boarding him out against every aggressive deck due to his inconsistency and ultimately settled on relegating it to the sideboard. He’s a must answer against control decks as they are slow enough to be punished by his triggered ability, but Black Devotion can both win quickly and keep your devotion low.

The Green Planeswalkers vary in power from game-breaking to miserable, but the biggest reason to eschew them is Chained to the Rocks. They’re good against control… when they don’t Hero's Downfall/Detention Sphere them. Chained to the Rocks is less likely to be answered and matters in more matchups. Specifically, it deals with all of these very problematic cards:

With all of this in mind, I’m currently on this 75:

”Rw Pirates”

spells

4 Boros Reckoner

4 Stormbreath Dragon

4 Ash Zealot

4 Burning-Tree Emissary

4 Fanatic of Mogis

2 Hammer of Purphoros

4 Frostburn Weird

4 Mindsparker

1 Mizzium Mortars

4 Chained to the Rocks

lands

11 Mountain

4 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx

4 Temple of Triumph

4 Sacred Foundry

2 Boros Guildgate

sideboard

2 Burning Earth

3 Mizzium Mortars

2 Chandra's Phoenix

1 Purphoros, God of the Forge

2 Assemble the Legion

1 Wear // Tear

2 Warleader's Helix

1 Last Breath

1 Chandra, Pyromaster

The first comment I have on the deck is that Last Breath has been miserable out of the sideboard and I’m looking for a replacement. While it’s possible to win through Desecration Demon and Arbor Colossus, Master of Waves has a way of being a brick wall and a one-two turn clock. I’ve tried Ratchet Bomb, Anger of the Gods and Last Breath as answers and all of them have been unsatisfactory. Anger just sets you back too much and Ratchet Bomb is an awkward combination of slow and narrow. I don’t like Electrickery as it doesn’t do anything against Nightveil Specter, and I’m not sure what else to try. I would be immensely happy with an Oblivion Ring or Dismember reprint, though I don’t especially expect either- particularly not Dismember.

And a Little Bit of Spice

The other card I want to talk about is Mindsparker. I didn’t draft M14 at all, so I mostly only knew about cards from the set as they saw constructed play. I was rifling through extra cards that my friend Sean brought to Vegas when I came across this little number and it looked like a good tool against UW control, which was a matchup that I was worried about. At the time I was maindecking Chandra's Phoenix and I put two Mindsparker in my sideboard.

After playing a game where I played turn two Ash Zealot into turn three Mindpsparker against Green Devotion to brickwall my opponents turn two 5/5 Reverent Hunter while I Fanatic’d my opponent to death I was sold on maindecking the card. I started out with two and as I moved things around I liked it more and more.

Just having more permanents contributes to the devotion plan, which is a big reason that I liked Chandra's Phoenix in the first place. Another first striker is nothing to scoff at, and Mindsparker’s triggered ability is also pretty relevant against the control decks. Not to mention that it helps a bit against Brave the Elements decks in racing situations.

I played roughly the above list in the Vegas Standard Open to a 7-2-1 record and at the Minnesota PTQ to go 3-0, then 0-2. In those events my losses were to an aggressive deck when I stumbled and to Blue Devotion- though I also had wins against both decks in both events.

I think that Standard is finally hitting a rock-paper-scissors-lizard-Spock type dynamic, and I don’t know that I’d say there is a best deck currently, but I would definitely recommend Rw devotion. If nothing else, it’s much less boring than UW control.

Thanks for reading.

-Ryan Overturf

Magical Xmasland

Posted on January 2, 2014January 2, 2014 by Mike Lanigan

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'Twas the night before Christmas, when all thro' the house,
Not a Magic Player was stirring, not even a mouse;
The five rows were placed by the chimney with care,
In hopes that new cards soon would be there;
The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of running hot danc'd in their heads,

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters, and threw up the sash.
The moon on the breast of the new fallen snow,
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below;
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But Magical Christmasland right over there,
There were combos and four-of’s of all your best cards,
And only your opponents’ strategy was falling in shards,

Curving out was no longer a dream,
And your opponent just needed one more land it would seem,
You tore through the competition, so lively and quick,
Leaving your opponent saying, “Man that’s so sick,”
More rapid than eagles the spectators they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and cheered your name,

There were whispers among the crowd about how far you would go,
But you paused the match to say, “I’ll be the next pro,”
"To the top of the standings! to the top eight!
"Now win the event, you don’t have to wait!"
How did you come up with the deck, they will say,
Conley Woods has nothing on me today,
As you crush it in the final round,
Screams of exultation resound.
He sprung to his friends, to his team gave a whistle,
And to him they all flew, like the down of a thistle:
But I heard him exclaim, ere they walked out of sight-
Happy Pro Tour to all, and to all a good night.

Magical Xmasland is a wonderful place filled with everything working out in our favor and games that play out exactly the way we have theorized. Some of us have been fortunate enough to reside there, if only for a short while. Being in that place is the perfect storm of the universe conspiring on your behalf.

The times I've experienced it have been under the following circumstances: relatively few mulligans and mana issues, some number of free wins due to my opponent having issues, few or zero mistakes in my play, and battling with a powerful, unexpected deck usually of my own design.

This past summer crushing the TCG Platinum event with BWR Humans and only falling in the finals to extreme mulligans was the closest I've come to to Magical Xmasland. After all, destroying the field with a deck featuring Increasing Devotion must be a dream.

It's fun to take a walk through Magical Xmasland once in a while, but sometimes we're oblivious to the fact that we are strolling there. Often times, the brewers of the world only recognize we ended up in a fairy tale land when looking back through the rearview mirror upon the sequence of events that landed you there.

Brewing Away

Over the past month, in an effort to be interesting and fresh with Standard, I found myself in places I did not intend to be. This discovery can come as quite a shock when you reflect on having said things like "it seems like I come so close to winning," or "everytime I try to get the right combination of cards in play, my opponent always has the answer." These words, or ones similar to them, are dangerous to your success so beware.

Take a look at the decks I tried that ended up being too good to be true.

The BUG Prophet
by Mike Lanigan

Untitled Deck

Creatures

4 Sylvan Caryatid

2 Scavenging Ooze

4 Nightveil Specter

4 Reaper of the Wilds

2 Polukranos, World Eater

3 Prophet of Kruphix

3 Prime Speaker Zegana

Spells

3 Thoughtseize

1 Rapid Hybridization

4 Abrupt Decay

2 Golgari Charm

3 Hero's Downfall

Lands

4 Overgrown Tomb

4 Breeding Pool

2 Watery Grave

3 Temple of Deceit

3 Temple of Mystery

4 Swamp

3 Island

2 Forest

BUG Midrange has been a pet deck of mine that I have been tinkering with, but it doesn't ever seem to quite work out. All of the elements are there to beat essentially every deck in the format, but the matchups against them are not as easy as my theory suggested.

It may be that Prophet of Kruphix and Prime Speaker Zegana are not powerful or consistent enough to be good. Against many decks I found Prime Speaker to be extremely subpar, but against others she was an all-star.

If I were going to continue my work on this deck, I would look towards Kibler's Golgari Midrange deck. There might be alterations I'd make even to that list, like adding Nightveil Specter, but the deck might be better off without blue.

Bant Auras
by Mike Lanigan

Untitled Deck

Creatures

4 Gladecover Scout

4 Favored Hoplite

4 Voice of Resurgence

4 Witchstalker

4 Boon Satyr

Spells

4 Ethereal Armor

4 Ordeal of Heliod

4 Ordeal of Thassa

4 Unflinching Courage

2 Ajani, Caller of the Pride

Lands

4 Temple Garden

4 Hallowed Fountain

4 Breeding Pool

4 Temple of Mystery

5 Plains

1 Forest

Anytime you sleeve up auras in your deck, you have to know that you are asking to get blown out by the right sequence of cards. Sometimes your opponent will crush you with seemingly no effort at all because you drew too many creatures and not enough auras or vice versa. If you are drawing hot though, it may seem as if nothing in the universe can stop you.

All-in decks like this can obliterate opponents and leave you feeling unstoppable, but at the same time, can also leave you in a pile on the floor utterly defeated. These sentiments were my exact feelings after playing with the deck through a couple local events.

R/b Devotion Aggro
by Mike Lanigan

Untitled Deck

Creatures

4 Firedrinker Satyr

4 Rakdos Cackler

4 Gore-House Chainwalker

4 Ash Zealot

4 Boros Reckoner

4 Burning-Tree Emissary

3 Fanatic of Mogis

Spells

1 Hammer of Purphoros

1 Chandra, Pyromaster

3 Mizzium Mortars

3 Rakdos Return

Lands

4 Blood Crypt

4 Rakdos Guildgate

4 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx

12 Mountain

1 Swamp

Same great Mono-Red Devotion, but with a lower curve! To top it off, after you curve out on turn four you can make your opponent discard their hand with Rakdos's Return. One aspect of the deck that is an upgrade from the original version of red devotion is that mana from Burning-Tree Emissary can actually cast other cards in your deck. R/b Devotion Aggro is like Red Deck Wins that can also generate a huge Fireball to finish your opponent.

R/B Humans!
by Mike Lanigan

Untitled Deck

Creatures

4 Tormented Hero

3 Gore-House Chainwalker

4 Ash Zealot

4 Burning-Tree Emissary

3 Firefist Striker

2 Tymaret, the Murder King

4 Xathrid Necromancer

4 Blood Bairn

2 Exava, Rakdos Blood Witch

Spells

3 Barrage of Expendables

3 Thoughseize

Lands

4 Blood Crypt

4 Rakdos Guildgate

5 Swamp

11 Mountain

Sick of your opponent killing all of your creatures? Start sacrificing them for benefit! This deck is built to maximize the impact of Xathrid Necromancer. Your strategy hinges on this one card so use those Thoughtseizes to protect it.

Sacrificing your board for the Blood Bairn kill is the best way to win with this deck, but saccing everything to Barrage of Expendables is also satisfying.

With Xathrid Necromancer, you can sacrifice your creatures twice for double the damage! Don't tell anyone, but when you have two Xathrid Necromancers in play, they both trigger and you get two zombies for each human that dies. They will never see it coming, until the zombie hoard overwhelms them.

Big Black Devotion
by Mike Lanigan

Untitled Deck

Creatures

4 Desecration Demon

4 Gray Merchant of Asphodel

4 Nightveil Specter

4 Pack Rat

1 Erebos, God of the Dead

3 Abhorrent Overlord

Spells

4 Devour Flesh

4 Hero's Downfall

3 Underworld Connections

3 Thoughtseize

Lands

4 Mutavault

3 Temple of Deceit

3 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx

16 Swamp

Now that's devotion. I have actually seen players attempt this strategy outside Magical Xmasland, but we all know what happens. Sure Abhorrent Overlord is busted with a sick Nykthos draw, but the other nine out of ten times it sits in your hand rotting away or turns into a Pack Rat just like every other card in your hand.

Same dominating Mono-Black Devotion, more powerful, but much less consistent. Noticing the drastic inconsistency in your deck is a great way to realize you are in a fantasy world, but it's rather hard to except that fact because we dwell on how epic those times the strategy actually worked.

In reality, this version is not as good as the stock list you can copy from anywhere around the internet. If you want to have a fun happy time and crush a couple players with a giant army of flyers though, this is the deck for you!

Lifegain Junk
by Mike Lanigan

Untitled Deck

Creatures

4 Elvish Mystic

4 Sylvan Caryatid

4 Voyaging Satyr

2 Scavenging Ooze

4 Centaur Healer

4 Nyleas Disciple

2 Trostani, Selesnya's Voice

3 Archangel of Thune

4 Blood Baron of Vizkopa

Spells

2 Abrupt Decay

1 Putrefy

2 Garruk, Caller of Beasts

Lands

4 Temple Garden

4 Overgrown Tomb

4 Godless Shrine

4 Temple of Silence

4 Forest

3 Swamp

2 Plains

Have you ever thought to yourself, man I wish lifegain was actually good? Have you tried to develop your own lifegain deck and gain so much life your opponents could never catch up, but failed everytime?

Well search no more, because have I got the deck for you!

Not only does Nylea's Disciple gain you nearly ten life every time you cast it, but it also makes your Blood Baron of Vizkopa into a 10/10 flying monster! With this patented lifegain strategy, you can win every game with Blood Baron of Vizkopa flying over your opponent's army to victory or Archangel of Thune making your army enormous.

All of your cards are strong on their own, so don't worry about drawing too many lifegain cards (like that could ever happen), and not enough big finishers. There are even a couple removal spells to disrupt your opponent and Garruk, Caller of Beasts to draw more lifegain dudes.

In all seriousness for a moment, I did actually want to play a deck like this at FNM. Luckily fate had it that we were sold out of Archangel of Thune and I did not succumb to the desire. Sure would be fun when it works though.

Archangel of Thune might actually be a real card if it finds a home in a deck somewhere. The M14 angel might die to every black removal spell in sight, but even if it hits once, any opponent is in serious trouble.

Junk Reanimator
by Mike Lanigan

Untitled Deck

Creatures

4 Elvish Mystic

4 Sylvan Caryatid

3 Lotleth Troll

3 Shadowborn Demon

3 Obzedat, Ghost Council

3 Angel of Serenity

Spells

4 Grisly Salvage

4 Commune with the Gods

2 Abrupt Decay

1 Hero's Downfall

2 Whip of Erebos

4 Rescue from the Underworld

Lands

4 Godless Shrine

4 Overgrown Tomb

4 Temple Garden

4 Temple of Silence

4 Forest

1 Plains

2 Swamp

Finally on our tour around the wild world of Magical Xmasland, we have a deck so many players wish was still good, Junk Reanimator. This deck is so vastly unsuccessful that it took me an hour to find a good list to start from.

The deck is not actually bad, it's just not the tier-one monstrosity like its predecessor from last season. The real problem with this strategy is you cannot keep up with the devotion decks flooding the board with permanents and overwhelming you. There is not room in a deck like this for enough removal to keep the devotion in check and also carry out your own game plan. You can do one or the other but not both.

In this version I attempted to do both by including Shadowborn Demon and Angel of Serenity to slow down your opponent's board development. Considering how close to playable this strategy is, I would keep it in mind in the future when a larger card pool is available in Standard.

Thanks for joining me in Magical Xmasland today. Maybe you saw a glimmer of what could be and will turn one of these ideas into a tournament-caliber deck. There are always new and interesting options available to you. Explore every nook and cranny.

Until Next Time,

Unleash the Magical Xmasland Force!

Mike Lanigan
MtgJedi on Twitter
Jedicouncilman23@gmail.com

Insider – Card Desirability Index

Posted on January 1, 2014January 17, 2022 by David Schumann

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Welcome back, speculators!

Today I want to go over a concept I'm tentatively calling the Card Desirability Index (or CDI). The basic idea is that if the player base is roughly known (going by DCI numbers) and the number of rares in existence is known, then we can determine the desirability of a given card based on the number of copies played.

Print Runs

Unfortunately, print runs are unknown. But while we can't be exact, we can extrapolate possible print runs assuming a roughly linear growth. (It's likely not linear, but a lack of data doesn't allow for a more complicated model as we do have the print run sizes from 1993-1995.)

Next we need to determine the print run of the rares. Luckily that same set of print run data tells us how many of each rare was printed. Using this data we come up with a ratio of rares to print run. After calculating this ratio we then determine the average over the first few years, called the "Rare Ratio". This will give us an idea of how many rares were printed with each print run.

Last but not least we need to factor in the fact that there were a lot more rares in the original sets (which are what we used to determine print runs). I call this the "rare factor". I took the number of rares in the set divided by the number of total cards in the set. The original printings all had a rare factor at 0.4 but newer sets it's more like 0.2. This means new sets have about half as many different rares as old sets.

Thus assuming our print run calculations are somewhat accurate there are twice as many of each rare printed. Hence why the rare factor is either 1 or 2. Many of the older core sets, Ice Age, Alliances et.al. also had factors of 0.4, but for the most part the other sets printed from 1996 and up had fewer rares per set. If this were to be broken down per set we'd just break down each set here and divide 0.4 by the rare factor.

Player Numbers

The next step is to look at the player growth. Unfortunately we have even fewer data for this.

An article written in June 2011 puts the number of registered DCI numbers at 12 million. Previous search implies that there were around 6 million in 2006. For this article we'll assume the same player growth rate from 2011 to 2013. Assuming a linear growth we can get an idea of how many players were around at each year.

Now to go backwards, we have to extrapolate and we have basically no data to verify or compare with. However, to be conservative I'm estimating a 10% growth per year (from 1993 to 2006), which puts around 656,000 players back in 1993. I think this sounds like a reasonable number.

Knowing both the number of rares printed in each print run and the number of total players we can figure out the number of rares per player that are available.

It's important to note that we are also making the assumption that the print runs are the same. Though in all likelihood the higher selling sets have higher print runs than the lower selling ones. Unfortunately, there isn't enough data to determine what the difference is so we will just stick to the assumption that they are all printed with the same print run size per year.

Putting the CDI Together

With the MTG population increasing we expect to see the Rares Per Player going up as we get closer to the present time (which it does) and this goes in line with the fact that older rares (Legacy) tend to be more valuable (and more in demand) than Standard rares. It's also important to note that the mythics per player count should be around 1/8 of the rares per player count.

Year	# of Active DCI Numbers	Print Run	# of Rares	Rare Ratio	Rares Per Player (2013)	Mythics Per Player (2013)
2013	13714286	6716666667	12227530	2	1.783	0.223
2012	12857143	6386666667	11626773	2	1.696	0.212
2011	12000000	6056666667	11026016	2	1.608	0.201
2010	9428571	5726666667	10425259	2	1.520	0.190
2009	8571429	5396666667	9824502	2	1.433	0.179
2008	7714286	5066666667	9223745	2	1.345	0.168
2007	6857143	4736666667	8622988	2	1.258	N/A
2006	6000000	4406666667	8022231	2	1.170	N/A
2005	5400000	4076666667	7421474	2	1.082	N/A
2004	4860000	3746666667	6820717	2	0.995	N/A
2003	4374000	3416666667	6219960	2	0.907	N/A
2002	3936600	3086666667	5619203	2	0.819	N/A
2001	3542940	2756666667	5018446	2	0.732	N/A
2000	3188646	2426666667	4417688	2	0.644	N/A
1999	2869781	2096666667	3816931	2	0.557	N/A
1998	2582803	1766666667	3216174	2	0.469	N/A
1997	2324523	1436666667	2615417	2	0.381	N/A
1996	2092071	1106666667	2014660	2	0.294	N/A
1995	1372608	700000000	1274333	1	0.093	N/A
1994	810511	600000000	1092286	1	0.080	N/A
1993	656514	40000000	72819	1	0.005	N/A

Now that we have a general idea of how many rares per player were printed in each year we can determine how desirable a card is based on how many decks it's played in and how many copies are needed.

Unfortunately there's no way to really estimate how many players want to play what deck. We can't really use a metagame breakdown because the metagame often shifts constantly.

However, we can eliminate that as a factor and instead simply use the Rares Per Player or Mythics Per Player in our function. Because the CDI is an arbitrary number the critical factor is that all cards CDI's are calculated the same way.

My equation is as follows: number of decks that run the card * number of cards per deck / rares per player.

Card	Year Printed	# of Decks Played in	# played per deck	Cards per Player	CDI
Pernicious Deed	2001	2	3	0.732	8.1967
Snapcaster Mage	2011	4	2.5	1.608	6.2189
Stifle	2003	2	4	0.907	8.8203
Cryptic Command	2007	3	4	1.258	9.5390
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite	2011	2	1	0.201	9.9505
Iona, Shield of Emeria	2009	2	1	0.179	11.1674
City of Traitors	1998	3	3.5	0.469	22.3868
Arid Mesa	2009	5	4	1.433	13.9593
Misty Rainforest	2009	8	4	1.433	22.3348
Underground Sea	1994	3	4	0.080	150.0000
Volcanic Island	1994	4	4	0.080	200.0000
Intuition	1997	3	2	0.381	15.7309
Ancestral Vision	2006	1	4	1.170	3.4191
Lion's Eye Diamond	1996	3	4	0.336	35.7380
Flooded Strand	2002	5	4	0.819	24.4061
Gaea's Cradle	1998	12	1.5	0.469	38.3775
Shrine of Nykthos	2013	3	4	1.783	6.7295
Master of Waves	2013	1	4	0.223	17.9455
Hero's Downfall	2013	3	3	1.783	5.0472

The last three results are current Standard cards to use as a baseline comparison. The calculations do appear to be a strong indicator of the price (the cards with the highest CDI's also happen to be the most valuable). The bigger concern is EDH-related cards like Gaea's Cradle, which is played in one Legacy deck (Elves) as a four-of, but appears in almost every green EDH deck that one can build. This is also only done for cards that haven't been reprinted.

The biggest factor, and one of the more difficult to properly assess, is the number of decks played. I didn't have time to go through the entire list of decks on The Source. In all likelihood the CDI numbers for some of the more obscure older cards should be higher.

However the number of rares/mythics per player is the most important as it probably plays the biggest factor. Understanding the estimated number of actual rares per the playerbase will give you a good idea of the demand for an older casual all-star and the the likelihood of it spiking.

In order to determine the CDI of something like Thoughtseize (a highly in-demand reprinted card), we'd need to take a weighted average.

Card	Year Printed	# of Decks Played in	# played per deck	Cards per Player	CDI
Thoughtseize (Lorwyn)	2007	6	3.25	1.258	15.5067229494
Thoughtseize (Theros)	2013	6	3.25	1.783	10.9355103283
				Weighted Average	14.1591793778

Unfortunately, these calculations will not help breakout cards because they require knowledge of the number of decks played in and how many would be played per deck. However I believe this calculation can be excellent for determining undercosted rares, especially ones that are showing up in a lot of decks but have yet to jump up in value.

But we can use the CDI to speculate on older Legacy cards. To be fair, this is what many of us speculators do subconsciously. However, given how almost everyone on here has limited funds, it makes the most sense to attach a number to rank potential speculation targets in order to best allocate one's funds. Hopefully QSers will use the CDI concept in order to rank them.

I will reiterate that many assumptions were required in order to make these calculations (but often in engineering we are faced with problems that lack perfect information and require assumptions). I admit that the "linear growth" assumption for both player growth and print runs is hard to swallow at best, but I still feel that while they may not be 100% correct, the fact that they are used for all calculations should mean that any error is carried over and thus shouldn't affect the overall outcome.

I personally plan on using these equations on some future speculation targets as a way to verify their correctness.

Jason’s Alticle – Checks on Resolution

Posted on December 31, 2013December 31, 2013 by Jason Alt

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Auld Lang Syne!

I'd avoid going to the gym for the next week or so.

Resolutions

Conversely, if you're in the market for exercise equipment or a discount gym membership, February is the way to go. Most people abandon their New Year's resolutions in under a month. It's cliched to make them, no one keeps them and even something as simple as sharing them with someone else hoping that will make you accountable will actually make you less likely to stick with it. So why do we bother?

The New Year feels like an excellent starting point to do things we know will improve our lives, but don't want to start doing today. It may be stupid and ineffective to make resolutions, but it may not be totally worthless to examine some of the things we wish we were doing and ask ourselves why we don't do them already.

Don't think of this as a New Year's resolution article; this is a Fearless Magical Inventory article. Let's examine what I would resolve if I were making resolutions and why I don't do them already.

Stop Ignoring Things

I don't read and play and use everything. I ignored Twitter for a long time despite people whose opinions I respected trying to teach me the value.

When I finally adopted Twitter, I overcompensated a bit, writing articles on Gathering Magic for nearly all over 2013 extolling the virtues of the platform and telling people who they should follow to better utilize it as a tool for improving their Magic game, either as a player or otherwise.

There are some things I have ignored and I plan to spend January at least giving them a try to see if my initial "meh, zero shits given" impression was warranted.

Sometimes it is--I don't need to sleeve up a deck to know that every "My Little Pony - Friendship is Magic" TCG event is going to be jimmy-jammed full of neckbeards and pedophiles. Sometimes, however, you miss the boat on something like Twitter or Bitcoins (though I'm still unconvinced, that day they hit $1,000 per coin would have been a good day to have some), and playing catch-up sucks.

Here are some of the things I either looked into late in 2013 or plan to look into in early 2014:

League of Legends
Hearthstone
Magic Online
Pucatrade
Kai Judo
The Magic the Gathering Judge program

Not all of those are Magic related, but they all tie into a common experience the Magic community has had. I was sick of feeling left out when people discussed League of Legends so I bought a computer that could handle it smoothly and went to town. I don't know if I will enjoy Hearthstone as much as LoL (and I'm not sure whether I enjoy LoL--it turns out most LoL players are, shall we say, less than ideal human beings) but I won't know until I stop ignoring it.

People seem to like Pucatrade. It looked a bit like a pyramid scheme at first and the cards people want are very narrow, but I won't know until I stop ignoring it.

Kai Judo looks like the Wild West right now. If I want a game to actually play, it might be fun to play tournaments while the game is still super loose, but I won't know until I stop ignoring it.

I don't really have a good reason for the things I spent the years ignoring other than that I am busy with Magic and they didn't appeal to me initially. I am proud of myself for being an early adopter of the game Star Realms, going so far as to support the kickstarter (my first, ever) and my enthusiasm was rewarded when an interview I did was used as promotional material for the game.

I got enough sets to give them out as Christmas presents in case anyone else took a "meh, zero shits given" attitude. They won't know how much fun the game could be until they stop ignoring it. Not that it's available for sale yet. You know what I was trying to do there.

Get the Most of Resources

You may not be a QS Insider, but if you are, are you getting the most for your subscription fees? You're paying for this stuff so if you aren't reading every single Insider article, checking the forums daily and using Trader Tools, you could be getting even more out of it.

I won't pretend I read every Insider article even though I really should and 2014 is going to be the year I start. I spend the time I should post more in the QS forums trying to herd cats over in /r/mtgfinance and I should probably divide my time better.

I got to beta-test Trader Tools 3 and it's nutty. Even the free version for non-subscribers gives more and better information than paid apps I have seen and Insiders will get even more out of the tool when TT3 goes live. I took a list of a collection and buylisted it with four mouseclicks and it blew my mind.

But it's obvious that you should wring every last drop of value out of resources you pay for. What of free resources? How could we use those better?

I am culling the people I follow on Twitter a little bit and adding people I should probably be following but am not yet. I am also getting the hang of Empeopled and enocuraging some of the better posters in the finance subreddit to post more Original Content. Brainstorm Brewery is flirting with the idea of a streaming video team that anyone can contribute to and discussion forums of our own (although I would likely spend every second wishing they were as good as the QS forums, a notion that may smother that idea in the cradle).

I not only want to expand the offerings for people as a content provider, I want to optimize the time I spend consuming. It will be tough to balance reading more articles and using Twitter and discussion forums better with the stuff I want to try in the first bullet point, but eliminating inefficiency in other places should free some time up. I'm also wasting huge chunks of every day just sleeping.

Podcasts are another resource I need to be better about. I don't spend nearly enough time listening to them, and I occasionally listen to podcast episodes I don't need to because I was there when they were recorded.

There are a lot of good podcasts out there giving people valuable advice for free and you can have them on while you do your mundane job, whether that's driving a truck, testing laboratory samples or addressing envelopes. If you have an exciting job, take some of the monotony out of your commute. If you have an exciting, rewarding job and don't have much of a commute, go ^&*@ yourself.

My podcast cohost and personal hero Marcel White not only creates and contributes to podcasts like it's his literal job, he listens to lots of them. He always shows up to record Brainstorm Brewery totally apprised of everything that is happening in the Magic world, which helps him lead the discussions.

In Magic Finance, information is money and it's being given out for free if you want to put some time into finding it. The best part is, podcasts provide analysis to the developments but they also tell you the stories so you don't even have to do any reading. I consider myself a member of the podcast community, I should start acting like it.

If you don't listen to podcasts a ton right now, why not give a few a try? I'll obviously advocate Brainstorm Brewery, and not just because of an obvious bias, but also because it's the only finance podcast out there and if you're interested in finance, it's worth listening to. Some of my other favorites include The Eh Team, Heavy Meta, Limited Resources and Bump in the Night.

Free advice is the best advice, and while the adage "You get what you pay for" is usually a good guideline for your life, these podcasts give you way more than you pay for and should be avoided at your peril.

Meet People

Sure, you know people. Even if you're a crazy hermit person, you play enough to read articles and therefore you have probably been in a social setting or two in your time as a Magic player. That's great. What I think you should do is meet more people.

There are myriad different playgroups out there and they all have nuances. Go infiltrate a few. Not for any nefarious purpose either, but to expand your horizons.

My EDH decks are all mediocre because I want to be armed with something that won't make casual people dismay at how much more money I have than they do and will make them want to get affordable staple cards off of me like Deadeye Navigator and Chromatic Lantern.

I won't get rich shipping cards like this, but I will build people who will be life-long customers and come to me when they need cards. Plus it's occasionally fun to play a few games of Magic.

My goal in 2014 is to find some more groups of casual players and become their card hookup. A lot of times, super casual players will want to trade a rare for a rare and the temptation to pull their pants down may occur to you, but I must impress upon you my mantra--you can sheer a sheep many times but you can only skin it once.

Maybe that isn't the best imagery because it implies that those people are mindless sheep, but when you think about the sheep/shearer relationship more literally it is actually mutually-beneficial.

You are taking cards that don't do anything for them like Verdant Catacombs and Snapcaster Mage and providing them with "total gas" like signets and Sol Rings. Giving someone a giant stack of cards like Forced Fruition, Teferi's Puzzle Box, Temple Bell, etc. for their new Nekusar deck in exchange for the True-Name Nemesis they don't even care about is a win-win and should be viewed as such.

Go even value, look cards up for them and build a customer base for life. People who want to play Magic but don't really know prices abound all over the world and if you treat them right they will be outlets for casual cards for you for life. Compare the range of cards they like to the Standard spike players who will look through three pages of your first of four binders, complain that you don't have Sphinx's Revelation and tell you to pound sand.

I know who I'd rather trade with. Go out there and make some new friends and expand your network.

Resolve to Play

Make it a New Year's resolution to play some Magic. Play casual, play competitive, play wacky Holiday Cube on MTGO; just play some cards. 2014 promises to be a big year, so make sure you're ready for it by examining some of the things you did in 2013 that you could have done better and resolving to learn a thing or two.

I know I will, and when the clock strikes midnight and that smug dingleberry Ryan Seacrest is on the television screen pretending he is fit to hold Dick Clark's colostomy bag let alone host his New Year's eve show, you will be filled with a sense of renewed hope for the coming year.

Have a happy New Year surrounded by family and friends and may 2014 be the best year you've ever had.

Insider: The World is a Stage….

Posted on December 27, 2013January 17, 2022 by Dylan Beckham

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Christmas time is upon us. Today, you've already cracked into the newest gifts. The sweet intoxicating aroma of "Oh, shiny" has enveloped you from head to toe. You're comfortably enjoying the break from the real world. While I am not here to interrupt that, let us stop for a moment and look at the context. Christmas - what is it for you? For some, the spirit of giving. For others, the thought of getting something wonderful and new. There are people who spend it alone. There are people that love to be engulfed in family. This is not very different from the magic finance world.

I bring this in stark relief as the New Year approaches for a number of reasons. Thinking ahead about what we enjoy and what our part is to play in the New Year is pivotal to finding the success needed to make the most of the Finance community. Yes, you can simply focus on the individual movers and shakers. Yes, you can focus on finding the next trend and exploiting that. Here at Quiet Speculation, I'll be covering those items as well. Through out my column, I intend to highlight some of the mental mistakes that many have made too. I'll try to light the path as best as possible.

There is one notion I want you to change immediately. The thought that every man is on an island, far from the influence of someone else, is very common. The reality though is far different. No one person is truly an island. Everyone makes splashes in this pool. Not just waves. To setup a foundation for the future - we must first figure out who we are, and what are part to play is.

The Noob

The Noob is just one foot in the door. Excited and enthusiastic but they lack the experience of how to properly move forward. No one cog in the works stands out from the rest. Never underestimate the Noob as they are able to create a lot of movement but haven't been able to find a way to get ahead. The Noob has not seen the difference between a money maker and a cash sink, but the patterns and trends seem like an Enigma Code to them. Often willing, but unsure how. The Noob is just looking for the experience.

The Fish

The Fish is just knowledgeable enough to understand and recognize the gears. Not complex enough to understand how they fit together. This person has much to learn, but often feels they have peeked behind the curtain. The Fish needs to find a niche, then watch & learn. Insight takes time to gather, but lack of insight can cost you immediately. Too often, when we are still Fish, we feel like we have the confidence to make any move we stumble upon. Often times, though, the small efficient play does the most for a person in this category.

The Maniac

Much like in poker, the Maniac is someone that will throw money around. While still not as experienced as say The Rock or The Eagle, The Maniac doesn't know how to choose the right time or place to invest. Any time is a good time. Any action is good action. A Maniac cares about one thing - the thrill of the hunt. Everyone wants to invest in Modern? The Maniac says "Me, too!".

The Rock

With each movement up the chain, we find a differentiation from the last. The Rock has been tempered by the swings of Finance. Often knowing when a fad is a flash in the pan or the real deal. The Rock is very content with always moving forward. Looking for the strongest plays and the deeper insight. The Rock is in it for the long haul. While not quiet as insightful as our last two, this person is familiar with many of the finer points of multiple markets.

The Eagle

The Eagle is often times just a Shark without any complexity. Often on the pulse of a new market trend, they are typically the second wave of investors buying in. Once the first true uptick has happened, they are ready and pounce. Often seeing how multiple gears effect one another, they still haven't put the bigger picture together yet. Something feels like it's missing. Often times, it's the proper time to exit. Often forgetting that every trend waxes as well as wanes.

The Shark

The truest hunters of finance. The Shark has honed almost every experience they've had into a well oiled machine. Able to notice trends from the outset, they are buying when the market is right and selling when it's the hottest. Sharks are not the ones that will get you for a couple of dollars on a trade. They are often the ones that will get a card when it means the least and sell only when it has the biggest impact. That last over market offer you received? It could have easily been a target card. They have unlimited restraint when it comes to betting on a good investment, but the patience, ability, and financial situation to play any angle often letting months or years pass on an investment.

Finding the Map

Now that we know who we are, you can truly see where you need to go. What areas do you need to improve on? What are you exceptional at? Taking stock of what you are capable of and being honest with the things you lack is the next step towards improvement. How are you at asking questions? The forums on this very site, have you used them? How hard do you look at a new set coming in? Have you noticed when a card's power level is absurd, but some reason not played?

There are many things that go into making you. The tools you have at your disposal are what makes you uniquely you. It's what makes you invaluable to someone else, as well. Often times we go at this alone, Christmas is a time to realize that no one is alone. The gifts we give they are in us. Our abilities. Our desires. Our passions. These things differentiate us from the next as well as bring us together.

This New Year think about where you are at. Think about where you are going. Then think if you must do it alone.

Two heads are often better than one.

Jason’s Alticle: The 2014 Prospective

Posted on December 24, 2013December 24, 2013 by Jason Alt

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Greetings, Prospectors!

No sense talking about 2013.

I tend to write my "last week of December" articles on vacation at a family member's house, which makes me less inclined to write my typical 4,000-word tirades.

Furthermore, there is a tendency at this time of year to write some manner of retrospective article trying to make sense of 2013. While learning from past mistakes is a good way to avoid repeating them, everyone is writing a retrospective article this week.

Daring to be different, I decided to talk about something a little more exciting than 2013: 2014.

What's in Store

I love writing for the free side of Quiet Speculation. There is a lot of prestige associated with the Insider side but I enjoy writing for a broad audience and having my work shared outside of the site.

There is a decent chance that you, the reader of this and hopefully others of my articles, are not an insider. Having my work on the free side means anyone can read it, and I sometimes wonder whether Insider writers wish that more than just insiders could see a particularly good article they'd written.

To that end, QS is unlocking a few insider articles this week and sharing them with newsletter subscribers. If you're inclined, subscribe here and get in on some of this sweet action.

The Insider writers who worked hard on these articles will be glad you can read them. 2014 promises even more unlocked Insider articles for readers of free articles, subscribers to the Magic Finance subforum on Reddit and others who don't mind waiting a while to get good evergreen finance content for free.

2014 promises to be the year of the podcast. 2013 saw unprecedented growth in listenership and a number of quality podcasts emerging. The year saw the first ever Magic podcast Kickstarter campaign raise more money than anyone had expected.

It also saw Quiet Speculation first financially support, then eventually step in and take over MTG Cast, the biggest and best collection of Magic podcasts on the interwebs.

2014 promises a whole host of upgrades to the site, both aesthetic and practical. The site is going to look a little prettier and it will be easier to both post and find podcasts in 2014, making it better for podcasters and podcast listeners alike.

2014 is going to be a great year for Quiet Speculation Insiders as well, don't get me wrong! Planned upgrades to Trader Tools will make it hands down the best resource for traders and financiers. I have gotten to do a little bit of beta testing with Trader Tools 3 and it's unlike any other application.

Optimized for handheld yet still intuitive on a desktop, TT3 as it likes to be called incorporates all of your suggestions and mine and is all I use to buylist cards (I still check bidwicket out of habit, but I rarely need to ship a card to a buylist using it).

Trader Tools 3 has capabilities you never knew you wanted, and it's also accessible to non-Insiders. The non-premium version for non-Insiders is still very useful for accurately and quickly pricing a card and checking the spread--useful for trading, buying and spot-checking.

Am I trying to pitch Insider? Not really! Did you just hear me say non-Insiders can use Trader Tools? They totally both can and should.

2014 promises great content on Quiet Speculation's spin-off website, Brainstrom Brewery. With new, quality writers being discovered every week, expect some Brainstorm Brewery writers to be among the next wave of quality Quiet Speculation Insider writers of 2014 and 2015.

And you get to tell people "I used to read this guy when he wrote for Brainstorm Brewery. It's a pretty obscure site, you've probably never heard of it." Then you can adjust your fedora, give a smug bite to the stem of your corncob pipe and give your PBR a sip, you Magical hipster, you.

Will 2014 be the year we get to list foreign cards on TCG Player? Will eBay relax its draconian photo policy and make a comeback? Will 2104 be the year of Pucatrade? Will none of those things happen (probably)? Personal selling is a growing portion of the Magic market and it gets easier and more profitable every year, making markets more and more efficient as it does.

Could improvements to Magic Online usher in a new wave of finance? Planned improvements evident in the closed Beta will make it easier to both play and buy slash sell using Magic Online, and fewer Daily Events means more scarcity of cards and prize packs, making valuable cards more valuable in the short term.

Will we see MTGO return to its heyday or will the price of mythics around redemption time soar to even higher levels? With more and more articles being written about the MTGO market all the time, this may be the new frontier for finance.

2014 is going to bring you unprecedented opportunities, a ton of value, new tools to make your life easier and I bet someone who got famous from a show on the Disney channel will either get a DUI or leak a sex tape, so we have that to look forward to.

Barrel Down Shizouka

Due to an unfortunate e-mail error, thousands of messages that were supposed to go out to Japanese Magic players from Wizards of the Coast corporate warning them that they were only allowed to play Mono-Black Devotion or Azorius Control at the GP never went out.

By the time the error was caught and the e-mails were sent it was too late--Japanese players had already brewed new decks and had registered them at the Grand Prix.

The damage was done--six different decks ended up in the Top 8, including and updated Esper Midrange, a W/B Humans deck and zero Mono-Black decks. Three copies of Mono-Blue Devotion made the Top 8, though, which wasn't super innovative. Luckily, the event was won by that innovative white-black humans deck.

Nakada's plan for Mono-Blue appears to have been "Board in Profit // Loss," although his maindeck appears well-tuned to be more aggressive and faster.

[cardXathrid Necromancer[/card] went up a dollar or so this weekend, but with no real hope of it going above $5, I don't see a ton of money to be made buying in, now. If you bought in cheaper, its increased play in the last few events should make you feel pretty good about the investment.

I would feel good about all of the Imposing Sovereigns I bought if I hadn't buylisted all of them for a modest profit. I got tired of waiting and that goes to show the "when do I sell?" half of speculation is trickier and much more important than the "when do I buy?" half. I left way more than 10% for the next guy.

Still, Sovereign is still kind of cheap and has a bit more legality. With weenie strategies being clutch right now and Necromancer making it relevant to play humans, making their Hail Mary blocker come into play tapped is usually a Time Walk against a slower deck, but this Time Walk is a clock, too.

This deck is pretty affordable and it's battle-tested. This will likely be a popular FNM choice, especially if you can suggest the deck to people and provide them with the staples. This is also another venue for Temple of Silence which I said a few weeks back had the most potential of all the temples in the short term.

If you can trade these down, they may be peaking now, but holding can't hurt if we get some multicolored goodness in the next set. G/W is coming and Junk is a popular archetype, and Esper did very well in Japan, too.

Shota Takao's Esper deck is also a refreshing departure from the "play this with two win conditions" builds we have seen out of Esper. Maybe Takao didn't want to go to time every round. Using humans we forgot all about such as Lyev Skyknight, a card that solves zero real problems but helps establish a clock, this deck looks fun and did well enough that it bears discussion.

It's also going to help drive the price of Xathrid Necromancer. This is likely to hit $5ish, so I would trade out the ones you have. If it goes above that, I will be pretty surprised, but the small amount of M14 opened is going to help it potentially get there. Mike Lanigan has been big on this card forever and he has to be feeling vindicated.

The Whip-Obzedat combo is also used to great effect here. That's a powerful combo we all treated like Dre and forgot about.

It seems like a lot of Mono-Black decks in the Top 16 but none in the Top 8 would indicate the emerging decks either managed to solve the problem of Pack Rat, or they got better tie-breakers. It's hard to read much into an X-2-1 deck in 6th place being Mono-Blue and an X-2-1 deck in 9th place being Mono-Black as so often happens.

However, the winning deck's four copies of Brave the Elements maindeck give it a big boosts against monocolored decks, and Spear of Heliod both deals with threats like Desecration Demon and boosts the pile of tokens the deck is liable to generate.

I wouldn't call decks like Mono-Black and Mono-Blue Devotion "solved problems" but neither are they the only way to attack the metagame, and Japanese Grands Prix are always exciting because of the innovation they bring.

I hope the impending holiday doesn't completely overshadow these innovations--a lot of people are totally checked out mentally here in the West whereas the Japanese are going to spend Christmas building new deck archetypes and eating KFC for some reason.

No SCG events over the holiday weekend, so I will bid you farewell and do my level best to bring you something next week. Have a happy holiday season, visit some family, try not to die in the ice storm that craphammered the Northeast, including my home state of Michigan (70 and sunny here today in Maryland--suck it Mitten state) and don't forget about Obzedat-Whip, Japanese innovation and looking forward, not backward, on the precipice of the new year.

If this is my last article of 2013, thank you for another great year and 2014 promises to be even better.

If it isn't my last article of 2013, pretend I said all of this next week.

Insider: Interests of Note for Christmas Week

Posted on December 23, 2013January 17, 2022 by Sigmund Ausfresser

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Note: Last week I broke my hand on the pinky side. My typing is much slower as a result and so my next few articles will be a bit shorter as I recover. Apologies for the inconvenience.

This week I am going to take a close look at the top mtgstocks.com interests from last week and classify which ones I feel are worth watching and which ones are likely to be artificial spikes. I know the weekly Top Winners column on mtgstocks.com is unavailable this week due to the holidays. This is of course understandable, but it doesn’t mean nothing noteworthy happened in the land of MTG finance last week.

Disrupting Shoal

Case in point:

The top mover this past week comes as no surprise to our insiders--the forums were definitely on top of this one after it put up decent results on MTGO along with Travis Woo’s endorsement. I only wish I had bought in on December 12th when member liucoke upped the thread. So much money could have been made!

My recommendation: Sell. Even if the card has potential, most of the upside is gone now at this high price. In order to go even higher, this card would have to make waves at premier events or at least PTQs.

Since these are still months away, you risk missing out on future spikes if you decide to hold. I’d take the profit and run--this spike is not likely to last.

Mana Echoes

I have seen this card show up as an interest numerous times now and I’ve continuously ignored it. Perhaps it’s time to pay attention. Cheap copies of this Onslaught rare are gone.

This card doesn’t even show up in the QS forums--I have to imagine its a casual slash Commander play of some sort but I’m honestly not sure. Perhaps the reintroduction of slivers spiked interest in this tribal-themed card. The price increase did start once M14 was released.

Either way, I don’t think this jump is artificial. I believe there is genuine interest in the card among the casual crowd. I can’t advocate going ultra deep here if my assessment is accurate, but trading for these could prove profitable in the long term.

Hurkyl's Recall

This spike may have been driven by the Brainstorm Brewery cast. While I admit having these in black border is nice, I’m not sure if the spike in Tenth Edition copies is sustainable. Foil versions definitely deserve the premium, but I can’t get behind nonfoils at this higher price.

If you’re a gambler, feel free to hold into Modern season. But if you’re conservative like me, sell your Tenth Edition copies, buy a set of Fourth Edition versions for a buck and walk away profitable.

Honorable Mentions

It is interesting to see Phyrexian Obliterator remain resilient at this new, higher price point. I fully expected a large retreat in price, but buyers have kept up interest.

The ceiling on this card is likely $30--at least before Modern season arrives. I have had two SP copies on eBay listed at $24.99 for a week now with no buyers. Someone is buying these up, and I just wish they’d buy my copies already. I see greater opportunities elsewhere in the coming months.

Hinder had caught my eye lately. This popular Commander uncommon is becoming scarce as it ages further. Looks like this is definitely a card to look for in bulk boxes or when purchasing collections.

Finally, it appears Stoneforge Mystic is finally on the move. It’s about time. This card has been a Legacy staple for years, and the Event Deck printing can only keep the value down for so long.

Buylists haven’t caught up yet with this recent run, but it should be a matter of time. Watch these closely. They will hit $20 before you know it, and reprints are unlikely. She makes little sense in Standard without much equipment and she’s banned in Modern. She could appear in a hypothetical Legacy Masters and that’s about it. Safe buy.