| Quiet Speculation

Insider: Three-Month Outlook for Winter

Posted on December 20, 2013January 17, 2022 by Matthew Lewis

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December

At the moment, we are just starting the Holiday Cube and the Mercadian Masques flashback drafts. Next week, Urza's block will be the flashback draft format of choice.

In general I am a bit slow to advise picking up Legacy staples from these sets for speculative purposes, chiefly because of the larger buy/sell spreads that the bots employ for older cards. Not every bot is well stocked on the old sets, so the competition is not as fierce. This leads to higher margins and a harder time for speculators to make a buck.

However, if you are a player and are thinking about acquiring a play set, it's the perfect time to get cards like Daze or Gaea's Cradle. If you have some time (or can employ a bot), post a buy ad on the weekend for the cards you want and you should be able to get some at a low price.

You'll save a few tix doing it this way versus buying from the bots. Prices tend to bottom on the weekend alongside the biggest push of drafting, so don't wait in the belief that there will be good deals on Monday or Tuesday.

January

Once we get to the new year, players will be keenly focusing on Standard as the PTQ season kicks off (in paper at least). The current iteration of Standard has been somewhat stale and is dominated by devotion strategies.

The card that shows up regularly in devotion strategies of all colours is Mutavault. It's the M14 rare that refuses to take a price cut and it's safely been the highest priced card from M14 for over a month.

The release of Born of the Gods (BNG) might shake up Standard enough to knock the price of Mutavault down, but for the moment devotion strategies make up a majority of the decks to beat in Standard. With that in mind, it's reasonable to expect continued high prices on Mutavault in the short term. This should translate into M14 being a consistently higher value when compared to the other currently available limited formats, Return to Ravnica (RTR) block and Theros (THS).

With no flashback drafts or Holiday Cube to keep players occupied, M14 Limited should see one last burst of interest before BNG spoilers start rolling out. In January I will be selling down my stock of M14 boosters in anticipation of continued high singles prices, and thus continued demand for M14 boosters draft or sealed deck.

Once BNG is released, Standard will be shaken up and will most likely pivot away from devotion strategies. January is the perfect time to be maximizing on the value of M14, either in singles or in demand for boosters. Don't be left holding the bag on M14 boosters before the end of the month.

February

Born of the Gods (BNG) will be released in paper and then on MTGO on February 17, 2014. For Theros (THS) release events, WoTC rejigged the pricing and prize structure for the 16-person, on-demand sealed queues, which had a fairly substantial impact on the MTGO economy. The change acted to restrict the amount of supply coming into the market in comparison to the old sealed queues.

It also supported the price of THS boosters packs. If you had bought THS boosters during prerelease events, they were easily flipped for a small profit during THS release events due to this change in structure.

In Mike Turian's article this week on the mothership, he talked about this change and the fact that it was poorly received by the MTGO player base. I'd expect further tweaking to the queues so we might not see a repeat opportunity in terms of a quick flip on BNG boosters. This strategy is worth keeping in mind though. Pay attention to the announcements and I will analyze the changes in the forums as we get more information.

Most importantly though, THS boosters will stop being awarded as prizes for Standard events after the downtime on February 19th. Once supply cuts off, the price on THS boosters will stabilize and that will be the price bottom for these. After that, supply of THS boosters will steadily erode as players get up to speed on the new draft format.

Eventually that will push prices up closer to the equilibrium level of around 4 tix. This process could take anywhere from one to four months, but it's a slam-dunk investment due to the low risk, high liquidity and steady returns.

As long as the fundamentals don't change, which includes a prize distribution for draft skewed toward BNG, drafters will consistently need THS boosters in order to fire up a Born of the Gods-Theros-Theros (BTT) draft. As the available supply dwindles, prices will creep up towards 4 tix.

Currently THS boosters sell for around 3 tix, and with the small buy/sell spreads of the booster market, it's not unreasonable to expect to get 3.7 to 3.8 tix for THS boosters down the road. This is about a 25% return on a very liquid asset. Be sure to have some tix ready to move into these in early February, although the probable bottom is right around the start of release events on February 17th.

March

As BNG release events wind down, it's likely that a number of Modern staples will be on sale. This will be the last good opportunity to stock up on Modern singles prior to the Modern PTQ season of 2014.

In recent months I have been writing and theorizing about the cause of the periodic price fluctuations on Modern cards at the time of release events on MTGO. It's my belief that this is a predictable pattern based on demand for tix, both from players and bots.

This is the precise moment to be liquid and able to take advantage of deals and depressed prices. Ignore the fancy new toys in BNG, and stock up on some fetchlands or other Modern cards that have fallen (temporarily) out of favor.

Lastly, the end of February and into March will be the time to unwind any old positions in RTR block cards, such as the shocklands. BNG Standard will be developing and the relative utility of cards will be in flux.

For example, those Temple Gardens and Hallowed Fountains which are currently languishing in your collection (mine too) might get a shot in the arm from BNG and the release of the Temple of Plenty and Temple of Enlightenment. With THS boosters and Modern staples likely to see continued gains, don't be caught holding onto depreciating assets like RTR block cards at that time.

Insider: The Power of Choice

Posted on December 20, 2013January 17, 2022 by Dylan Beckham

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There is a scene in the movie Inception that I have kept with me ever since I first watched it. To set the stage: Cobb's world has been torn upside down. His crumbling life lies in front of him. Being separated from his children and the dire need to return home have hit hard. Now things have just reached an all time low. During this he's always wondering: “Is this the real life?” Of course the next step is to wonder if it is all fantasy. You get caught in the landslide and there really is no escape from reality. One day, you have to open your eyes, look up to the sky, and see. Your reality is what you made it.

Now, back to the real world. Flashback to early September of 2012. I'm sitting with an individual. We talk about some cards he needs, and there's one card I keep coming back to, Wurmcoil Engine. At this point, rotation is a few weeks out still, and I need another copy for the list I'm running for now. I'm still splitting time between grinding trades and grinding tournaments. We talk for a while, and suddenly I stop, and realize something:

“Look, the only thing I'm really interested in is the Wurmcoil Engine.”

We've all had this conversation before.

“Here's the thing, right now – the card is worth $12. I'm really only comfortable offering $7 because I just don't know what it will be worth after rotation. Are you willing to accept $7?”

There it is. The fastball across the meat of the plate. Are they going to watch it go straight into the catchers mitt? Or is it going sail over the outfield wall? Am I going to get the “How dare you!” look? Am I the hero or the goat? The guy looks down at the Wurmcoil. Looks at me. Looks back at the cards he needs and says, “Sure. That works for me.”

The Power of Choice.

Giving someone else the choice is not a strange concept. We do this every day in the world of Magic: The Gathering. You play a creature and then another one, and now your opponent has to choose which he kills with their removal spell. It happens all the time in trading. The problem we face is when the decision is made that certain situations must be dealt in very particular ways. Our reality is then defined by what we chose.

Now, what if I looked at the same person, and I told them “Hey, that cards worth $12, but I'll offer you $17 right now.” Am I wrong? You immediately want to tell them to “TAKE IT!” right? What if I know in two weeks that it will be worth $40. Is it still wrong to offer $17 now? Traditional thought is that a card is what it's worth. That's not the full story, lest we forget. To be successful at anything though, you must look at reality from a variety of ways. The past, the present, the future, and the far future all have a bearing on what you should do. There's a few key things that giving the choice does for you.

1) Cut to the chase.

Being up front is such a welcome relief. No one likes to do the “Trade Dance.” The tango of not giving too much information, or waiting the eons for someone to look up every price on their phone. Why not ask for what you want? Are you afraid of tipping your hand too soon? Using guides like eBay, TCGPlayer or SCG is only a part of the full Magic: The Gathering realm. Even if they are the most popular, let's not forget one thing - they are nothing more than a guide. Unless you are talking directly to a vendor, you are only talking about someone else's idea of what a card is worth. Are you just going to take the easy route and say that is your value too? Ok, but don't forget that fact. You are still using someone else's carefully crafted, researched, and figured out value. Do you know the reason why Pernicious Deed is $25 only with one vendor? Do you know why everyone doesn't think it's worth $40? Take the time to think about the why's. Don't just blindly follow the formula of value. You'll understand much better how prices change by looking at them more closely.

2) “When”, not “If.”

The saying is: “A 'No' is just one more step towards a 'Yes'.” We lose sight too often that what you want is a completely fair thing to ask for. If you've properly done your homework, and you have an accurate idea of what is reasonable, you are more likely to get a 'Yes' from any complete stranger than not. We forget this way too often. Often times, our expectations are so completely out in left field though, that making that happen becomes an intense up hill battle. Many people call this “biting off more than you can chew.” In reality, it's going in with the wrong mindset. Anything can happen, but it's hard to get to the moon by jumping up and down. You have to always remember what is reasonable and what is absurd. Taking the approach of knowing it's only a matter of time is a complete game changer. Once you are willing to put the time to get the Yes, the No's take on a completely different texture.

3) There is no pressure.

Most people HATE to trade, if you don't know this already. You might love it. They can't stand it. Have you forgotten what it feels like to get "One-Overed?" If they know you're savvy, they might sit there with this look like they are losing on something they don't know about. Ever feel like you're missing something? All most people want is to feel like they are in control of their destiny. You've already decided it's only a matter of time before someone says yes. After all, you're focus is to trade often. With no pressure being added on any single trade, people are free to do anything. How do you know that they didn't pick up that Fulminator Mage when it was still $2? How do you know they are not absolutely excited about even getting $15 for it? You never know what someone's situation is.

4) The decision affects YOU less.

Nothing truly affects you until everything is said and done. Giving someone else the means to decide already does one very important thing – You're already getting what you want. You are getting a card at the right price to allow you to do whatever it is you need to do. If they do in fact say No, nothing has really changed. You are still able to go about your business as if nothing new has happened. Since it was out of your control, you have no regret about it. You can get back to what matters, or even look at what you were asking for. Was it completely unrealistic? Or was it spot on?
Your reality....

The Power of Choice is just a simple exercise in asking for what you want. There' are countless reasons someone could say No, but there are also as many reasons the answer could be Yes. Your reality is what you see, hear, taste, live, know and feel. Their reality is not anything near where you are. There will be common ground, and striving for that is what trading, buying or selling is all about. Life is all about the same thing. Where and how do you meet on common ground? How do you both get what you want out of any given interaction? How do you not get taken advantage of? If you start by correctly knowing what you want, and then asking for it directly – getting to that common ground is very easy. In the end, Cobb's reality was what he made of it. Make your own reality.

Insider: 2014 in Magic Finance

Posted on December 19, 2013January 17, 2022 by Corbin Hosler

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2013 has been a really interesting year in Magic finance. There have been some great financial developments along the way (calling a lot of this year’s biggest gainers has been a point of pride for me), as well as some personal highlights, from a great first year of marriage to the continued success Brainstorm Brewery has found.

Financially, we’ve seen both easy-to-predict cards (Jace) and harder-to-predict spikes (Nightveil Specter), but overall there’s been a ton of opportunity in the market.

So, what will 2014 hold?

1.) It’s a Different Market

In the past, we as a QS community have been really the only ones speculating and buying up copies of cards. That’s changed in the past year in a big way. From the MTGFinance subreddit to even more financial articles going up around the Internet, it’s been a banner year for MTGFinance.

The major effects, for us, have been how quickly cards can spike. Phyrexian Obliterator and Disrupting Shoal prove this. Shoal, in particular, has no reason in the world to spike from $2 to $10. Exactly two people in the world have played the Delver/Bear aggro deck, and it’s never won anything larger than a MODO 8-man.

But, because one pro and one good player endorsed the deck, the “finance community” (oftentimes these days known as “greater fools”) jumped all over the card. And because it’s from an old set it spiked like crazy. The only possible way it can maintain $10 is if the deck becomes a real thing. If it does, I doubt Shoal goes to $15 or $20, so if you did get in cheap there’s no reason not to sell now.

What it goes to show, though, is how little it takes to move the market on these older cards, even if it’s just the greater fools buying in after a little momentum takes hold.

2.) Fundamentals Still Matter

Despite the point above, we saw time and again in 2013 that you can’t just blindly move the market forever. It still takes fundamentals for a card to sustain a price gain. It’s why Aluren dipped back down hard, it’s why Obliterator dipped, it’s why Shoal will and it’s why Splinter Twin hasn’t.

Likewise, we can draw some lessons from Jace, Architect of Thought. The card saw a lot of Block play, and we identified it as a good target for rotation. It took some time for that prediction to turn out, but it did eventually and made us a lot of money, because it had the fundamentals to back it up.

3.) Everyone Thinks They’re a Financier

In a way, this isn’t bad. I know there’s not as much low-hanging fruit when everyone gets into the finance game, but on the other hand it means more people to buy the cards we identify early. Remember, the best way to make money is not to buy a card when the price is already spiking, it’s to identify it before the spike and buy in then. That’s something we have a good track record on here, so that works out fine.

But I bring up this issue for a larger point. Thanks to tools like MTGStocks, everyone can easily follow the finance game and participate in it. And while it may be annoying that some people might think themselves newfound “experts,” it also means more people are paying attention to the finance side and in theory learning how to play the game by spending less money. That means more people playing Magic longer, and that’s a good thing for us all.

4.) Modern Will Explode

So since the last Modern season ended, we’ve had a pretty long layover. But in that time Modern Masters hit the scene and was hugely popular, and the game as a whole has grown.

These two factors, along with a vastly increased supply of shocklands, will all combine to make Modern a much more affordable format. It doesn’t hurt that it’s shaken out to be a little more than just Jund Jund Jund.

More players playing Modern means that some of those long-term specs we’ve had like Birthing Pod and Scars of Mirrodin fastlands will likely take off. It’s really a convergence of all the factors Wizards has put in place, and I think it will result in a relative explosion for Modern at more than just the GP level.

I also think Legacy will continue its malaise. Basically every big spec these days is related to Modern, and Legacy has taken a back seat to that. The format isn’t dying, as the continuing increase on Wasteland shows, but the growth it will experience will pale in comparison to Modern. Plan your activity accordingly.

5.) Fetchlands Won’t Be Reprinted

My reasoning is this. Wizards has put the following things on record:

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.

Which means that we’ll likely see Zendikar fetchlands in a non-Standard set. It also means that any sort of Modern Masters 2 wouldn’t have been decided on until after GP Vegas (which I Top 32’ed, yay!). That means they wouldn’t have even decided to put Modern Masters 2 on the calendar until last fall, at which point the Summer 2014 set would have already been decided on.

The earliest they could slate it for would be Summer 2015, so I suspect that’s when we’ll see fetchlands reprinted. In the meantime, expect them to continue to climb higher.

2014 Upon Us

So after a busy 2013, that’s how I see 2014 unfolding. Let’s hope it’s as great a year for Magic as this past one has been!

Enjoy the holidays, and thanks for reading 🙂

Corbin Hosler

@Chosler88 on Twitter

2013 Year in Review: Financial

Posted on December 19, 2013December 19, 2013 by Mike Lanigan

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This game of Magic means a variety of things to each of us. For most of you, competitive events drive you and motivate you. You read my articles chronicling my adventures traveling across the east coast of America in my efforts to qualify for the Pro Tour as well as to find sweet new decks to try out.

Recently I have been including morsels of financial information sprinkled into some of my articles too. What you may not know is that the financial side of Magic is a huge part of my life.

Throughout my years playing this epic game, I have been an avid trader. Before there were articles on the financial aspect of Magic, I was funding much of my play through trading. Many of the skills the writers on this site help readers to learn, I’ve been using for years.

After a while, I stepped up my game by buying collections and speculating on cards I thought would increase in value. Even though I had much success with those things, I am a cautious person so I did not expand my investments as rapidly as maybe I should have.

I’ve buylisted more cards than I can keep track of, ran the singles for a store, and now I own my own store with a friend of mine. This all said not because I am trying to arrogantly tell you what you should do with your investments, but rather, to bring to light that this is not a new endeavor.

Magic finance has been a part of my life for a decade. It has always been there regardless of how well I am doing this month in tournaments and it will still be there after I bomb an event. The trade tables will rejuvenate me after some poor performance now and then because I love trading.

After last year, I wondered just how effective my speculating was becoming and decided to keep a log of all of my investments throughout the year.

1-1 Whispering Madness

Ordered 12 copies for $18.

Chapin is a great writer and had me hooked with this bait right away. Obviously this spec did not pan out, nor will it ever most likely, but I keep them as a reminder to trust my instincts rather than someone else's. If some other cards had been printed in Return to Ravnica block though, I think this could have been part of a crazy combo deck.

1-11 Auriok Champion

Bought 2 copies for $5. Sold for $10. Profit $5.

There are so many shops all across the US, don’t just hang out at your local one. When the opportunity presents itself, check out a new shop. You may find some underpriced cards as well as have a fun time in a new shop. Always inspect the case for cards you can make money on.

1-20 Razorverge Thicket

Ordered 12 copies for $25.

From the information I’ve gathered, nearly everyone in the finance community has tons of these lands in their spec boxes awaiting the day when they go up in value. I traded for all the lands in the cycle aggressively because they should be going up in value due to Modern play.

The green-white land in particular still seems like the best bet because it sees play as a four-of in two different Modern decks. Despite how much play it has seen, the price has not been affected. At this point, I am debating bailing on the investment to reinvest the money elsewhere. I will probably wait until Modern season to move them though.

3-8 Craigslist Collection

Bought for $655. Sold for $775. Profit $110.

Hunting down collections is a ton of fun and I don’t do it nearly enough. I started off buying cards from friends who needed money or were selling off chunks of their collections.

Even though I hate to see someone leave the game, I’m excited to look through their assortment of cards. No two collections are alike, so even though there will be some big overlap with bulk commons and uncommons, each group of cards you acquire will be an interesting journey into someone's gaming life.

Craigslist helped facilitate the purchase of this particular collection. Looking over a Craigslisting can be a tricky affair and I recommend always flipping through the collection before you purchase it to make sure you are paying a fair price. Obviously you want to make money on the purchase, but the main goal is to make sure you don’t drastically overpay for a huge pile of bulk.

For this specific collection I was excited about the specific cards that were listed. Things like Survival of the Fittest and other sweet cube cards I’d been looking for were all on the post for this collection.

When I went to see the physical cards though, I found out that many of these desirable cards were gold bordered. You can imagine how much that changed the value of the the whole lot. I did manage to talk him down some and still walk away with the collection, but I was worried about it being profitable. Luckily Grand Prix Pittsburgh was right around the corner, so between buylisting at that event and selling to friends, I was able to come out ahead on the investment.

3-13 Friends Collection

Bought for $760. Sold for $1120. Profit $360.

Right after I bought the last collection, a friend of mine decided to get out of the game again. He has sold his collection a number of times, mostly to me, but he will be back just like he always is.

This time through he had decided to buy playsets of each set once the Magic Online set redemption hit. That made it an easy collection to price and an easy one to move.

I ended up holding onto many of the cards from his collection, like all his shocklands, which helped a lot when my shop got off the ground. As it turns out, I did make some money on this collection but mainly because it turned into inventory so I could get full value out of it.

When buying from friends, I always try to keep a small profit margin. Basically I look at it like selling their collection for them. They pay me a small fee for my time and they still get most of what they would have gotten if they had done it on their own. This model has been working for me for a while because players are encouraged to know that I’m going to give them as much money as I can.

3-27 Ajani Vengeant

Ordered 11 copies for $55. Sold for $104. Profit $49.

Right after Jund with white mana broke out in Modern, there was a small window to get in on one of my favorite planeswalkers of all time. There were tons of copies of this card available because it has been printed three times. The prerelease promo really kept the price of Ajani down and limited how much he could grow, but he still doubled in value over a short time period.

The key to spikes like this is often how quickly you flip them. As soon as I got these in the mail, I was on a mission to move them and successfully did so at one of the events I attended.

3-30 Bruna, Light of Alabaster

Ordered 8 copies for $9.

Our very own Sig recommended this spec here on the site and I agreed with him that it was a good investment. The price point was extremely low, which means low risk. Unfortunately this one has not panned out because neither the Commander community nor the casual community have adopted this angel as was thought they would. There is still a possibility for a lot of growth on this card so I’ll happily hold onto her for a while yet.

6-1 Dark Depths

Ordered 6 copies for $98. Sold for $118. Profit $40.

Here’s another spec generated from Gatecrash. This one came about because of the combo with Thespian's Stage. If you have a Dark Depths and Thespian's Stage you can make your Thespian's Stage into a copy of Dark Depths and get your 20/20 right away.

With this combo Legacy-legal and easily fetchable, the price jumped quickly. Thankfully the price stayed up because I did not have a chance to move these cards until July.

8-1 Collection via a Friend

Bought for $100. Sold for $325. Profit $225.

The nice thing about buying collections is that once players in your area know you are buying, people start bringing the collections to you. In this case, a longtime friend of mine got me in contact with the seller and facilitated the deal.

It was a small collection, but the lower-end portion of the rare binder proved to have higher buy prices than I estimated so I ended up coming out pretty far ahead on this one for little work. Normally it takes a bit more effort than this, but I was happy with the quick and easy collection flip.

8-10 Garruk, Caller of Beasts

Ordered 8 copies for $104. Sold for $160. Profit $54.

M14 was being spoiled and not enough players or writers were talking about Garruk, Caller of Beasts. From my perspective analyzing the set, this was one of the best cards in M14. It took a couple days to convince myself, but when I saw copies for under $15, I jumped on the opportunity. I was only able to move them for $20, not as much as I had hoped, but profit is still profit.

8-20 Doom Blade (Full Art)

Ordered 12 copies for $36. Sold for $76. Profit $40.

The full art cards are some of my favorite Magic cards. Not only do we have lands, that many players use now, but the textless spells are also awesome to look at. If there is a textless version like that of Mana Leak or Rampant Growth, I like using them instead of the normal or foil versions.

Surprisingly not many players share this opinion with me and so the textless spells are worth significantly less than what I think they should be. Either way, I was still able to make a small profit on some sweet Doom Blades.

9-13 Nightveil Specter

Ordered 6 copies for $5. Sold for $30. Profit $25.

This spec is my one regret of the year. I regret it not because I bought in, but because I didn’t buy in further. When Gatecrash came out, I felt this card was strong enough to see play. Unfortunately the metagame did not agree with me and all the copies I traded for moved in and out of my binder frequently.

Players genuinely liked this card but it was not quite good enough to keep up with Jund and the rest of the meta at that time. When Theros came out and devotion became part of the new metagame, I knew it was time for my pet Gatecrash card. I wish I had followed my gut and obtained more copies of this metagame pillar, but there is always next time.

10-10 Thassa, God of the Sea & Tidebinder Mage

Ordered 4 copies of Thassa for $56 and 4 copies of Tidebinder for $5. Sold them all for $120. Profit $59.

Thassa, God of the Sea and Tidebinder Mage both happened shortly after Nightveil Specter. Once the Pro Tour results started coming in and Mono-Blue Devotion showed how dominant it was, I jumped on board quickly. Not only did I want to play this deck, but so did everyone else.

Quick money can often be obtained just by watching Pro Tour coverage and thinking about the financial implications. Pro Tours and Grand Prix move prices more than SCG or TCG events do, so keep that in mind as well.

Current Specs

Here are some of my current specs that I have not cashed out on yet.

*10-22 5 Primal Vigor for $25
*11-20 11 Prime Speaker Zegana $25
*12-5 22 [Card]Saxos of Meletis[Card] $11

Primal Vigor from the Commander 2013 set seems poised to gain value due to its similarity to Doubling Season. Doubling your tokens is a potent strategy in Commander and having more ways to do so facilitates that plan more effectively. This enhancement should be double digits hopefully in the near future.

For as powerful as Prime Speaker is, her price has dropped dramatically low. I’m tempted to buy more copies of this card-drawing beast for under $3 because the possible upside is astounding. In addition, I have been casting her in Standard to draw a new hand in the midgame, and no one can keep up with it. I don’t think my BUG deck is the next big thing, but I do like how it attacks the metagame.

Comparing Daxos of Meletis to Nightveil Specter seems obvious, but I might argue Daxos is even better. Not only does he have the same card advantage ability, he also gains life!

Daxos is lacking a home right now, but he is powerful enough to see play so keep your eye on him. Tons of copies can be found for $.50 each and you should be able to get this card as a throw-in on your trades.

One way Nightveil Specter is better is that you can cast the card as long as you control it, whereas with Daxos you must cast it that turn. Even though your window is limited, you can cast any card no matter if it’s a different color than you’re playing. All of your opponent’s powerful spells are at your finger tips.

Throughout this article and others I've mentioned that I opened a card store. So, most of my efforts in the financial community have been managing our buylist and prices on cards in the case. I have done some speculating as I mentioned above, but the shop has kept me pretty busy. I love managing the buylist and being able to offer more than a typical buy price for cards I think will go up in value.

Our store, called Galaxy Games out of Wintersville, Ohio, is doing fairly well for being open less than two months. We are looking forward to growing and improving the store for our local players. If you're in the area, come say hello.

One tip from watching what singles we move more than others, Mutavault is not done increasing in value. You may have noticed its continual growth, but you may not have known that all the copies under $25 are disappearing from the internet very quickly.

I expect it to continue to rise as long as it continues seeing tons of play. $30+ is not out of the question for the second coming of Mutavault.

Overall, I am extremely happy with my results in Magic finance this past year. I was able to invest relatively small amounts of money at a time and still make almost a grand in the process. Plus, it's a ton of fun seeing your spec hit.

There were no really big jumps like I've had in the past, but I'm happy with the profit margins I was able to achieve. Keeping a log of my transactions was extremely beneficial and I highly recommend it for others. While I may not invest as some of the other financial experts in the community, I did lock in profit on 10/13 investments. Finance is a ton of fun.

Give me some feedback in the comments about how you liked this article.

Until Next Time,

Unleash the #MtgFinance Force!

Mike Lanigan
MtgJedi on Twitter
Jedicouncilman23@gmail.com

Tournament Tips

"Every single deck requires a lot of technical skill to pilot well regardless of whether it is aggro, combo, midrange, or control. Many players unfairly assign judgments to decks and label them as either newbie or impossibly difficult decks to play."

- Brian DeMars

The short story is that every deck is complex to play and requires a lot of decisions. Even if you are playing an aggro deck, you need to decide how many threats to commit to the board as well as when to attack.

Magic is wonderful and complex and every deck is skill-intensive. Some decks may be harder for you to pilot than others but that does not mean the one you are playing is easy, it's just easier for you.

Whatever deck you decide to play, practice with it so that you can play it at a high level. These days, every card is so powerful that the average deck at FNM or a SCG Open will be good competition. The part you can control is your level of skill at the deck you chose to play.

Insider: Moral Conundrums

Posted on December 18, 2013January 17, 2022 by David Schumann

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Welcome back, Speculators!

Today's article harks back to an article I wrote previously which peeked at moral dilemmas in trading. The idea for this article came from this reddit thread in which I got to glimpse the opinions of quite a few traders/speculators. It was interesting to see different people's opinions regarding trading ethics.

To make this more interesting I'll do a breakdown of the reasoning behind said opinions. I'll follow each with a possible counterpoint.

Don't Rip Off Kids

This one is actually pretty unanimous. It seems everyone agrees that taking advantage of children is wrong on all counts. There is no acceptable reasoning behind trading a small child with no understanding of value five $0.5 cards for a $50 card; on this everyone agreed.

Counterpoint: None. Everyone (save the sociopaths) believe this is a no-no. What I find most interesting about this is the unanimity itself. As humans we have a natural tendency to protect the young (even those not our own), which is shown in this uniform agreement. And for even the sociopaths, some reditt users brought up potential legal ramifications of ripping kids off.

Trading with Kids

This one is interesting as well. Some players won't trade with kids period (likely out of fear that they accidentally rip them off) and others who fear that ignoring potential traders (no matter the age) is rude.

The other issue you might run into when trading with kids is that while some understand the concept of value, others may not and there's often no way to tell before you begin trading. It's also somewhat disheartening when they get their minds set on something they can't afford. Nothing feels more awkward than having to tell a kid that they can't have that card they really really want because they don't have anything relevant.

Counterpoint: This is a challenging one. I know a few kids who are very savvy traders and I'm sure they'd do even better if they weren't pigeonholed due to their age. I usually won't refuse to trade with kids I am exceedingly cautious.

New Players

Here we have a bit of divergence. Similar to ripping off little kids, most players seem to feel that newer players shouldn't be taken advantage of as it's also likely that they do not have a strong understanding of value. However, the key word in that statement is "most".

Some players feel that once a person is legally an adult (over 18) they are now responsible for their own decisions and any lack of information regarding card prices is not up to the opposing trader to divulge.

Their argument is often based on the fact that information is often what makes things valuable (I for example would not have my current job without my Mechanical Engineering degree). Thus, their reasoning is that since they possess more knowledge than their fellow trader, that constitutes "value" that they've earned.

Counterpoint: The problem I have with this argument is that unlike information gained via hard work and studying on your part, you're really punishing someone else for not having done the same. That would be like looking at someone who didn't go to college as "deserving to be homeless" because they didn't go.

A person's age does not guarantee they have a solid understanding of value. You can look at the high amount of credit card debt held by people in their 20's to 30's and find evidence that many adults lack strong understanding of money and finances.

The fact that many people who accept the pretense of "they should know it," won't trade with family or friends is (to me) a subconscious way of actually saying they know it's wrong because they wouldn't subject those they care about to the same practice.

Interjecting in Lopsided Trades

This is an interesting issue because it addresses situations where you yourself are not ripping off anyone, but instead are witnessing it. It makes you question whether you're morally wrong to simply watch or allow something wrong to occur.

Many players are timid individuals and when they see this sort of trade going on two thoughts pop into their heads:

Well it's not me doing the ripping off and I don't want to ruin my chances to trade with either of the people.
There's someone who might have some other good stuff and doesn't understand the value (a.k.a. blood in the water).

Counterpoint: I'll leave you with a famous quote by Edmund Burke: "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

Misleading Price Quotes

I read several players' posts who had no moral quandary with answering falsely when their trade partner asked them prices on cards they wanted. This could mean either inflating their own card prices or reducing their partners prices.

Often their logic is, "well they might not be lying depending on what site their opponent uses." To me this is just as scummy as using one site to price your own cards and another to price your trade partners' (which also falls into this category). Often the argument is that it isn't technically lying since both prices are valid.

Counterpoint: Using different sites to value cards in a trade is comparing apples to oranges and hoping your trade partner doesn't realize it. Some stores charge more for all their cards so if you use the same store to price both trade piles they should come out relatively evenly. However, when you use a store that overcharges for one pile and then one with low prices for another you are forcing a discrepancy. Forcing price discrepancies is basically stealing from your trade partner.

Pre-Rotation Trades

Many of us follow the guidelines that come summer we should offload rotating Standard staples while they still have value. Nothing kills value like rotation, so many traders really push the rotating staples come summer time. The irony is that the market then becomes flooded with people trying to unload the same cards, which causes prices to drop earlier than rotation.

The question then becomes where to draw the line of "ripping off." If you know a $20 card will drop to $5 when it rotates out, you can either 1) assume your trade partner knows it but really needs it and remain silent, or 2) tell your trade partner that it is in fact rotating out and risk not getting rid of it. The challenge becomes, "how far from rotation can you be okay with #1?"

Counterpoint: This one is really tough because there are often times when the die-hard tournament players need a staple for an upcoming tournament (or collection of tournaments). I often try to gauge why the person wants the card. There is risk to that because you can no longer claim "ignorance is bliss" when your trade partner expresses amazement that you're trading all four copies of the powerful cards they've wanted for months but no one would trade.

However, the good news is going about it this way will prevent you from suffering from guilt, which is always worth a potential failed trade. I also like to throw these cards up on eBay to sell. While the same person who doesn't know about rotation might be buying them, it's far more likely to be tournament grinders, as the people who are amazed at playsets of a staple tend to be more casual players and thus far less likely to buy cards online.

Knowledge Gap

Some people seem to take issue with trades due to a knowledge gap. The two camps tend to base acceptance on "risk to you." Most people don't seem to take issue when the trade involves higher-risk cards, the ones that might break out or alternately bust and rot in a binder. But when there is little risk, for example picking up Modern staples before Modern season, they take issue.

Counterpoint: This situation arises a lot for speculators. However, in the end, the act of speculating constitutes taking on risk. There is no guarantee of a card's success, just different levels of likelihood of success. A good speculator targets the cards with either a high likelihood of success or a high reward should they succeed. Different speculators have different tolerances for risk.

In this regard I may diverge from the redditt pack in that I feel that I'm taking on some risk by picking up speculation targets so I use my knowledge to succeed. I won't quote false prices or lie if people ask me values, but if I think a card's price will go up I'll trade to pick up all the copies I can, and often I'll tell my trade partner I'm speculating on the card.

Jason’s Alticle: BOGO

Posted on December 17, 2013December 17, 2013 by Jason Alt

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Greetings, read...people who article-read... read my article

Readers

Did any of you pull Walgreens' pants down?

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Christmastime is the best. Note I didn't say "the Holidays" and it's not because I'm culturally insensitive; far from it. You can celebrate Hanukkah (well, you can in exactly 363 days, I guess. It was EARLY this year) or Kwanzaa or the barbarian festival of Yule or whatever you want. I'm not endorsing Christmas. What I am saying is that Christmas is clearly the best winter holiday.

Here in the United States, the day after Halloween every year stores take down their plastic skeletons and fake spiderwebs and put up red and green colored lights, fake pine trees covered in fake snow and gigantic wire skeleton reindeer for some reason. Then the stores fill with shoppers who look at all of this Holiday cheer and say "Ugh, it gets earlier every year! It's not even Thanksgiving yet!" because they are Ebeneezer Scrooge McGrinches and they don't know how to have fun.

You want to know why Christmas is the best? Because you don't have to believe in any sort of Christian stuff to benefit from it. At worst Christmas for non-Christians is mildly annoying. At best, it's an opportunity to save money on stuff you were going to buy anyway.

Hanukkah is a great tradition and the practitioners of that faith are, in my experience, lovely people, but I am not going to get excited for Hanukkah until I get eight crazy nights of sales on booster packs. Are you either a Christian or a non-Christian? Wait, of course you are because those two groups encompass everyone. Let me rephrase--I don't care if you are a Christian or a Non-Christian. Keep it to yourself. Or... celebrate with your family privately. You know what I mean. What you believe or not is not and has never been the point.

The point is, you need to pay attention to Christmas because there are sales, and sales make us money. The best part is, you get to participate no matter what you believe. I'd like to highlight a few examples of deals I have found out about that could save you money and make you forget what you were going to write in the comment section about how affronted you are at the premise of this article.

BOGO $%^& Yourself

Get it? Like the movie Argo?

Anyway, the first one came to my attention via a Slate article I read today and I won't pretend it didn't inspire this entire piece despite being barely and tangentially related to the rest of the deals I found. Buuuuuuut it's my alticle, you can't stop me from including it and since Amazon sells Magic cards this may or may not save you some money.

Pretend to be a new Mommy.

Gamers gonna game, and this is a system asking to be gamed. Amazon has imposed zero checks whatsoever on signing up for their "Amazon Mom" program, just that you tell them a few details about your fake baby. My wife's new baby, Lando Calrissian Alt, qualifies us for a healthy bonus to our "Subscribe and Save" deals. Could this include Magic sealed product or singles now or in the future? I just signed up today so I will have to look into it, but this is worth knowing about.

I had a sweet $10-off Barnes and Noble coupon to share with you that I used to get Mind Seize for $20, but it expires today and this won't go out until tomorrow. "Cool story, bro." I know. Sorry. The expired coupon is at this link and while it won't help you this year, it will be good to know in future years that:

Barnes and Noble sells Magical cards in stores and online.
They charge MSRP, which I didn't think they did ever.
They give out coupons for $10 off around Christmastime.
They require you to use a Mastercard. Hey, isn't the Paypal debit card a Mastercard? 1% cash back, please.

This is likely to be something they do again next year and you'll be ready for it. There will be fat packs, booster boxes and likely some sort of Planechase or other Commander-like thing next year, or if all else fails a Holiday gift box. Those boxes are useful, the dividers are high quality and the gift box contains booster packs and a unique promo card. It's better than a shotgun blast to the face.

I am sure everyone who is an Insider took part in the Walgreens BOGO sale on booster packs. Getting $2 boosters is a very good deal. Some canny shoppers even managed to get places like Walmart and Target to price-match Walgreens fliers, though that success was limited.

The Walgreens card is free to sign up for and they may repeat this type of sale in fewer than twelve months. Next time it happens, be ready. Print out or obtain some sort of material from Walgreens to have with you at the register.

This will not only help if something rings up wrong or a cashier hassles you, but will help if you run out of stuff to buy at Walgreens and want to try your luck getting other stores to price match. BOGO on Commander decks would be nutty.

It's worth mentioning that big box retail stores do tend to run the occasional sale on Magic stuff, and the $22 Jund and Esper Commander decks I got at a Meijer--a midwestern big box store chain whose name is less silly than Giant Eagle or Food Lion or wherever you shop--were a nice Christmastime bonus.

Not only that, a few people who hang out at my shop happen to work at that same Meijer location. They told me that they had discovered Scars of Alara sealed booster packs in the back of the store and told me when they were going to put them out for sale. Not a bad haul.

MSRP is gross, but not on Scars, Mirrodin Besieged and New Phyrexia boosters in 2013 it isn't. If you can establish a relationship, either with people who work in the stock room or ideally the stocking manager, you will get hooked up. I once got a stock manager to go into the back and open a new box of Betrayers of Kamigawa sealed decks so I could buy just the Rat's Nests because I asked him nice. Imagine what an ongoing relationship can yield.

Finally, some of the stores online are doing Holiday sales. The QS forums did a good job of parsing which were worth doing, but any time a card goes on sale it's worth checking out. Stocking up on cheap Legacy staples or cards you suspect will go up soon is a nice way to take advantage of the spirit of giving that surrounds the holiday season.

I was given a wonderful gift this weekend in the form of no GP.

Viva Las Vegas

The Invitational totally happened, though, and on top of a regular SCG Open, too. What a weekend to be in Las Vegas, or as the hilarious novelty coffee cup I bought when I was there for the GP says, Lost Wages!

Get it? Because people gamble away their money compulsively and then spiral into poverty and despair, alienating friends and family who just want to help them, never fully able to admit they have a problem until it's too late. Fun for the whole family!

So many players "Bet it all on Black" this weekend and played a black devotion deck! See what I did there?

In fact, Max Brown, the winner of the Invitational, played Mono-Black Devotion in the Standard portion. His final finish in first having won after a day of Legacy is a little confusing. Max was not undefeated at the end of day one, but these results seem to indicate Mono-Black Devotion is somehow the best Standard deck by virtue of the Invitational finish.

In fact, the 7-1 or better day-one decks are, if you ask me, a little more instructive to look at. I am actually not going to bother talking about the Standard decks played by the Invitational Winners. They obviously did well enough to have a good record in day two, but this list is more interesting.

"Naya Devotion" sounds silly to me, but if you actually look at the deck, it's not really an attempt to get devotion to three different colors. Garfield creator Jim Davis has created a deck that gets a decent amount of devotion to red while also smish-smashing people with planeswalkers like Domri Rade, removal spells like Chained to the Rocks, and hoping to win the game before the deck loses to its own mana base.

However, with a healthy number of Temples, maybe Davis doesn't mind playing lands tapped and the shocklands aren't quite as shocking. What IS shocking is how much damage Davis dealt people with Fanatic of Mogis.

Mindsparker? Hells yes. You guys can play all the U/W you want, but you gonna get sparked. Is a 3/2 first strike anything to sneeze at? I maintain that it is not. Don't sneeze at decks, man. And wash your hands. And never start doing heroin.

Six decks had this day one record and they were all different builds. That bodes well for the future of Standard. A U/W control deck went 7-1 or better and that bodes well for Mindsparker seeing some more adoption. It never went quite to bulk rare status most places but if you can get them cheap, it may not be the worst idea.

The W/B Aggro deck made another appearance. I think some of the white creatures in there could creep up a bit. Banisher Priest is an excellent catchall card that people keep forgetting about. I keep reading online about how decks like G/W have no way to answer Master of Waves. Either I don't properly understand the card interaction or people have been treating Banisher Priest like Dr. Dre and forgetting about him.

I sold out of all of my Imposing Sovereigns between TCG Player and very generous buylist numbers and now I wish I had held. These may creep up more yet.

The rest of the decks that made 7-1 or better are nothing new, but they were worth discussing. R/G and R/W Devotion are solid decks and Mono-Blue Devotion is a favorite of the kind of players who play in Invitationals. No Mono-Black Devotion deck made it 7-1 or better, which is belied a bit by the fact that it was the deck of choice for the event's eventual winner and the winner of the Open played it as well.

It pays to dig a little bit when doing analysis. Either that or SCG reported those results wrong and I look like a horse's cocksheath. I wouldn't rule the latter out.

The Legacy results of the Invitational are going to be more telling. Players, none of whom are on the list of 7-1 or better decks, had to do very well day two to make Top 8. Interestingly, none of the 7-1 or better players from day one did quite as well on day two and are all missing from the Top 8.

Invtiational Legacy Decks

Omni-Tell appears to be the tip of the spear made of decks that are not playing fair. True-Name Nemesis is an unfair card but it still gets played in mostly fair decks. You combat an unfair card with an unfair deck and combo is seeing a real resurgence to deal with merProgenitus. Omni-Tell is Max Brown's preferred combo deck so he played it, and I think it's as simple as that.

I don't know how much adoption we need to see for prices to begin to move, however. Omniscience itself does make the deck a little bit vulnerable and players like Brian Bruan-Duin appear to be beginning to jam cards like Ashen Rider as opposed to Gilded Drake. Ashen Rider is a $5 EDH card in like a year, practically guarandamnteed. There is little to no inertia for this card in binders right now.

Merfolk is a thing now. The deck was always consistent if not overwhelming, but with players toying with ideas like Golgari Charm to deal with True-Name Genitus, a million maindeck toughness boosters couldn't hurt. No way Llawan, Cephalid Empress stays $3, by the way.

Punshing Jund is seeing a bit more play now. Both the Invitational and the Open saw copies in the Top 8. With ways to deal with Nemesis out of the board like Golgari Charm and the nasty combination of pitching Punishing Fire to Liliana's discard ability over and over coupled with Bloodbraid Elf in all of its glory, this deck is a good choice for now.

It does struggle a bit with combo as Thoughtseize and its ilk are rarely enough to do the trick. This may be a bad choice in a meta that sees more and more combo, which we may see.

Death and Taxes making the Top 8 lately is as inevitable as Death and Taxes.

Two Jund decks and two Esper Blade decks sounds about right.

Alex Bertonicini got Top 8. So that's a thing we get to see happen again.

SCG Las Vegas Open

SCG Open Las Vegas Standard Top 8

While Max Brown's Standard deck choice Mono-Black Devotion only looks like it was the "winning" Standard deck, Mono-Black Devotion actually did win the Open. The deck is always going to be a factor and until we get new cards or new tech, leave it out of your testing gauntlet at your peril.

I like and have always liked the U/W/R deck that Steven Phillips used to take second. It's like U/W but with 100% more Assemble the Legion, and why would you ever not run Assemble the Legion? No, seriously, why does he not run Assemble the Legion? The red is for Counterflux? And Wear // Tear? I am disappoint.

Four Mono-Black Devotion decks in the Top 8? These results are a little bit skewed, maybe, but I feel like attendance at an Open more accurately reflects the meta as a whole than the Invitational does, but maybe the Invitational more accurately reflects a potential Top 8. All I know is that there isn't much new here and that's disappointing.

This deck is a bit of a bright spot, though. If U/W persists, this may be a good choice to deal with it. However, if Mono-Black persists, we may have about as many options as a guy playing a fair deck against True-Name Nemesis.

Speaking of True-Name Nemesis...

SCG Open Las Vegas Legacy Top 8

Only two combo decks in the Top 8 here, and Elves and Painter are not even on the same plane as Show and Tell decks in terms of unfairness.

What is surprising is that there is so much RUG Delver in the Top 8 given its few answers to Nemesis beyond "let's race!" and Force of Will.

Jacob Wilson (who got 6th in Standard on Saturday) won with a Delver deck that was much more what I expected to see--Nemesis, Stoneforge and a red splash so he could ignore another perfectly good opportunity to play Assemble the Legion, an opportunity Wilson squandered. Lightning Bolt main and Wear // Tear and Red Blast in the board are all good reasons to bother with red, though, and I like Grim Lavamancer right now, too. Suck it, Deathrite Shaman.

Future Tales

That is all the news that's fit to print, folks. Join me next week where I'll tell you all how I managed to write an article while on vacation at the in-laws's house because I haven't figured out how I am going to do that, yet.

Insider: Five Valuable Tips From 2013

Posted on December 16, 2013January 21, 2014 by Sigmund Ausfresser

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Yet another year is nearly complete and 2013 was a wild ride in the world of MTG finance.

We saw Modern shoot up in popularity even further, Standard rotate, and the rise and fall (for now) of shocklands. Commander is still a hit, driving prices up on random cards even further, pleasing casual players and collectors everywhere when they find out their Wheel of Fortunes are now nearly $20 cards.

In this article I’d like to take a step back and consider all the valuable lessons I’ve learned about MTG finance throughout the year. Here are the top five tidbits of data and facts I’ve internalized along the way, in no particular order…

Tip 1: Standard Is Still Profitable

There are more MTG players now than ever before. As a corollary, I’d propose there are more MTG finance speculators now than ever before as well. This means there is both more supply of newer cards as well as more speculation--which seems like a recipe for disaster.

Fortunately much money was made by our community in anticipation of Standard rotation in spite of these developments. The traditional strategy can still work--find cards powerful enough to be relevant in a smaller Standard format once rotation occurs and invest in those before the bump.

The star child for this year was probably Jace, Architect of Thought. This card made many of the QS community a good deal of profit (in addition to Supreme Verdict, Ash Zealot, etc.).

I’m definitely going to be cautions with Standard speculation in the future because I know supply is higher with newer sets. But there is definitely still value to be made in this space and I hope for a repeat performance next year.

Tip 2: Sealed Booster Boxes Are an Opportunity Cost Trap

Most of you already know about my significant investment in Innistrad Booster Boxes. I fully expect this strategy to pay out in the future, but the wait has been painful. Very painful.

Consider this: my boxes have done nothing but gather dust throughout the year. I’m getting no dividends and if anything these boxes have depreciated slightly as stores unload their boxes of this no-longer-Standard-legal product. Meanwhile I’ve watched the stock market hit record highs.

Yeah…probably should have just put the money into the market. Hindsight is 20/20, but it would be a travesty if I didn’t learn anything from this lesson.

Sealed product can be one of the safest investments in Magic and I stand by this, but the opportunity cost involved and physical space requirement are causing me to seriously rethink this strategy. And again, increased print runs to meet higher demand will also likely hurt the potential of these investments in the future.

Tip 3: A Small Reprint Won't Drastically Hurt Modern Prices

In a way we could call 2013 the year of the reprint. With Modern Masters we have finally learned Wizards’ intent to keep Modern an affordable eternal format.

Except so far they’re not doing their job effectively. It seems their reprinting strategy is barely keeping pace with Modern’s growth. Consider the recent reprint of Tarmogoyf for example:

The price has actually settled a tiny bit, but we’re still much higher at the end of the year than we were at the beginning. Modern Masters has definitely driven higher the interest in this infant format, but it hasn’t necessarily generated enough copies for the community.

Even set reprints aren’t 100% effective. We saw Mutavault reprinted in M14 and the card is still worth nearly $30.

I do expect these to drop back down again once they rotate out of Standard. I don’t see them going below $20 though.

Barring a major reprint, such as the Scavenging Ooze promo or perhaps Theros’ Thoughtseize, I don’t anticipate small print run stuff will have nearly the effect Wizards wishes it would on the secondary market.

I wonder now: will Modern Masters 2 have a larger print run than the first? Will Tarmogoyf and Dark Confidant make reappearances? How will Zendikar fetchland reprints be handled? Many questions to be answered, hopefully in 2014.

Tip 4: Selling out of Legacy Left Me with Little Regret

The proceeds generated from my selling out of Legacy went right into an investment fund for my son’s college education. The market has been kind to me this year, generating returns that have easily beat most Legacy staples.

In fact, this time of year Legacy staples tend to drop in price. Tarmogoyf’s chart above reflects this, but even Underground Sea is not immune to this trend.

Will Legacy staples take another leg higher next summer? Time will tell, but I’ll continue to put my proceeds to good use in the stock market attempting to compete with Legacy’s growth (which I personally feel will stagnate soon enough).

My one regret: I do miss slinging some of the most powerful spells in the game. But I must be completely honest: playing Modern and knowing that if my opponent is tapped out he won’t be countering my spells is so very refreshing.

I fully embrace the Modern format and I’m not turning back…unless they ban something to hose Melira-Pod. Then I may just quit competitive Magic altogether.

Tip 5: Buylisting Is a Great Way to Cash Out

Trader Tools has introduced me to so many different buy lists and I’ve leveraged these a ton this year. Each retailer pays more on some cards than others, and it’s rewarding to take advantage of all the key players to make the most amount of cash possible.

Although buy lists are often below TCG Player pricing, the avoidance of significant fees and allure of not waiting for a buyer makes buylisting a popular practice. I intend to take advantage of Trader Tools 2 and all it has to offer in the year to come. And arbitrage can still happen and it still leads to easy money!

So Much Learned

MTG finance is still evolving and growing, and it is my intent to continue to refine my strategies to keep up. As I learn more and find new ways of making money both in Magic and in “RL Investing” I will continue to relay this information to the community through the forums, my articles and Twitter.

If you have some additional tips you’ve acquired throughout 2013, please feel free to add them in the comments section below!

…

Sigbits

Hopefully you paid attention to my Nekusar Sigbits from last week. If you bought into Wheel of Fortune you are now sitting on some easy profits. My advice here: wait. Even if Nekusar doesn’t gain further in popularity, Wheel of Fortune is still a casual gem on the Reserved List. It’s going nowhere but up in the long term.

Here are some other Reserved List cards worth watching…

Academy Rector gave us a nice quick-flip opportunity in the fall of 2012. Since then the price has done nothing but drop--so much for breaking Legacy, right? But this is still an incredibly powerful card, and eventually it could become cheap enough to be worth buying again. And looking at the price chart on mtgstocks.com, it does look like the $20 price floor is holding for now.
Volrath's Stronghold is a powerful land that belongs in every black Commander deck. After running up to $23 earlier this year the card has settled back down to $20. Once again this looks like a price floor to me, and an increased player base along with more Commander players could drive this card’s price even higher.
I still think Tithe is a powerful card. In multiplayer Commander play it is easily an instant-speed card that gets you two dual lands. In Legacy the card may be too slow because it doesn’t actually provide ramp, but it does provide card advantage. Either way, being on the Reserved List and being so old I still believe this one is worth watching very closely. It’s not likely to drop in price anytime soon so the only real drawback is opportunity cost while you wait.

Insider: The Seven Abilities of Exceptional Traders

Posted on December 13, 2013January 17, 2022 by Dylan Beckham

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Hello -

Some of you may recognize me from my various travels, others will not. To introduce myself, I am Dylan Beckham. I have recently come on with Quiet Speculation, after both getting to know the services, the site, and the people involved. I am proud to be one of the newest writers with QS and I cannot tell you how excited I am to share what I know, what I learn, and what the Magic Community gives me - with you. Within my pages I will show you a different perspective on what it means to be involved in Magic Finance, and what it means to do what you love.

“Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” ― Confucius

In the Beginning......

Now, take a moment. Ask yourself: "What do I know?" Take a moment to write some of those things down.

Don't worry, I'll wait.

Man, that snow storm that came through was insane! Did you get caught in it?

Ok, pencil's down.

That list should be rather extensive. I already know one thing you didn't include, though: "Everything people in my life know." Easy enough to miss, don't worry. It took me a long time to come around myself. If you haven't already realized, the innumerable things people around you see, hear, touch or feel is the same as picking up a new book. For through the eyes of another is the one place you will never be able to be. You will always long to occupy that space, though. For changing the point of which you view everything is the hardest, most exhilarating, and most rewarding adventure you can take. Be forewarned - that adventure is packed full of fear, doubt, and insecurity. You must be ready. You must be observant. You must be equipped.

It's dangerous to go alone! Take this.

You've been here before. You are standing in front of your darkly shrouded sensei. The look of seriousness etched across their face. You can remember that day even all these years later. What did they say again? "There is nothing more I can teach you" What did they teach you, again? It's been so long. It floats back to the surface: Young grasshopper, do you know what it takes to be successful? Better yet, what does it take to be EXCEPTIONAL?"

The Seven Abilities of Exceptional Traders

1) Staying Informed

The dawn of the new Century has catapulted us into the Information Age. Even before, it was much clearer. What you didn't know could hurt you. The game has changed now. It's not just the roller coaster of decks waxing or waning. Other speculators, other full time investors, and the rise of the Commander market have muddied the waters. The writing on the wall of “THE END IS NIGH!” is not always clear anymore.

Too often players are ruled by emotion and hype. Sellers become ruled by fear and pressure. Emotions they both have been conditioned to feel. Finding the trends. Watching for the moments that matter. The moment when you feel the timing is right. That clarity comes with being involved. It comes from observing the ebbs and flows.

When that is not possible, what then? Cramming articles on trends will give you information, but not knowledge. Leaning on the people you know will give knowledge, but not wisdom. The best minds in the business don't necessarily read every opinion out there, but they have a great foundation of observations to know what is most likely to happen next. Start there. Just pay attention. Observe. The pattern will reveal itself from the chaos in time. You must first take that time.

2) Establishing Relationships

What should be Magic Finance 101 seems to be one of the most under emphasized facets, in truth. Too often we are cut off from the people that will breath life into the things we do. Need to move a card quickly - who would you call? Have money to spend, but no collections - why are people not calling you to sell? Have a hot idea that could pay off if only you buy a large quantity of a card - what's the first store you go to?

How often do you think about these things? How often do you go about thinking what makes you invaluable to someone else? These relationships will define you if you take advantage of them. They will be the most valuable item you will ever possess. These buoys of friendship, of mutual reliance, are what it takes to learn more than you could ever on your own. They can and will catapult your growth, your understanding, and your abilities forward day after day. Exceptional Traders will often stimulate and be stimulated by how others think, feel, and see things from a different vantage point. That is one of the most important things to walk away with in life. Understanding.

“Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it.”
― Albert Einstein

3) Acting Swiftly

You've done your research. You've watched the trends. Now, all you have to do is have the confidence to execute. That's when the doubt creeps in. Your mind slows down to a crawl. The second hand on the clock doesn't appear to move any more. You become more and more unsure that this is the move to make. You hit refresh, just to make sure the pricing error is still there. Too late, it's gone. Cue the gong.

One critical error many Traders fall to is the doubt. Doubts in themselves. Doubts in the moment. Doubts that they have been taught all their life to believe exist. Could things go horrible wrong? Of course. Could a move lose you money? Naturally. Take a moment, step back, and look at it though. Did the math make sense? Did you do your due diligence to make sure that even if everything falls apart that your exit strategy is reliable? That even if you have to take that route, you are perfectly okay with the losses expected. You absolutely should have that doubt if you did none of those. Planning for the worst case, and making up your mind that it's okay if that happens allows you to pull the trigger the first time, every time. No hesitation. You know what you want and are only focused on that.

“Dans les champs de l'observation le hasard ne favorise que les esprits préparés.”
In the fields of observation chance favors only the prepared mind.

- Louis Pasteur

4) Willingness to be Wrong.

You planned for the worst. You took time for your due diligence. You acted swiftly. Things didn't break the way you hoped, though. Now, you've got to suck it up.

That's where most just stop.

As if the World stops turning right there. You were wrong. Life is now over. Did you just not know it yet? No? Then you should just lay down right here. It looks comfortable, right?

That is not the reality of the situation. Life moves on. If you want to be discouraged – by all means, please make sure you call me. I'll take all those rotten, nasty cards off your hands. After all, everything we've told you was wrong, right?

If you willingly accept the possibility that you will be wrong – all of a sudden it doesn't matter if you are. There becomes this magical Christmasland where there truly is no right or wrong. There is only better or worse. What might be better for me, could be clearly worse for you. This is where right and wrong is born. There is always something that can be perceived negatively by someone else, or by your own eyes. The trick is to be able to keep going, in the direction you need to go, without stopping. For truly better is only right, and wrong is only worse. Exceptional Traders should have been on the “better” path already. Having one rotten apple doesn't make the whole pie rotten. Just that one bite.

5) Building a Positive Image

I was given a nugget of knowledge not many years ago from someone that I've come to respect. “Magic is one of the few businesses that rewards you for doing the right thing. Charge a fair price. Offer a fair compensation and people will come back to you time and time again.” - Jim Sorel

We were discussing “behind the curtain,” and he couldn't be more correct. There's a certain sense of wonder in the TCG market. People use this game to enjoy themselves. To take a break from the reality of their day to day. To find camaraderie and make friends. Money typically doesn't even matter because those other aspects are priceless to them. I can not tell you how many times I've heard of a lopsided transaction, simply because the person loved the card they were buying and paid more than it was worth to own it NOW. You've heard of it, too. I'm sure.

Building an image of trust, fairness, and humbleness is therefore the most important decision you can make. Whatever shady dealing you want to do? It's not worth it. Not even once. It will cost you more money in the end than any other action you can take. Being upfront and letting someone else make the decision takes the unscrupulousness out of it. Let them make the decision. Never take that power away. For if you do, they will take your power away. They are paying you for time. They compensate your gathering of information. You located those cards and had them available. You are not being paid to have a card they want. You are being paid for the time spent on that card. If they truly wanted to, they could take the time to find that card themselves, trade for that card, or go to someone else and pay less for that card every single time. What's the difference? Your image.

6) Always Maintaining Flexibility

Rigidity has it's place. The problem is the speed which things can change. By maintaining the ability to be flexible, you can adapt to any new challenges that present themselves. New opportunities that show up daily are not just there to be seized, for in truth they are just problems that need a solution. In the World of Finance, the Exceptional Trader is a problem solver and less an Opportunist. They are a facilitator of turning cards someone does not need into things they will need - all while making a profit. Right there, already three different variables have raised their heads. A.) Need B.) Don't Need C.) Profit. If you wanted to put it in a math problem:

b – a = c.

Another way to look at it:

(Cards They DON'T NEED) – (Money They Need) = Profit.

Exceptional Traders are adapt at seeing where the problems lie and coming up with a solution that fits comfortably. Often times that will mean more than one solution. Having the flexibility to make it work is critical.

7) Maintaining Cash Flow

Lastly, in order to take advantage of the moments that arrive – Exceptional Traders have the cash flow necessary to tackle it. This comes from all the other abilities. Combining them together in a winning combination for your specific circumstances is the greatest problem to solve. There is no “one size fits all.” There are only things that work for one person, and may work for you. Your tenacity, dedication, or the simple willingness to learn is essential. There is no time frame. Magic: The Gathering will not close shop next year. There are markets available and evolving every day of the week. Cards are being created and collections are being sold daily. The only thing you must do is decide to do it, then do it well. Give 100% and you will see a 100% return. If you cannot, 10% is just fine too. Time is the only true factor as it takes time to make money. Have the frame of mind to know that there is no quick fix. There is no over night success story. Everything every Exceptional Trader has in this business was thought on thoroughly, planned extensively, and then executed with enthusiasm and zeal.

There's a place for everyone at this table.

The only thing I am capable of doing is pointing out the tools that will make you a better Trader, tomorrow. Exceptional Traders find the ingredients that make their stew into a 5 star dish. You don't have to start with the herbs and spices to find the final recipe, but you do need to decide on what dish to cook, and then season to taste. If your already cooking, maybe change things up tomorrow compared to how you seasoned the Meatloaf last week.

From the beginning to a well seasoned Pro - these tidbits are all areas we can improve on. Missing a key part of your dish? Look back at the list of things you know. I guarantee somewhere it's something you don't know that's taking away the ability to be harder, better, faster or stronger than you are now. Push your limits. Expand your horizons. Choose to not let fear take hold of you. Asking questions is the fastest way to become more knowledge. Feeling like an idiot? Maybe you are. How do idiots get smarter? They learn. Just like everyone else did. We all have the base ability to learn. Some just chose to not use it. Make the choice. Follow the path. Enjoy what you do.

- Dylan Beckham

2013 Year in Review: Competitive Play

Posted on December 13, 2013December 13, 2013 by Mike Lanigan

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Magic is a fickle beast and it’s easy to get your mind tangled up into a loop of blaming your losses on things outside your control. Everyone loses because they drew too many lands or not enough. Players lose games all the time because their opponent drew two of their best cards against them. Variance is part of the game, but your goal should be to try and keep that out of focus the majority of the time.

If you hone in on how much variance you are experiencing, it’s much easier to fall prey to the tilt monster than if you try to move on after it happens. Even if it does seem to happen more to me or you than other players, trust me, it happens to everyone. Here’s the perspective I try to have that has helped me the most.

Fact: There will be games in which you don’t have the correct number of lands. Whether it be too few or too many, it will cost you.

Fact: You will have to mulligan.

Over the past year, developing better mulligan skills has been a priority for me. After the game, I try to analyze what might have happened if I would have mulliganned or not to decipher whether I made the right decision. Many times the second fact, is connected to the first so if it seems like you are having too many issues with the number of lands in play, consider your mulligans more carefully.

Getting back to keeping the right perspective, since you won’t always have the right number of lands and you will have to mulligan, you need to deal with that. When things don’t go exactly your way, you need to find a way to make the best plays you can in the situation.

Sure you might have won easily if you had just hit your fifth land drop, but you didn’t. Make the best attacks, sequence your spells well, and try to outplay your opponent even if you have limited resources.

When players lose to variance, often it’s because of their attitude. Myself included, it’s so much easier to give up on a game where you miss a couple land drops even if the board state isn’t getting out of control. I’m not talking about the games where your opponent just kills you. I’m talking about the ones where they aren’t doing much while you are missing your land drops.

There are opportunities to win games even when variance shows up during the game. Sometimes you need to make more risky plays or hope your opponent makes a mistake, but do your best to win every game and you will win more than you are now.

As 2013 comes to a close, I find myself looking back on how I performed throughout the year. Analyzing not only your play, but your tournament performance is an important part of improving.

After 2012 was over, I started looking back to see how I had done as a whole over the year. The main outcome from that procedure was that I determined I succeed more when I am playing a deck of my own construction rather than a pre-existing deck. Even if I am playing a known quantity, adding my own tweaks to the deck increases my win percentage significantly.

If you analyzed your play from last year, what would your conclusions be? Maybe you are more successful if you play the same deck the whole season. It’s possible that you are the most successful when you play the best tier-one deck for the particular event. There is even a chance that you are like me and do better with your own tested home brew that attacks the metagame from just the right angle. Whatever it is, figure it out by assessing your play from the last year.

After looking over my tournament results, my year did not start well at all. For this process, I only looked at bigger events. There were plenty of FNM’s and local events where I did well, but what I really want to see is how I did on a bigger stage than just a local shop’s events. Here is how 2013 began.

January & February

Modern PTQ 0-2 drop
SCG Cincinatti - 4-2

The Modern PTQ was an absolute disaster. It’s the only event I was glad to 0-2 drop from. We were squeezed well over the fire code and playing there was a nightmare. Not only did we end up starting over an hour late, we had hardly any play space. I was disgruntled to drop so quickly, but everyone has some events like that.

As far as the SCG event, I think I picked exactly the right deck for the event. I started out the brand-new Gatecrash Standard event 4-0 with my Naya Zoo deck featuring the combo of Ghor-Clan Rampager and Boros Charm.

Round five I lost an extremely close match to Caleb Durward and round 6 I lost due to a couple play mistakes as well as my opponent’s deck being extremely well built to combat mine. I remember feeling like I squandered a great opportunity because I loved my deck so much.

March and April were much better though and I capitalized on some opportunities.

March & April

Modern PTQ - 4-2 w/ Grixis Delver
Modern PTQ - Lost win-and-in w/ Grixis Delver
GP Pittsburgh Sealed - Day 2’d, but missed cash on breakers.
Standard PTQ - Lost win-and-in

The Spring, as well as many other times this year, were “oh so close” and “almost got there” moments. I would have to say that these were some of my best months of the year. I was on top of my game in three different formats. I played at the top of my game in every format and made good deck choices for those events as well. If I could replicate this, I would definitely find more success.

Day 2 of Limited GP’s is the actual best in my opinion. Not only do you get to play sealed on day 1, which I love, but you also get to draft twice on day 2.

The first draft is a great example of making the best of a bad situation. The deck I drafted, at one of the lowest tables in the room, was not just awful but also one of the worst draft decks in my playing career. Even though my deck was terrible, I still managed to go 2-1 in my pod.

I still was not able to cash this event though. Because there were so many players that attended, we had a special bonus round after the cut to day 2. Losing that round crushed me for day 2. Starting with a 7-3 record instead of 7-2 proved to be too big a hole to climb out of.

May & June

SCG Classic Pittsburgh - 4-2 w/ Aristocrats 2.0

The beginning of the summer was a bit of a downturn but after taking a break to attend three friends' weddings in June, I was ready to rock the rest of the summer.

July & August

Top-eight three TCG events, 2 small, 1 big, all with BWR Humans
Standard PTQ - Lost win-and-in with BWR Humans

Over the summer I couldn’t find enough events to go to. Honestly, I was winning so much with my BWR Humans deck, I went to every bigger Standard event I could fit into my schedule. It was the first time in the twelve years I’ve been playing that I didn’t want the format to rotate. I loved that deck and it loved me back.

I almost made it in the top eight of the last PTQ also. Sadly the final round knocked me out. Here’s the craziness of what happened. My opponent cast not one or two, but all four Thragtusks on consecutive turns.

But that did not excuse my play mistake in game two. Instead of winning the second game and taking the match, I gave him a chance to win game three. Even though it was so long ago, the mistake stuck with me.

First of all, I misjudged my opponents deck and therefore sideboarded incorrectly, but based on the information I had from game one, I think I would have swapped the same cards again.

The main question was what order to play Oblivion Ring and Fiend Hunter in. The short answer is that yes it matters which order you play your spells. There is always a difference even if it’s slight.

My choice of Fiend Hunter the Thragtusk and O-ring the token was wrong and I lost the game because of it. Both of my cards die to Abrupt Decay so I can’t play around that but only one of them dies to other removal spells.

He had one card in hand and it seemed like it was a land that he was trying to bluff. As it turns out, it was Putrefy, and I got severely punished for my misplay. Instead of swinging for lethal, I allowed him to stabilize.

Sometimes you play a match extremely well, but make one wrong move and lose the game because of it. At least I can learn from it and move on.

September

GP Detroit

- Day 2 no cash with Grixis Delver

Detroit taught me an extremely important lesson that’s hard to learn. There is a drastic difference between a good deck to make Day 2 and one that is capable of winning the event.

As much as I love the Grixis Delver deck and as good as it is, I don’t think it is capable of top-eighting a fifteen round event. So much has to go right for the deck to win that many rounds. Even if it does not have many bad matchups, Modern is so diverse that eventually you will run into a few decks you don’t want to see.

Day 2 of this event turned into a disaster. There were misplays, bizarre matchups, mana issues, and many other strange occurrences.

October & November

SCG Indy 3-2 - R/G Devotion
TCG Invitational - 21st w/ Mono-U & Kiki Pod

Once Theros Standard was off to the races and trying to create as much devotion as possible, I tried my hand at amassing lots of red permanents. I liked my list, but it may have been too mana-intensive and clunky. Despite some issues hitting my fourth land way too many games in a row, I tried to play my best.

Though the event did not go well, I learned a lot about the format. The main goal of this road trip was to gain some experience in the format so preparation for a more important event would be easier.

The TCG Player Invitational had been a recurring focus for months. Not only was it a huge event that I was qualified for, it was multiformatted in structure. Adding Modern was a drastic change to the Invitational, but one I was really looking forward to. I enjoy playing Modern quite a bit and there are many decks I am comfortable with.

For this event I chose to run Kiki Pod because I felt it would be extremely well positioned in a field of Affinity, Burn, and Jund, which would be the easiest decks to build for those who don’t play much Modern. My assumption about the Modern field at the event was mostly correct, but I underestimated the diversity of the decks players brought to battle.

Many players I spoke with had little to no experience playing this format which surprised me greatly. This Invitational gives out a ridiculous amount of money and to see so many players unprepared was disconcerting.

Regardless of what everyone else was playing, I loved my deck and my crazy Gifts Ungiven sideboard plan. Standard also went better than expected as I crushed many players with Mono-Blue Devotion. Playing that deck seemed natural to me and I think I played it extremely well.

Going into the last round of the TCG Player event my record was 10-3 and I was in great position to Top 16 or possibly squeak into the Top 8 on tiebreakers. Unfortunately it was not to be and my arch-nemesis in Modern, UWR Control, ended another event for me.

Every deck that I enjoy and play well appears to have a weakness to this deck. This final match of the event was very winnable and after I won game one, I thought I had it in the bag.

I still think through this match occasionally trying to decipher if differing plays on my part would have changed the outcome. Though I may never know what might have happened I should try to be satisfied with my 21st place in a rather prestigious event. Instead of being content in a solid finish, I find myself striving to do better and improve my game. I am not satisfied with 21st place; I want more.

December

2x Sealed PTQ - 3-2 & 4-2

After a grueling year of endless travel all across the east coast, it’s no surprise that I found myself somewhat burned out and yearning for a break. Despite having a lower mental fortitude, I still got out to two sealed PTQ’s. In both I thought my pools were decent but not amazing and in both I had decent but not amazing results.

Even though many players think that Theros Limited is not about bombs, I found my tournament ended both times by my opponents' mythic rares and my inabilty to deal with them. Lots of players may say they defeat Elspeth, Suns Champion all the time, but that is not the case for me.

I’m looking forward to Standard PTQ season but I still wish I could have made it to more sealed PTQs.

Summing It Up

2013 for me was a conformation of how to be successful. My moderate amount of tournament success has shown me that I need to be playing my own decks as much as possible. The more I play a deck of my own design that I am confident in playing, the more successful I will be.

I am looking forward to Born of the Gods because I really don’t have a deck I am confident with right now. Mono-Blue has been great for me, but there is no room to change the deck for the metagame. That is its biggest weakness in my opinion.

I was able to meet my goals of top-eighting a bigger event (TCG Platinum) as well as being more successful at professional level events (Day 2 at GPs I attended as well as 21st place at the TCG Invitational).

My 2014 goal is to truly break through for a big finish at a GP and win a PTQ. Based on 2013, I feel those are attainable goals for the upcoming year. Stay tuned to see what happens.

Until Next Time,

Unleash the Force!

Mike Lanigan
MtgJedi on Twitter
Jedicouncilman23@gmail.com

Insider: Theros Junk Rare Picks

Posted on December 13, 2013January 17, 2022 by Matthew Lewis

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The Case for Speculating on Junk Rares

One of the big differences between paper and digital Magic is the price of non-mythic rares. When a set is being actively drafted, so many of these are coming onto the market that prices can quickly approach zero.

Fortunately, this means that shrewd speculators can easily acquire a position at low cost. The trick is figuring out which cards have potential--many cards are at junk prices for good reason, i.e. they are junk and always will be.

But each year we see junk rares rise in prominence and price. Recent examples include Blasphemous Act from Innistrad (ISD), Desecration Demon from Return to Ravnica (RTR) and Nightveil Specter from Gatecrash (GTC).

It would have been hard to predict that these cards would find a use in Standard. But it was relatively easy to see that these cards had potential. Dead giveaways for cards with potential include creatures and effects that are undercosted, board sweepers, cards that provide card advantage and cards with unique effects.

When formats shift or new cards are printed, the relative utility of every card in Standard changes. Time and again, cards with potential rise up in value. Buying cards with potential at junk or bulk prices is an easy way to speculate for a low up-front cost.

Practical Matters

When speculating on junk rares, it's impractical to do it one card at a time. If I really think a card has potential, like Polis Crusher we'll say, it can be time consuming to build up a position on MTGO due to the limit on most bots of four copies per transaction.

Buying up 100 copies of a 0.05-ticket card means I've staked out a position worth 5 tix, and in order to do that I had to make 25 different transactions. But if it doesn't pan out as a spec, this would be a waste of time, not to mention 5 tix.

The way to reduce the risk and time involved per card is to diversify by targeting a basket of junk rares. Going after a basket of cards means you can cut down on transaction time per card. It also means you don't have to pick a winner.

Picking winners or making a called shot is tricky. Many factors are involved in the evolution of the Standard format and accurately predicting which cards will rise in value is quite difficult. For every person who saw potential in a card like Nightveil Specter, there were plenty of people who thought it would do nothing. Speculators who acknowledged the potential and didn't overpay for their position were rewarded with decent gains after the rise of devotion decks in Fall Standard.

Instead of trying to pick a winner like Nightveil Specter, just aim to have cards with potential in your basket. When a junk rare in your basket breaks out, as inevitably one will, the profits on that one card will typically cover the costs of every other card in the basket.

As long as you are selective with your basket and don't cast too wide a net, junk rares can be a profitable way to speculate on shifts in the Standard format.

One advantage of buying junk rares is that there's no need to wait for prices to come down. They are already cheap, and a shift in the metagame might see the opportunity disappear as the price climbs.

Although you might have to hold the cards in your portfolio for a long time, rock bottom prices mean the opportunity cost of holding junk rares is low. The best strategy is to buy up a bunch, and forget about them.

Picks from Theros

Here are my current picks and rationale for Theros junk or near-junk rares.

Annax and Cymede

This is a heroic card with potential. The stats and abilities are there, but for the moment the deck is not. The legendary type holds this one back a little, so buy for less than 0.05 tix and go for up to 60 copies.

Daxos of Meletis

Here we have a card with a unique effect on a somewhat evasive creature. Though the body is small relative to its casting cost, and U/W archetypes are currently sporting few creatures, this card fits the bill as having potential and it's priced at junk.

I think you can be picky buying this one though, so shoot for prices below 0.05 tix. Goat currently sells these for 0.03 tix, for example. And like Annax and Cymede, the legendary type on this card limits upside, so don't go nuts. I'd buy up to 60 copies of it.

Ember Swallower

The body on this card is the right size and it was seeing play in the beginning of Fall Standard. Big red decks have been interesting pieces of the Standard puzzle in the past, and I could see this card popping up in that archetype. I've already got a substantial position in this card, and I'll continue to buy these until I have 100+ copies.

Fabled Hero

White-centric archetypes are not getting much love at the moment, but this type of card often finds a home at some point during its time in Standard. The last two examples of 3cc white creatures with double strike abilities were Mirran Crusader and Silverblade Paladin. Both of these cards spent time above 3 tix while they were in Standard.

Fabled Hero might not hit these heights, but the chances are good that some type of heroic strategy will eventually see success, either in Block or Standard. Fabled Hero might not have the raw power of its predecessors, but at recent prices there is little downside.

This card deviates from the others as it's priced above junk, but I'd still buy up to 100 copies of this at 0.15 or less.

Nighthowler

WoTC tends to push the power level on at least one card with the new keyworded abilities. This would be my pick for a bestow card to break out. You never know when a graveyard strategy is going to take off, particularly in larger formats where the ability to fill the graveyard is more prevalent. This is a pick up at junk prices. I'd buy up to 100 copies.

Polis Crusher

This guy can eat enchantments and is a total house in THS Limited. If THS Block continues the enchantment theme, this card's possible interactions will increase. The 4/4 body for four mana is a little underwhelming, so it might be a Block-only card. Nevertheless, it has potential. Buy these at 0.05 tix or less and I'd buy up to 100 of these.

Prognostic Sphinx

Any card with a couple of useful abilities, tacked onto a decent evasive body, has to have potential. This one is a snap-buy at junk prices and I'll be buying 100+ copies.

Steam Augury

This is not the second coming of Fact or Fiction. But I can imagine a future Standard environment without Sphinx's Revelation where there might be a need for instant-speed card draw. It doesn't get you exactly what you need, but it can generate value. Currently it's priced at 0.05 tix and I wouldn't hesitate to buy up to 100 of these.

Tymaret, the Murder King

This card can provide reach for creature-based decks and is from a colour combination not seeing much love at the moment. It's also a zombie, which gives it an outside chance of making it in Modern in combination with a card like Gravecrawler.

This is another legendary creature, but I'm okay going up to 100 copies on this one. Once again, don't overpay as these are available on Goat at 0.03 tix currently.

Other Junk

As THS drafting continues, more cards will settle into the junk or near-junk price range. I think a card like Whip of Erebos will get down in price closer to 0.05 tix, which would trigger my interest in buying it. Keep your eyes out for other cards with potential as they come down in price.

Do you have any favorite junk rare picks that you think have potential? Let's hear about them in the comments and in the forums!

Insider: Stop Chasing Your Tail

Posted on December 12, 2013April 7, 2014 by Corbin Hosler

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Last week Phyrexian Obliterator got completely cleaned out on TCGPlayer and other sites. No copies existed, and for about 12 hours it was a $35 card.

Today, there are copies available for $20. Right back where we were before this started.

When the buyout happened, I was ready. I found the last few copies available at $20 on the internet and thought about whether or not it was time to jump in for cash. I had a handful I picked up trading at $13-15 when we originally began talking about this card two months ago, and I was wondering if the right play was to buy in at $20 cash and hope to flip when the card stabilized at $30-35.

I passed. And that proved to be the correct decision.

So why did I make that decision?

What’s the Spike?

As I talked about a few weeks back, there are several types of price spikes cards go through these days. And this was a clear example of a hype-driven buyout.

A few things you should know. As of Wednesday, Phyrexian Obliterator is $26 mid on TCGPlayer. Karn Liberated is $29.

Both are mythics from the same set, and both have some casual appeal. One of these is a Cube, Commander and Modern staple, while the other has some potential Modern applications. One has put up consistent results and one has yet to do literally anything in a major event.

A freaking $3 price difference? Either Karn is massively underpriced, or Obliterator is overpriced. I’ll choose the latter.

It’s this line of thinking that led me to pass at $20, and it’s one that has me fired up about the mindset of some speculators.

The Rant

I’m not accusing any of you of this, nor am I saying that it’s even necessarily wrong. But the fact remains that far too many people are far too impatient to make this Magic finance thing work.

To be honest, I blame the MTGFinance subreddit for part of this. It’s great that the subreddit exists, and even though the content and quality is extremely weak compared to our forums, it’s nice that it’s made more people interested in the financial side of the game. After all, that not only likely makes us more money, but it allows more people to better finance playing Magic, which is great.

But the impatience is almost certainly what drove the spike on Obliterator and Spellskite.

Why do I say that? Consider this: Obliterator and Spellskite are cards we’ve talked about in columns and our forums for months now. They begin to see some increased demand, and the prices gradually rose. Same with Splinter Twin, which we’ll get to in a second.

So Obliterator began to see some movement, and a post was made on the sub about it. That got a few more people interested, and surprise, a few days later someone decides to buy out the card, likely thinking about Splinter Twin and hoping to double up just as it did.

Except it didn’t work, because one of these is a real card with demand and the other is being dragged along the hype train. I imagine whoever orchestrated this buyout is feeling pretty silly right now. Buylists didn’t move an inch, and even if they outed a few on TCGPlayer after buying it out, it can’t have been many. Considering the price was back down in a day, it seems no one was buying at the “new” price.

Look, maybe Obliterator is the real deal, and maybe it’s going to be a $35 card come Modern season. But that was a reason to buy in at $13 when we originally talked about, not $20+ now that everyone is talking about it but no one is playing it.

So back to Splinter Twin. I think we all understand the reasons why Splinter Twin spiked. There has been growing demand for the card, steady growth and dwindling supply. When the market caught onto this and it reached a tipping point the card doubled up and jumped to $10 as everyone bought in. Know what’s happened since then? It’s gone down exactly 50 cents. In other words, the new price held.

When people saw this, they immediately began looking for the next target, and seized on Spellskite. That created a round of buying at $8. Since then, the card has gone to $10 and stayed steady there. That’s a reasonable market correction and one I expect to hold as well (and $15+ in-season isn’t out of the question).

The Point

Two of these three were good buys. Twin was obviously the best, because it flew under the radar of the general population outside of QS and created a good buying opportunity. Spellskite wasn’t a bad buy because if it hits $15 in a few months you’re looking at $4-5 profit a copy.

My instinct is that whoever bought out Obliterator thought they were going to get the next Splinter Twin. And they were wrong, which leads me to the point of this entire article.

Buying a hyped card is almost always wrong.

Concerning Obliterator, rarely have I ever seen this amount of speculative demand created by perceived demand at work (maybe Nivmagus Elemental). The time to buy Obliterator was at $15 based on the results we currently have. (Certainly if you’re convinced it’s the next big thing buy it up, though you better have a good reason why it should cost more than Karn).

But I’m not just talking about Obliterator. Buying into Splinter Twin at $9-10 as it was spiking didn’t work out. Neither did buying into Spellskite at $8, though it may turn out okay down the line.

When you buy a card, you’re counting on someone else to buy it from you. Buying a $7 card to sell at $10 isn’t making you money. And by the time the card has reached the masses, this is usually all you’re doing. It’s why the person who bought out Obliterator didn’t make money, and it’s the reason everyone who jumped to Spellskite not wanting to miss the next Twin is still left holding their copies as well.

This is why we work so hard to stay ahead of the market here. Every single one of these three cards has been pegged as a target for weeks or months, including when New Phyrexia rotated out in the first place. That’s when you get your copies, not now.

Quick flips can work, but they’re also more risky if you’re not at the front of the line. To jump in at the middle part of the process is just chasing your own tail. You’re assuming more risk for less reward, and that’s not how you make money long-term in this business.

I talked about a few of the cards I’m eying for next Modern season, so that when the spikes on these happen (if they do), I won’t be scrambling to buy in and make a few dollars a copy. Instead, I’ll be outing my copies at the peak of the spike. That requires hard work, in staying ahead of the market and acquiring copies cheaply. Most importantly, it requires patience.

That’s why I’ve advocated picking up next season’s Modern cards now, and not two weeks before PTQ season when the general player base is after them.

Look, I get that it’s not sexy to pick up stuff like Avacyn, Angel of Hope and Griselbrand right after they rotate when you can be chasing the quick double-up instead. But today’s easy pick-ups that you tell yourself you have plenty of time to acquire become tomorrow’s “overnight” spike. Just like Splinter Twin and Spellskite and Birthing Pod and Sol Ring and Rafiq of the Many and Restoration Angel and Wurmcoil Engine.

So what do you say we focus on staying ahead of the pack, rather than trying to catch up to it?

Thanks for reading,

Corbin Hosler

@Chosler88 on Twitter

Last Thoughts Leading into Las Vegas

Posted on December 12, 2013January 3, 2014 by Ryan Overturf

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Before I begin today, I’d just like to make a comment about the changes made to Daily events and the impact they’ll have on my writing. With Pauper no longer being offered as a format for Daily events, I will unfortunately have to cancel any future writings on the format. Eight man events just aren’t very good value and premier events are too time consuming for me to participate in with any level of consistency. This news is pretty disappointing for me, but it’s out of my control, so I don’t plan on dwelling on it too much.

Instead let’s talk about Vegas- the upcoming Las Vegas Invitational that is. Last week I played in two non-Star City sanctioned events on back to days for the first time in quite a while. A four round FNM gave me a small bit of live testing for Standard and on Saturday I played the Legacy event at Hi Score Games in North Saint Paul.

I don’t have much to report from FNM. Four rounds isn’t a ton and my matches weren’t very interesting. I mean, sometimes I did cool things, but none of the lines were very difficult. This is what I’ve been thinking for Standard:

Pirates

spells

4 Boros Reckoner

4 Stormbreath Dragon

3 Chandra's Phoenix

4 Ash Zealot

2 Chandra, Pyromaster

4 Burning-Tree Emissary

4 Fanatic of Mogis

1 Hammer of Purphoros

1 Purphoros, God of the Forge

4 Frostburn Weird

3 Mizzium Mortars

land

22 Mountain

4 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx

It’s called Pirates because it’s devoted to R.

…

Anyway, Red Devotion splashing green was the ChannelFireball deck at PT Theros and I’ve been interested in “big” Fanatic of Mogis decks every since then. The major incentive for being Green was Domri Rade, but the mana was a little rough and, at times, Domri could be rough as well. Burning-Tree Emissary helped with the mana, but you still needed to play Gruul Guildgate to make things work, and Guildgates are the worst.

More recently, Red Devotion splashing White for Chained to the Rocks, Assemble the Legion and Boros Charm in the 75 has been the flavor of the week, but the mana here is even worse. I also don’t really feel like the splash adds much of anything outside of an answer to Desecration Demon and a better answer to Master of Waves. Mizzium Mortars kills almost every relevant creature as is, and I’m of the opinion that if you aren’t getting to the point where you can overload [card]Mizzium Mortars[card] against Blue Devotion that you’re pretty unlikely to win that game anyway.

I will admit that Chained to the Rocks does address problems though. Assemble the Legion and Boros Charm are the more controversial inclusions in my opinion. Both are primarily there to combat Esper, but in all my experience Esper has been a pretty favorable matchup. There might be some confirmation bias going on on my end, but I’ve found that not overextending and casting Stormbreath Dragon put Esper in a rough spot. They’re also pretty solid cards against Black Devotion and Jund, but again I’m not really seeing those decks as unfavorable matchups. I like that the splash helps deal with Master of Waves, but I don’t care for the inconsistency and I don’t see the importance of non-Chained to the Rocks splash cards.

I’m pretty iffy on the sideboard. I’ve played with Shock and hated it, but see that one or two might be necessary. I 100% will have the fourth Mizzium Mortars, some Burning Earths and at least three Anger of the Gods, but outside of that I’m pretty flexible. I’m thinking that some number of Ratchet Bomb is a good answer to Master of Waves, and will likely play one or two. Realistically, Ratchet Bomb is too slow to function as an actual removal spell against the aggressive decks, which is the big reason I don’t intend to include too many.

Blue/White control might be the best deck in Standard right now, and that matchup is quite a bit tougher than Esper, but I haven’t had the time to get the experience with that deck. With only a handful or testing under my belt I feel much safer just counting my Red mana symbols and hoping I see a number that I like.

As for Legacy, I’m feeling just about as safe as ever battling with RUG Delver. Here’s a breakdown of my Swiss rounds:

2-1 vs. BG Living Wish Hex Depths
2-1 vs. UW Miracles
2-1 vs. Slivers
2-1 vs. UWR Delver
*ID*
0-2 vs. Burning Nic Fit

If you’re unfamiliar with Burning Nic Fit it’s Jund Nic Fit that kills you with Scapeshift, which is part of its Burning Wish sideboard. The deck is pretty sweet, and is dramatically worse for RUG than traditional Nic Fit decks as it has a combo element that can’t really be Spell Pierced. Scott Fielder has been playing the deck for some time now and I’m pretty sure he ranches me every time we battle.

Despite losing in the top 8 this was an extremely refreshing tournament. Many of my games were very close, which I find to be super rewarding. I wish that I had a better memory of the actual gameplay, but I sadly don’t have much to report.

I did learn something pretty interesting in round one though. When my opponent sacrificed Vampire Hexmage targetting Dark Depths I called a judge over before casting Stifle to see exactly how things work. It turns out that if you let the Hexmage trigger resolve then your Stifle becomes pretty worthless against the Depths, as it just triggers again due to still having zero counters. Sort of like Standstill. My opponent knew this, and perhaps it’s common knowledge, but it’s new to me!

This was my first time playing against UWR Delver since True-Name Nemesis was printed, and I still have to say that the card isn’t the end-all be-all that it’s being heralded as. I’ve played against it, I’ve watched other people play it- both live and on stream- and I have to say that it’s only very good.

It is a staple. It does impact deck building. It is not dramatically format warping.

Now, onto more important matters! I’ve been battling with 14 cards on my sideboard that I’ve been very happy with and trying out various garbage for the final slot lately. I know that I’m happy with these:

Two weeks ago I decided that I hate Vendilion Clique and this week I confirmed that I despise Swan Song.

Rough is commonly advocated, but it’s only especially good against Elves! players who decide that they want to play in a way that loses to Rough. If I went that route I’d rather have a Forked Bolt as it deals with Deathrite Shaman and Stoneforge Mystic more efficiently, while still being stellar against Elves!

I don’t think I want a crummy damage spell though. I haven’t ruled Forked Bolt out completely, but I’m looking more closely at the third Blue Blast or fourth Red Blast.

Red Blast is a nod to Show and Tell and True-Name Nemesis, while Blue Blast is a nod to Blood Moon while having splash damage against Goblins, Burn, Storm, and probably some other nonsense that I’m forgetting. Dredge I guess?

Blood Moon is harder to beat than True-Name Nemesis, but only one of these can be Spell Pierced. I’m of the belief that Show and Tell and True-Name Nemesis will be much more widely represented than Blood Moon though. My gut tells me Red Blast. My brain tells me there’s something I’m missing.

At any rate, I know for a certainty that I’m on Pirates and RUG for Vegas. All I can hope for now is a little last minute insight, a lot of luck and for my flights to be on time.

Thanks for reading.

-Ryan Overturf

Insider: Preparing for the New Standard

Posted on December 11, 2013January 17, 2022 by David Schumann

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Welcome back speculators!

I realize that Born of the Gods doesn't officially release until February 7th, but now is a great time to start preparing for it. "But David the spoiler is basically nothing," you say, "all we have spoiled is three scrylands."

That's important information. It means that there will likely be a resurgence of multicolored decks again. There are a lot of rumors about multicolored gods, which will likely mean multicolor devotion requirements (either two abilities or two requirements), but it would likely spawn dual colored devotion decks.

What that means is that there will be possibilities for all the strong hybrid colored cards to break out (similar to Nightveil Specter). While it's not that likely that either the Specter or Boros Reckoner will spike much higher than they currently are, there is lots of opportunity for the other dual devotion enablers. I will list them below and rate the likelihood of a breakout from 1 (low) to 5 (high).

Cryptborn Horror (3) - This guy is actually relatively aggressively costed. The obvious downside is that he (like Rakdos himself) can't be cast if you haven't damaged your opponent, but mid- to late-game he can be a huge threat with built-in trample. This seems like one to pull from the bulk boxes just in case.
Growing Ranks (2) - This one was popular with the casual crowd when it first came out and many players expected tokens to be a deck. It hasn't panned out and unfortunately, the token strategy doesn't appear to be a big concept in Theros block. It does have some good synergy with Heliod (it provides two devotion and can populate the tokens he creates).
Nivmagus Elemental (2) - This one was hyped for combo style decks, but it too never panned out. The fact that it barely enables devotion puts it into the unlikely-to-break-out category.
Rubblebelt Raiders (3.5) - I think this is the card most likely to break out. The ability is quite powerful and most importantly it provides three devotion to two different colors (similar to Boros Reckoner and Nightveil Spectre, the two best devotion enablers).
We will ignore Deathrite Shaman, Boros Reckoner, and Nightveil Specter for now as these have already spiked, and while there is room to grow, the highest gains I think we can expect are 40%-60%. It's also interesting to note that there is no Orzhov permanent (they got Immortal Servitude instead).

The spoiling of three new scrylands (with strong expectations that the remaining two will also be in this set) will allow players to go back to playing three-color decks with almost perfect manabases (albeit slower ones). This will push the shocklands back up. This will likely mean a few shocks over $10 while the rest stay in the $7 range.

My guess would be Watery Grave and Temple of Deceit as the best ones at first, but I wouldn't count out a Naya aggro deck making a comeback, as its card base is strong and efficient and those decks prey on the slower more linear decks.

Should the format indeed revert back to multicolored, then it's also highly likely that Mono-Red will be the best deck for the first few weeks. The fact that the scrylands always enter tapped means that the 3+ color decks will be slower and vulnerable to aggressive burn decks.

This means that mono-red rares and mythics will likely get a resurgent bump in price. Here are the cards to watch out for:

Ash Zealot - Currently sitting in the $2-$2.50 range, thus guy could easily spike back to $5 for the first couple of weeks, especially if he gets some help from Born of the Gods. The fact that he's a regular rare in a heavily opened set keeps the ceiling around $5. This means the risk of him not spiking may not be worth it to those of you who go for the "Babe Ruth approach" (home runs or strike outs and little in between).
Stormbreath Dragon - Currently sitting in the $18-$20 range. He is less likely to break out in a faster aggro deck as those decks tend to skimp on their land count and 5+ drops are usually two-to-three-of's at best. Given his current price I see a max potential of $30 which is only a 50% price jump (not bad, mind you), but if you can't unload him while he's hot you'll likely miss out on most potential profits. It doesn't help that black is so heavily played right now as every kill spell they have hits Stormbreath.
Chandra, Pyromaster - Currently you can pick copies of her up in the $14-16 range, which is about where she started. I think she's a solid pickup and has shown the ability to jump to $40+ when she's hot. The fact that she comes from M14 (which is already a lesser opened set) gives her a lot more potential. I like getting these at their current price, especially with her multi-format and archetype playability.

A resurgence in 3+ color decks will also trigger a stronger demand for the color fixers and mana rampers. Sylvan Caryatid and Mana Bloom at rare show strong potential. (Prophetic Prism is another way to do this, which, while it doesn't ramp, does fix.)

Sylvan Caryatid - Currently priced in the $4.00-$5 range, it could go up to $8-9, but it's unlikely to go much higher. I personally see Carytid as the way to go. It also serves as a good defense against many of Mono-Red's early creatures.
Mana Bloom - This is your "go for the fences" card I think. It's an enchantment (so more difficult to get rid of) in a supposedly enchantment-themed block that fixes and ramps and is currently a bulk rare. I personally think this is the card most likely to increase 400-500%, though that still only means a jump to $1-$2.