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Insider: The Intelligent Investor (Versus Speculator)

Posted on by Sigmund Ausfresser

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Last week I began reading a new book on investing, titled The Intelligent Investor written by Benjamin Graham. Warren Buffet, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway and one of the world’s wealthiest people, described this book as “by far the best book on investing ever written.”

I won’t attempt to summarize the book here – this isn’t a book review column and many of the concepts don’t translate to MTG Finance seamlessly. One distinction is made in the work, however, which has enough relevance to merit an entire article.

I am referring to Graham’s distinction between speculation and investing, and the associated behaviors and predicted consequences of them.

Speculation vs Investing

I anticipate most, if not all, readers of this column can define both speculation and investing with sufficient accuracy. To do so here would be a waste of space. Most could also identify examples of each and described key characteristics that define the two strategies.

Despite this awareness, the terms “speculation” and “investing” are incorrectly interchanged on a regular basis. Even the title of this website can sometimes be misleading. Quiet Speculation to me defines what we do (although recently our voice has gotten stronger), but Graham suggests that true profits arise from proper investing instead of speculation.

Speculation implies a degree of risk – a dependence on market factors which cannot be controlled. Just because momentum is favorable on a given investment does not guarantee further price appreciation in the days to come. Sometimes the magnitude of risk does vary. When Sphinx's Revelation broke out in Standard, we had high confidence the price would rise and remain elevated.

But there were no guarantees. The fact Wizards prints new cards every couple months means there is a constant threat to the viability of any dominant card in Standard. That being said, the card continued to prove itself and the price quadrupled in a month. Sphinx's Revelation certainly carries less risk than something like Deserted Temple, which doubled overnight for an unclear reason.

Both these cards made people money. Both these cards carried a degree of risk. To buy these cards with intent of selling days or even weeks later at a higher price implies speculation.

Then What’s Investing?

I’m glad I asked. To invest in something is to believe in its equity. You truly view the asset as underpriced versus what it should be worth, not what the price may reach. Magic’s lengthy history enables us to identify trends to make fair valuations. Much like identifying a company’s value based on its key metrics, Magic Cards can also be valued with a similar approach.

Consider Zendikar Fetch Lands, for example. Remember when these traded under $10 each because they were leaving Standard?

Everyone and their mother knew that Zendikar Fetch Lands would increase in price once the initial rotation dip wore out. These cards are critical in many formats. The creation of Modern was a lucky event for the Zendikar Fetch Land investor. But even without that sudden jump in the middle of the plot, these lands were still a great investment. The opportunity was so great on these cards that speculating on most other targets seems pointless in hindsight.

Other examples of investments (as opposed to speculation targets) include foil Zendikar Basic Lands, foil Unhinged Lands, foil Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Legends Legends, and Gaea's Cradle (before the Legendary rule change). Each of these cards had compelling reasons to invest in them. Whether it’s their ubiquity across formats, their casual appeal, or their presence on the Reserved List, these cards were undervalued at some point in time and merited a higher price tag eventually.

Priorities

We know these opportunities exist. We even buy into some of them when we feel compelled. Investing in underpriced cards seems so obvious in hindsight, but when presented with the opportunity in the present we don’t fully commit. Why is that?

Fear of losing is a strong factor here. At the end of the day, we are all still placing significant bets on a game which isn’t regulated in the same way the stock market is. There’s no governing body to keep Wizards in check. If they want to end Magic or reprint a million new Dual Lands, there are no laws against it. Fortunately, however, the scenarios where Magic dies are far-fetched.

If you want the honest truth, I think there’s a bigger factor at play here that is preventing us from making significantly higher profits from this hobby. That factor is speculation. We all wake up every day and eagerly digest the overnight MTG Finance news. Thanks to the creation of mtgstocks.com, we even have a daily ticker to review so we can understand what cards are moving. No one wants to miss a beat. Players, dealers, and speculators all lose out when they miss an event like Mox Opal.

These occurrences are exciting. The discussion is engaging. The community’s dedication to card values is addictive. This all feeds into why speculation is so much fun. But we neglect to acknowledge all the risk we are taking when we deal in this space.

I guarantee there are dozens of speculators out there who bought into Mox Opal at $25 each because of this news thinking they could profit handily. Here’s the problem: even if these people sell their Opals for $35 each, after fees and shipping the profits are marginal. And the amount of risk taken on to achieve such small profits cannot be defended.

In fact, Mox Opal would have made a terrific investment back in October 2012 when Scars block rotated out of Standard. The card is played heavily in a strong Modern deck and a weaker Legacy. What’s more, Corbin put it best when he said Mox Opal was a good investment simply because “it has the word ‘Mox’ in it.”

I know speculating can be fun and addictive. We all get a huge thrill out of buying a dozen copies of something and selling it one week later for more money. But with the amount of risk and effort this takes, it is impossible to claim that this is an easier, lower risk way of making money from Magic.

If profit is your primary goal, you should be investing and not speculating. Do your homework, look at historical trends, and identify which cards are underpriced vs where they should be in a year or two. When you identify an opportunity, invest heavily and wait patiently. While everyone else is floundering around trying to flip their Deserted Temples, you can sit on the sideline and enjoy the craziness.

What Are Today’s Solid Investments?

This is a loaded question. While it’s easy to speculate (everyone has an opinion), and it’s even easier to identify trends as they’re happening, it’s much more difficult to identify numerous solid investment opportunities. When the Legendary rule changed, it was easy to tell people to speculate on Mox Opal. The rationale is obvious.

To recommend true MTG investments requires a greater deal of effort. We need to assess the long-term view of the game and make complex predictions. Often these predictions involve a macroeconomic view of the game such as the growing player base, a shift in format support, and likelihood of reprinting. Finally, I also hesitate to make investment recommendations because they require larger capital and a lengthier timeline. I would hate to tell people to invest $1000 in something for three years only to witness no appreciation.

With these disclaimers stated, the least I can do is list out my most current investments. Many of these won’t surprise you – it’s likely you have positions in these targets as well. I encourage you to think deeper on them and decide whether you want to truly invest here. Here’s the list of my top holdings, in order of decreasing dollar-value invested:

  • Legacy (Duals, Onslaught Fetches, Jace, Lion's Eye Diamond, etc.)
  • Innistrad Booster Boxes
  • Return to Ravnica Booster Boxes
  • RTR Block Shock Lands
  • Graded, NM Alpha Rares
  • Scars of Mirrodin Dual Lands
  • Foil Abrupt Decays

I could easily go on about how to manage these investments, how to ensure diversification, and how to put emotions aside while making bank. For example, now that I’ve made significant profits on my Legacy collection (albeit by luck – my intent when acquiring these cards was to play Legacy, not to make money), I intend to sell out. While this may be a difficult decision emotionally, I am eager to take some profits off the table and free up capital to invest elsewhere.

It isn’t about making the maximum amount of profit possible – this would drive you crazy trying to achieve. Instead, it’s about making significant money in a low-risk manner.

My suggestion is to decide what your priorities are. Perhaps you are after the same goals as I am: to make money while enjoying an awesome hobby. If that’s the case, I strongly recommend making a few investments rather than playing the speculation game. You may not have the same level of adrenaline in your bloodstream, but you’ll increase your likelihood of achieving your goals.

And if you insist upon doing the dance and aiming for quick flips, then at least sequester your “speculation money” in a separate place. Recognize those funds as fun money for quick flips and do not withdraw from your “investment money” to feed your speculation fund lightheartedly. Making this distinction will help you manage the emotions of your investments so that you can still profit handily while still participating in the speculation game.

Making this distinction is crucial so that “speculation” and “investing” don’t get confused. It's important to ensure that we also consider investing when we think about speculating in Magic.




Sigbits – Investment Edition

I listed above my largest positions. But I have other ideas which I haven’t acted upon yet. I thought I’d mention them to see what the QS community thinks. Are these valid investments?

  • Thespian's Stage: This card started at $6 and promptly dropped down to less than a buck. In the past couple weeks the card has steadily risen, mostly thanks to the Legendary rule change. Rules aside, could this be a solid investment? Is the casual appeal enough to merit a $5 price tag perhaps?
  • Invoke Prejudice: This card remained flat-lined at a $40 value for years. Recently it’s been getting attention from mtgstocks.com. Being a Legends Rare on the Reserved List, is there an opportunity for growth here? Considering how much Chains of Mephistopheles, Nether Void and The Abyss have appreciated lately, I wonder if there’s an eventuality here despite Invoke Prejudice’s lesser play?
  • Eladamri, Lord of Leaves: This Legendary Elf is also on the Reserved List. His ability is a powerful one, and there are plenty of casual players who enjoy brewing up elf decks. But Eladamri has been flat-lined with an $8 price tag for years. Is there any other direction for this powerful, Legendary elf’s price to go but up?

Insider: Modern Masters and MTGO

Posted on by Matthew Lewis

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The Modern Masters (MM) spoiler season continues to roll on with plenty of questions about how the product will impact prices, both in paper and digital form. The recent price increases on preorders of sealed booster boxes recalls an earlier era of Magic history, when expansions such as Legends had print runs vastly below the growing demand for the game. This fueled a lot of hype and drove anticipation for new set releases.

At the same time, a similar boom was happening in other collectible markets such as comic books and sports cards. At the time, gamers were happy to have their own hobby go through a gold rush period of high growth. In the case of Magic, the collectibles were game pieces to boot, some rarer than others. I remember trekking far and wide on my bicycle to locate packs of Legends, even going so far as to scour corner stores in case they had somehow received an allotment of booster boxes. The pre-internet era was a time of scarce information, where dreams of cracking an Arcades Sabboth or Chromium fuelled many a Magic fan's exploits.

Ultimately Wizards of the Coast (WoTC) responded to the high demand for their product by ramping up supply. This led to the the release of Chronicles and Fallen Empires. Both products were the first to be widely available and scarcity-driven demand cratered. While Fallen Empires was just a mediocre set, the size of the print run for Chronicles was recently cited on the mother ship as being a mistake and the impetus for the creation of the Reserved List. That list was necessary to calm secondary market fears of future large devaluations.

Modern as a constructed format can trace its history directly to the Reserved List, which is the barrier that keeps WoTC from growing older formats like Legacy. With no restrictions on printing, WoTC finally has a way to reproduce older cards at a profit and thus we have Modern Masters. MM could be viewed as an attempt to monetize the experience of Cube drafting, while at the same time expanding the availability of the Modern card pool. Being able to sell old product at a premium is a neat trick but if the anticipation around the release of MM is any indicator, it looks like WoTC has pulled it off.

Master's Editions I - IV

Usually MTGO is thought of as flowing directly from the paper version of Magic, however connections between digital and paper Magic are increasingly being made in both directions. The higher set redemption fee is a strong signal that product flows from MTGO were large and getting larger. On top of that, Erik Lauer cut his teeth developing limited formats patched together from reprints in the online-only Masters Edition (MED) series.

The MED sets were primarily purposed to bring old cards into MTGO and to monetize existing intellectual property. After all, with no added R&D costs for these cards, scanning the images and coding them for MTGO were the only steps necessary to bring them online.

But the first two sets largely flopped as product releases. MED was filled with tons of chaff, resulting in Force of Will (a rare from that set) becoming one of the most expensive cards online. For MED2, despite the presence of the allied dual lands, the limited format was badly received which resulted in low quantities being released. In fact, sealed queues had to be set up with such generous prizes and low entry fees in order to encourage more players to try it out. It appeared as if WoTC was doing its best to inject supply into the market, short of just giving product away.

After the first two sets came out, WoTC went back to the drawing board and put an emphasis on how the MED sets played out in draft and sealed. Erik Lauer was brought on board to oversee development of MED3 and MED4. More research and testing went into these sets which led to an improved limited experience and more popular releases. After successfully guiding the release of these sets, Lauer was handed the task of developing MM in order to support Modern as a constructed format.

Modern Masters Comes to MTGO

This week WoTC announced the way that MM would be released on MTGO. Although the product itself is priced at a premium, non-phantom drafts are going to be quite exclusive with a steep entry fee of 9 tix plus product, or a flat 30 tix. This steep price has put a serious chill in anticipation of this product. Unlike normal set releases which feature high-payout sealed events, there are no equivalent events at this time.

It appears as if the online MM release has been almost completely modeled after online Cube draft events, even going so far as to award Cube tickets and accept them an entry for phantom MM queues. If online players treat MM similar to Cube and the format is fun and draftable, then the phantom draft queues should prove to be quite popular. This will inject supply of MM boosters into the market, which will in turn lower the costs of non-phantom queues for players willing to buy boosters on the classifieds.

It remains to be seen how popular MM events will be. But with the short release window and phantom drafts soaking up some of the interest in draft, a sever price crash on Modern staples is unlikely. In fact, it looks like speculating on Modern staples will continue to be profitable. As Modern grows in popularity, in-season prices on staples should continue to see higher peaks. WoTC has shown in the past that it is willing to modify entry fees and payouts in order to pump product into the market, but in this case they appear to be highly reluctant to do that.

For speculators, current prices might turn out to be a good time to buy, particularly for cards reprinted at the mythic rarity. A card like Vendilion Clique has proven itself as a staple in both Modern and Legacy and has just dipped in price to around 20 tix. That price level is lower than the pre-season low of around 22 tix seen prior to the start of the last Modern season. Although taking a large speculative position just before the online release of MM could be foolish, if I was looking to pick up a play set of the faerie legend, current prices seem like good value.

Right now, taking a wait-and-see approach with MM seems prudent. Modern season is still many months away, and it's not clear how popular drafts will be. Still, prices on Modern staples have been coming down in recent weeks, presenting an interesting dilemma for speculators. More to come in the next couple of weeks!

Portfolio Update

This is a brief rundown of what I am buying, selling and watching in the market.

Selling:

  • Return to Ravnica boosters have settled into the 3.7 to 3.9 tix range and I've completely sold down my stock. This was a solid trade and a good learning experience for speculating on boosters.

Buying:

  • Mirrodin Besieged (MBS) offers some of the best value right now from a redemption perspective. The set has dropped significantly in price in the last six weeks. With this in mind, I've been buying all the MBS mythic rares, as well as Inkmoth Nexus. Redemption for Scars of Mirrodin block will close in November, which gives prices a number of months to recover. The infect manland got down to around 2 tix before it jumped back up to 3 tix. If it comes down in price to 2.5 tix or less I'll start buying again.

Watching:

  • Gatecrash (GTC) boosters have increased to a profitable level, but I will be holding for a few more weeks. The price has recovered from the lows seen at the start of Dragon's Maze events. With an uptrend in place and the fundamentals supporting the price of GTC boosters, I am content to let the trend continue before selling.
  • Standard prices have stabilized and have started ticking upward for cards from Innistrad block and M13. With a few Standard PTQs on the horizon, prices should continue to rise in the coming weeks. Geist of Saint Traft has been a solid pick up, but Restoration Angel and Thragtusk are still a little depressed.

Insider: Revelations from Ravnica

Posted on by Corbin Hosler

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It feels good to be back writing again. If you didn’t know, I spent most of last week on-site in Moore, Oklahoma, where a monster tornado ripped through the town and killed dozens of people, including children.

As a journalist, it was my job to be there, so I was. With my usual sports-related work not going away either, needless to say last week was a very crazy week for me, and getting to my Magic writing just wasn’t going to happen. I hate to miss weeks, so I really appreciate everyone’s understanding.

Predictions from Block

Now let’s talk some Magic. The Block Pro Tour just went down, and we’ve got a ton of new information to work with.

If you don’t know, the Block Pro Tour is a great way to prepare for next year’s Standard. In the past, we’ve seen the future on stuff like Faeries, Hero of Bladehold, Tempered Steel and plenty of others.

But there are some caveats, and this strategy is not 100 percent foolproof. For instance, Wolfir Silverheart and [card Gisela, Blade of Goldnight]Gisela[/card] saw lots of play last year, and while Silverheart paid off in the short-term after I broke the news from tips I received on-site, it didn’t pan out in the long-term.

I’ve managed to draw a few conclusions from all of this, the most important of which is that the “big finisher” slot is the one most easily replaced. That means something like Blood Baron of Vizkopa, which saw a fair amount of play last weekend, could be replaced easily when the finishers and/or mana improve, but the backbone of a deck like Sphinx's Revelation can not.

Here's the full list of winning decks from the Pro Tour, and you should peruse that list for anything I may have missed.

With that in mind, let’s look at some of my candidates for breakout post-rotation. Now (or very soon) is the time to get in on these, not in two months.

Jace, Architect of Thought

With 20 copies in the top eight, this is obviously the most important, and yet the market has hardly reacted. The card has gone from $10 or $12 or so, but that’s a tiny jump for a card that just a few months ago hit $50.

I’ve staked a lot of resources into Jace. As far as “core” cards go, Jace doesn't disappoint. It was a four-of in nearly every deck that ran it and it also just happened to dominate the top eight.

I see no reason this can’t easily hit $20 right after rotation, as Jace plus Revelation plus Verdict is going to be an easily-assembled and powerful deck right from the start that buries unfocused builds in card advantage.

If we see the same summer player growth of the last few years, Jace is going to start rising rapidly. I don’t think the ceiling is much higher than $30 simply due to how much RtR was opened, but even a more modest $18-20 makes us a lot of money.

Ætherling

I’m not sure if this card is better than I initially gave it credit for or if it just fit well into the finisher role at the Pro Tour. It’s probably some combination of both.

The card has held pretty steady under $5, and that’s enough for me not to write it off. Remember, between the usual third-set effect and the fact that Dragon’s Maze will be opened even less than other third sets because of Modern Masters means that we could see higher prices. It’s already pretty clear that my $10 assessment of Voice of Resurgence is woefully wrong.

So with that in mind, I look to pick up the new Morphling under $4 or so as it drops over the next few weeks. It’s a fairly low-risk bet that could see big gains if it does become the finisher of choice.

Sin Collector

I know this is only an uncommon, but it’s proven vital against all range of decks. That leads me to believe this is probably going to be a great uncommon to pull out of draft leftovers and as throw-ins in trade.

Sphinx's Revelation

This was a huge player in Block, and while stuff like Voice of Resurgence certainly keeps it down, it’s just too good not to play a big role in the metagame, especially early in the format.

Again, price moves will be played on by whether or not the player base expands as expected, in addition to metagame concerns. I wouldn’t be surprised to see it hit $30 or fall down to $15, but right now I think the downside is probably greater than the upside. Ultimately I would rather put my money into Jaces if you think blue-based control will still be a force after rotation (I do).

Deadbridge Chant

My thoughts on this card are well-known. I loved it early and hopefully you made some money on that advice, but after it spiked I advocated a sell.

I think the price will continue to settle down, but the card could still fit well into Jund, so as it bottoms out I like picking them back up.

Advent of the Wurm

This is pretty steady at $5-6, and I like picking it up at that price. Not only did it win the Pro Tour, it also appeared in a ton of the decks that did well. The power level here helps green decks compete with Revelation decks, and again, as the price evens out in the next few weeks it becomes a great pickup. I could easily see $10 or even more a few months down the line.

Obzedat, Ghost Council

This has been my pick for control finisher, and while the number of effective answers to it has increased since Gatecrash, it’s still powerful and comes down a lot earlier than Ætherling.

Unlike Ætherling, Ghost Dad can actually see play as the top end of a midrange deck, and could have some upside there. That said, its price is steadily coming down, and I will wait for that to bottom out before moving in.

Mizzium Mortars

It has definitely flown under the radar, but Mortars passed the $3 mark and still seems to be heading up. It was also played a ton at the Pro Tour. I don’t think the upside here is insane, but I do know you can get them cheaply in trade and it has a reasonable chance to hit $5 next year, seeing an increase similar to what Domri Rade might enjoy. Domri wasn’t all over the Pro Tour, but I don’t see these Gruul Aggro decks going away either.

Conclusions

Like I said, you can’t completely trust the results of a Block Pro Tour, but if you’re discerning you can find some nuggets, and that’s what we’re doing here.

Out of the cards that had a big weekend, if I had to pick one likely to become “real” and translate into Standard next year, it’s Jace. I have quite a few of them myself, and expect a $20 at minimum point in the next twelve months.

It’s good to be back writing about Magic. As always,

Thanks for reading,

Corbin Hosler

@Chosler88 on Twitter

Insider: Simplified Card Evaluations and 3 Illustrations

Posted on by mathieu malecot

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When I am trading for cards, I follow one simple rule: Lose hot cards and add cold. Recently that means moving Advent of the Wurm into Steam Vents. Looking for cards that are cold means getting what others aren't interested in, often at a discount even to TCG lows. Having what everyone is looking for keeps people coming back to you when they need anything. Of course, this isn't all I mean by hot and cold.

The reason Steam Vents is a cold card is it once had a $20 price tag. Despite its versatility, it now languishes at all time lows. Compare that to Advent; a card that has yet to lose any value coming off release. Standard has plenty of reasons to like this insta-wurm: Augur of Bolas, Delver, Snapcaster and populate mechanics. I am not sure that is enough to bring Advent to $10, but I wouldn't bet against it.  So why the heck am I trading copies away for Steam Vents?

When I want to price a card, I consider where it is and where it's been. That means ignoring a lot of new cards until the market has time to price them. When I see Steam Vents falling from $20, I see an easy 100% return on investment at current prices as a conservative evaluation. I need the vents $12 for that to happen and Modern season is catalyst enough to hopefully get there in a hurry. Advent is a $5 card for me, at best, until it gets to $10.

Right now, a bet on the Wurm looks more risky to me. I am not sure how playable the card is outside of Standard, a fact that puts an artificial time constraint on any spec. While Boros Reckoner shows that Standard alone has no problem driving up card prices there is too much uncertainty in cards that play in one format and have shorter price histories for me to not move into something more predictable.

To keep things simple for my addled mind I use $5 increments as price resistances and supports. I would read Steam Vents as up-side $6 (current price)-$20 (all-time high to nearest multiple of 5). The greater the upside, the less risk at current pricing. Compare that to everyone's favorite Reckoner $12-$25 and you'll start to understand why I assume the Vents are safer. For those keeping score Wurm has a positive value ($6-$5), and which a best means there is not enough pricing data.

Applying Theory

I'm going to talk now about three different cards and offer my reasoning for specs into and away from those cards.

Scavenging Ooze is seeing an M14 release. That card will make Deadbridge Chant better in Standard and certainly will have a home in Modern. Instead of being seen as a positive, this reprint has NM copies available for just over $16 on TCG Player. Meanwhile, prices on Ebay remain around $20. With volatile pricing giving speculators plenty of opportunities to pick up copies under $16, the Ooze looks like a good bet for at least a 25% return in short order. The card's playability in multiple formats also adds a margin of safety other M14 speculations can't offer. COLD

Deathrite Shaman is around $10 again, and this before Modern Masters! Here is a card that will see play alongside Scavenging Ooze as well as offering a way to fizzle Ooze targets. Here is a card that will see play in every MtG format thanks to its synergy with fetchlands. Justifying a quick return to $15 isn't too hard on playability alone. I've actually got a $20 target long term for the Shaman, and know a good finish will push this guy to that level in short order. Right now TCG Player looks like the best place to pick these up online, and anything $10 or less is a snap purchase. COLD

Sire of Insanity offers a lower entry point. Available for around $2 on both TCG and Ebay, this card can be made too unsymmetrical in effect to ignore. Unfortunately, at 6cc the Sire is unlikely to be a 4-of in any serious deck list. Rather than looking to accumulate, trading copies at TCG mid offers a $2 return (assuming a low entry point). I like foil Sire copies, and trading regular versions 2 for 1 seems good to me. HOT

Covering Yourself

Finally, the easiest way to hedge your speculations is a quick check of buylist prices. The Sire is currently fetching a 2$ price from Cape Fear Games. With NM copies available on TCG for the same price (100% hedge), building a position is safe even considering a short price history. For comparisons sake, Deathrite is fetching $7 (70%) and the Ooze will net you 10$ (62%).

Modern, Legends, and Zombies… Watch Out!

Posted on by Mike Lanigan

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When they first announced Modern Masters was going to become a set, I was bursting with excitement. I love the Modern format because the legal sets represent basically the entire length of my time playing this amazing game. I’m sure this sentiment is shared by others as well, but because of when I started playing, I think I might have a deeper connection to this format than most.

In the time between the announcement of the set and the spoilers, I tried to figure out what cards would be in the set and had many conversations on the topic with my friends. It was a fun game to play, and so far I am pretty close on the mythics.

It’s a little too late for most players to complete this exercise, but what I did was to guess which mythics would be in the set. My thought process was to try and break down how many would be in each color, how many artifacts and which multicolored cards would all be in the set. Then I analyzed successful archetypes in Modern for monetary value to narrow down my search. While going through this process, I didn’t just put together an all-star list, I tried to pick cards I thought would actually see print. Here are the picks I put together.

Who could have guessed that the Kamigawa dragons would take up five mythic slots? If someone said that, we would have thought they were crazy. I think I did a pretty good job with my picks. Only four of them actually turned out to be mythics, but if we broaden my picks to include rares, I’m doing quite well. Either way, it was a fun activity. We should know the whole set soon enough and it will be cool to see the final list.

Availability of Modern Masters

The other aspect we discussed often was what the print run would look like. As of this writing, I believe the print run is excruciatingly low, evidenced by the many retailers charging double (or more!) of the MSRP. I understand the need to carefully monitor the number of reprints, but with prices as high as they are for Modern Masters, this set isn’t helping anyone to start playing Modern. If anything, it is highlighting just how expensive the format really is. How are players supposed to justify paying $200 for fewer packs than they would get in a normal box? That's not even a bad price either. Most of the big online websites are charging $250 or $300!

Modern Masters has successfully ignited the spark of interest in Modern. What is has not done is make it easier for players to break into that format. Playing Modern is easy for me because I’ve been playing the whole time those cards have existed. Most new players have started within the last two years. They don’t even have fetchlands because they weren’t playing when they were printed!

Unless more boxes start to appear in shops such that dealers are forced to lower the price, Modern Masters will not make an impact on general access the format. After all, what is the best case scenario at this point? You secure a box for $200 and are hoping to get one Tarmogoyf if you’re lucky. How will that help you play Modern? I suppose if you are lucky enough to get a Goyf in your box, you could trade that for other pieces of the deck you’ve been working on, but that’s about it.

The worst part about the set being so expensive is that it looks amazingly fun. There are tons of great cards and the set looks well designed, especially for one specifically created to reprint older cards. Modern Masters seems so similar to a cube and that is awesome. If the set were cheaper, players could buy boxes to draft with their friends and have a blast.

Less Legendary Legends

Another piece of Magic history is changing. This one is going to be particularly hard for me because I have only ever known the one legend rule. The first person to get their legend in play takes over the galaxy. Any other copies create a fluctuation in time-space and a rift opens, tearing the world apart. Luckily the universe doesn’t end and all copies, even the new invader sliders, die and the universe is safe once more. Ok, ok. I may have gotten a little bit carried away with time travel paradoxes, but you get the point. Blame Star Trek, or at least my recent endeavor to watch the old show.

It’s weird to me that Olivia Voldaren will inevitably have to fight herself. That situation alone will create awkward board states for sure. At first, I was extremely opposed to the rule change but I think I was too focused on the Geist of Saint Traft vs. himself battle rather than thinking about the big picture. Obzedat, Ghost Council vs. himself is still horrible too but that becomes more like an enchantment vs. enchantment battle for all the interaction they have with each other.

Geist vs. Geist still turns my stomach a little, but other than that, what is the problem really? Is it that big of a problem that both my opponent and I have Exava, Rakdos Blood Witch in play at the same time? I think not. As long as Wizards strays from the broken hexproof mechanic, more legends getting printed doesn’t seem as terrible. On the one hand, legends seem less cool and unique. The other side is that everyone gets to play with their cool legends. It’s not perfect, but not nearly as game-ruining as I thought it might be at first inspection.

Planeswalkers function similar to legends in terms of rules so Wizards chose to change them too. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the rules change was initiated by a desire to have planeswalkers see more play. This desire for planeswalkers to be a central part of the game should help more cards like Dreadbore start seeing print. Expanding the complexity and diversity of removal is a great way to shake things up in Magic, so I hope my guess is correct about that one.

As I see it, there are two parts to the new planeswalker rule.

The first part is that both you and your opponent can have the same planeswalker, or different versions of the same one, in play simultaneously. I don’t care for this rules decision for one main reason. By instating this rule, it restricts the types of decks that will be viable for competitive play and the types of cards that can fit into them. What is a control deck supposed to do if their opponent resolves the same planeswalker they have in their deck? Unless there is a removal spell to deal with that permanent, sure they can play their own walker, but they are forced to play some amount of creatures to deal with their opponent’s card.

I support the push for more creatures in Constructed, but a restriction like that seems quite limiting on deck design to me. Yes, it will make deck design for the control player considerably harder, but that is fine. The real problem is how it limits the types of cards a deck can play and forces everything into a similar mold. This seems bad for the game in the long run. I hope this new rule won’t push things too far along these lines but I fear it might.

I love every aspect about the second part of the rule. Let’s say I play Garruk Relentless and kill your creature. Next turn, I make a token from my Garruk but I’m dismayed that the Garruk, Primal Hunter in my hand can’t join the party. This dilemma is no more! Now, you can play your Primal Hunter after you activate the Relentless and choose to keep Primal Hunter in play! This is quite an upgrade from the previous rules. Specifically with both versions of Garruk, there have been a number of decks where I wanted to play both but ended up cutting one or both from decks because of their previous interaction. Being able to give your planeswalker an upgrade (or downgrade?) seems like a great addition to rules. This does apply to legends as well.

Overall, I think the rules changes are solid. Wizards claims they have been working on these changes for over a year and that the cards in the next block have all been playtested with them in mind. That type of preparation is exactly the type of thing we need to keep happening for our game to live forever. Props to the company for thinking through things thoroughly. Let’s hope it turns out how they think it will. Things like this give me faith that we won’t have another Ravager Affinity destroying us anytime soon.

Controlling the Undead

Last week, I talked about a couple different decks designed to attack a Standard dominated by Thragtusk decks. Of the three, I ended up spending a bit more time on the B/W Zombie deck. Before we had Dragon’s Maze, I enjoyed playing B/R Zombies, which is similar. Even after playing with the deck a lot more, I didn’t make any changes to the main deck. The sideboard I developed worked out well but I am still trying other cards.

Here is the list with the updated sideboard.

Untitled Deck

Creatures

4 Gravecrawler
4 Diregraf Ghoul
4 Rakdos Cackler
4 Cartel Aristocrat
4 Blood Artist
4 Geralf's Messenger
3 Restoration Angel
2 Obzedat, Ghost Council

Spells

4 Tragic Slip
3 Lingering Souls

Lands

4 Godless Shrine
4 Isolated Chapel
3 Orzhov Guildgate
1 Vault of the Archangel
11 Swamp

Sideboard

3 Sin Collector
1 Obzedat, Ghost Council
3 Liliana of the Veil
3 Barter in Blood
2 Appetite for Brains
3 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad

As I said last week, it has a great Jund match, but as it turns out, the aggressive matches tend to be much harder to win. Naya Blitz in particular is one of the harder matches for the deck. If they have a good draw, they are much faster than you. In addition, you have a hard time being defensive because your creatures are not effective blockers.

The way to approach this match is by trying to trade as early and often as possible, hopefully with a Blood Artist in play. Cartel Aristocrat does a great job against Blitz so hands that have one will be much more successful. Once you get to four and five mana, you should be able to stabilize with Restoration Angel and Obzedat, Ghost Council.

I might mention that Ghost Council has impressed me more than any card in recent memory. That creature is not only hard to kill, but turns around games that seemed unwinnable. In addition, he also closes games where the board is stalled, an invaluable trait.

Even with the measures taken against this and other similar decks, the aggro match is still very close. Naya Blitz is not as popular as it was previously so the fact that it’s not a great match isn’t unbearable.

Bant Auras is also a tough match for B/W Zombies. Maybe Bant Auras is a tough match for most decks, but giving a hexproof guy lifelink is hard to race. I tried out Barter in Blood in addition to Liliana of the Veil but four mana was too much. It’s possible that either Mutilate or Paraselene would be a better choice for the sideboard, but I decided to try Devour Flesh instead.

The only problem with playing Devour Flesh and Liliana of the Veil is that in games where they play Voice of Resurgence, your removal is completely shut down. Black and white don’t have many tools to deal with this strategy, so whichever option you go with, the match is always going to be about 50-50.

Overall, I still like the Orzhov aggro deck. It is capable of some extremely fast draws but also has enough game to win games that go long. If you liked playing Zombies previously in Standard, this may be the deck for you.

Hopefully you enjoyed my differentiated topic list today. There have been so many new developments and issues that have come up recently and they need discussed. What are your thoughts on the new rules changes? Will they have a positive or negative impact on our beloved game? Post your thoughts below and I'll respond.

Until Next Time,

Unleash the Legendary Force!

Mike Lanigan
MtgJedi on Twitter
Jedicouncilman23@gmail.com

Insider: The Psycho on Running a Bot — Is It Worth It?

Posted on by Sebastien Morin

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This week's topic is about taking a journey into the bot universe. We, as a team, decided to make a move towards a bot system, and I will cover the many implications behind such a decision. I think one must carefully assess the pros and cons of this time-consuming task, which can also end up being quite expensive as you will see. As of now, we are six weeks into the process of running two bots which share credits. In the end, I will tell you whether it is worth it or not, based on my personal (although limited) experience.

Think It Through, Then Think About It Some More

If you are serious about running a bot, you should consider the few options that are available to you. If you think you can program it yourself, well, that's great for you, go ahead and use AutoIt. I'm into psychology. I am about to receive my Ph.D., and I never failed a class. The only time I almost failed was when I took an optional course on Introduction to Microsoft Excel. This is just to tell you how super bad I am with technology.

So to me, options were much more limited. We first tried to hire three computer engineers, who knew nothing about Magic. They all gave up after a few days. Given this failure, I also tried contacting a few major bot chains I enjoyed trading with, to see if they would rent their technology, but I received negative answers. I recently approached Goatbots as well, but same story. I was left with just two possibilities:

  1. NS5 bots (mtgons5.com)
  2. Mtgolibrary bots

I ended up choosing Mtgolibrary. One reason was that NS5's website has been down for several weeks, and when it came back up again and I tried dowloading their software, my firewall went nuts detecting malware. Did I tell you I am super bad with computer stuff? That was enough to freak me out, and only Mtgolibrary was left as a final option, even though I find these bots slow like hell compared to engines like Goatbots. As I will tell you, there are ways to make the trades faster, but you have to sacrifice some automation to achieve that.

The Costs of Setting Up a Bot

Mtgolibrary bots are free to use as long as you don't buy or sell anything. Whenever you buy or sell, the owner (a guy named Albert) collects 2.5% of the total amount of the transaction. In order to get away with this fee, you must buy a license (various periods are available, from 1 month all the way up to lifetime). To run more than one bot like we wanted to, you must buy a separate license for each bot.

Now, I had to figure out how to run this software from my laptop, as I have no other computer at home. I'll make this simple, because that's what I would have liked other people to do for me. It's impossible without managing Virtual Machines, because of the limited screen resolution a laptop can handle (the bot requires a resolution of 1200x1024 or higher). If you own a PC, you will probably be OK running just one bot. But then again, if you want to run more than one, you still have to get familiar with virtual machines.

I used VMWare Workstation's 30-days trial version, and honestly it was a pleasant experience. For a noob like me, having a virtual machine running Windows 7, a virtual mouse and a virual keyboard, and software that handles everything for me was awesome.

They have a super nice feature, called "clone." You click a button with that label, and after a ten minute wait you get an exact replica of your first virtual computer. So you set up everything you need, make all the necessary updates for MTGO (including installation of DirectX and .Net framework, whatever those are). Then, you clone the thing and call it a different name (Windows 1, Windows 2, Banana, you pick), and you do this as many times as you want... or can you? Well, it all depends on your memory. I own an Intel Core i5 2.5 GHz, 6GB of RAM. Given these features, I can only support two bots. A third bot makes everything laggy and buggy. There are ways to make the virtual engines less demanding, but I haven't mastered them as of now.

At the end of the trial version, I tried the free edition of VMWare Player, but it was unstable, inconvenient, and the bots didn't run properly. I ended up buying the Workstation licence at a 25% discount, paying 200$.

So far, we are down $200.

Running only two bots is limiting in many ways. First, you only get two ad spaces, which reduces your visibility on the market by a lot. Second, people get more confident when they see a large bot chain with accounts sharing credits. Since I am unable to enhance my laptop's performances, running more bots implies buying a new PC with loads and loads of memory. We are talking about investing an additional $750 here.

Feeding the Bots with Tickets

Then we had to feed our bots with tickets. If not, people open a trade, and they turn away the minute they see we don't have anything available. We decided to allocate 500 tickets per bot, thinking that would last a while. Two days later, I was disappointed. We had bought a bunch of cards we wanted, at prices we had set, in quantities we were comfortable with. The only problem is that all our tickets were already gone.

So I put up an additional 300 tickets, waiting for the right moment to sell our RTR boosters and unlock a nice bunch of tickets (900 tix). Even this additional input didn't last long. I lowered my buying prices again, thinking that whatever we'd end up buying, I'd be super happy with. As I am writing this, we're already out of tickets again (Hey Jeff, I hate having to tell you this via a published article, sorry buddy).

So we are down for an additional $2200

What's Wrong with Our Buylist?

Really, nothing is wrong with the prices we have set. There are a few Standard staples we wanted to acquire at a good price, so we considered the 2.5% and we offered a competitive buying price. But we also wanted to post a buy ad for cards that not many bots post for, because we think those cards are either Modern playable or underpriced Legacy staples. Given that few bots are posting for them, we were offering decent buy prices, but these prices still represented a significant discount compared to mtgotraders' selling prices. In fact, those buying prices we were offering were so low that we would never dare solicit human sellers with such bad offers.

So we used our limited ad space to represent some popular Standard targets we needed (RTR removals and shocklands for example), and devoted the rest of the ad space for cards such as Grove of the Burnwillows, Wasteland, Linvala, Keeper of Silence, Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Birthing Pod or even Goblin Guide.

Here is a sample of our advertised cards with their buylist prices:

Card Name Buying Price (tix)
Grove of the Burnwillows $6.5
Wasteland $47
Jace, the Mind Sculptor $47
Razorverge Thicket $0.25
Linvala, Keeper of Silence $14.25
Goblin Guide $1.35
Brithing Pod $2.49
Leyline of Sanctity $1
Scalding Tarn $7.75

 

Believe it or not, in all of these examples we were successful and acquired a bunch of copies. We were then free to either manually sell the cards off for a quick flip, or hold them for the longer term.

Should We Also Start Selling?

Given the rate at which our tickets were disappearing, we had to decide if we also wanted to sell some cards through our bots. Quickly, a ton of new questions arose. What cards can we sell, if not our long-term targets? If we must sell unowned cards, do we have to first buy more cards? Did we want to buy four copies of every card ever printed, like Aboshan does, in order to be well stocked and encourage players to come back regularly? Did we want to use mtgolibrary's pricelist? Did we only want to buy rares and mythics, like Supernovabot does? Do we want our bots to transfer their collections? Do we want one seller bot and one buying bot?

As of now, some answers are still unclear to me, and we have not fully tested all the possible avenues.

Ready or not, I wanted to give it a try, so I decided to extend my wishlist to buy even more cards, in order to include some bulk rares and other newly available cards from DGM. My rationale was that some DGM rares' value would be less well known to some players, and they would agree to sell them at bulk prices to round up their trades with our bots. For example, I thought about buying Notion Thief and Plasm Capture at 0.10 each, and matched my sell price with Cardbot (roughly 60 cents each). This worked out just fine, and I ended up buying and selling these a few times over the week, with a pretty fair margin.

Some oddities happened when setting up my sell prices. I felt lazy when I got to the Modern cards, so I decided to set prices at a level I would be happy to sell at when the next Modern season arrived. I told myself these selling prices would also act as reminders, like my spreadsheets. For example, I set up my sell prices for Birthing Pod and Razorverge Thicket at 5.00 and 2.00 respectively, knowing I had bought my copies at 2.49 and 0.25 each. I was astonished this weekend when I found out I was sold out on both cards. I had to check back on mtgotraders, and the cards were available there for 4.15 and 0.55 respectively!

Having a bot ready to sell is useful for the future too. I will have to unload a few targets, for which we own large quantities. Doing so manually will be painful. Owning a bot means that I can mark my cards tradeable only when I feel the time is right, and at the price I want. The bot will then slowly unload the cards for me while I'm away.

A Few Pieces of Advice

Running a bot can be really time consuming. (Almost as much as having to rewrite an article because of some misunderstanding on my part of WordPress, but that's a different story.) We made a strong effort to follow our own rules and avoid the mistakes mentioned in our second article. I feel those pieces of advice apply to this part of speculation too, so don't hesitate to refer back to that article.

Stay Focused -- If you are tight on tickets, as we ended up being, make sure you reduce your wishlist to the most important targets you want to acquire. It's easy to be enthusiastic and write a large list of cards you would like to buy at a discount. But if you end up running short on tix all the time, you will find this experience quite expensive. You can also decrease your buy prices, so whatever you buy, you can turn it into instant profits.

Careful With the Quantities -- I have no problems with buying 100 copies of each shockland if the price is close to 2 tix, as I believe it's a safe position. During DGM's prerelease, I scanned the set's mythics and rares to find bulk cards I could buy for cheap. But I neglected to adjust my prices for some of these cards over time. As prices decreased rapidly, some player randomly found out that my bots were buying Savageborn Hydra at 2.00, while mtgotraders was selling them for 1.55. My quantities were set up to 12 per bot, and rest assured the guy made sure I would own all 24 in no time. Reducing your buying quantities to four or eight per bot sounds much safer.

Adjust your Prices Regurlarly -- It may be a little obvious. Since I don't use mtgolibrary's pricelist, I have to check in routinely on mtgotraders and make sure I am not overpaying. With MM's spoilers, I also had to decrease the buy price of many cards. After each completed trade, I also go back to my wishlist and decide if I want to change my price or my quantities, or leave them as is.

Make Sure You Have Enough Money -- Each bot should represent an investment of anywhere between 500 to 1000 tix. If you have that floating around, you should be fine. For any less, I have no idea how you could manage a bot, other than perhaps a bulk bot.

Committing to the Work Required -- This feels quite important. We are six weeks in and I'm just starting to feel more comfortable with the fact I'm running a bot. Fees are adding up quickly. It takes a lot of time to adjust everything every day. Make sure you like handling such things daily before acquiring a free lifetime licence. You wouldn't want to invest this kind of money and get fed up after six months.

Make Sure You Are Visible -- Space in ads is so limited and you have to be clever. Making yourself visible with a few keywords is helpful. Having a few popular cards on your buy list, with a decent premium, will attract many players who will then dump other cards you want, even though you didn't advertise for them on the Classifieds. Selecting which cards should appear on the Classifieds requires some thinking; Jeff and I had to sit and discuss at length why we wanted some specific cards to show up in our ads. The more bots you run, the more likely you are to appear in people's search. Getting trades because you successfully dragged people with clever ads feels quite rewarding.

Was It Worth the Effort?

To conclude, as I get more used to the settings of my bots, I spend less time rearranging my features and my prices. Fewer flaws can be found in my wishlist. We have good visibility because we are strategic with our postings. Some harsh decisions lay ahead of us, such as buying a new PC, or getting licenses for our bots to save on the fees.

Overall, even if it takes some efforts and some time to set up the virtual machines, I think there are good profits to be made. We opted for a strategy where we focus on specific cards, and we intend to gradually unload our cards using our bots when the time comes. Our profits so far fully cover the fees we were charged. We have also covered the license fees for VMWare Workstation.

Starting the bots meant that we had to inject additional capital, but we had the leverage to do so. I will still be able to pay my house and my tuition fees and my income taxes. So stress levels are under control.

Eventually, I could write a detailed guide to help people set up their own bot, in a step-by-step description. Mtgolibrary has a blog for that, but I find their guides confusing at times. Even though I do not feel like an expert in the field of botting, I will gladly help you figure out what your strategy should be, given your bankroll and the time on your hands. And I could certainly ask you a few hundred questions you might never have considered before giving it a try.

The Psycho,
SĂ©bastien Morin

No More Ghosts

Posted on by Ryan Overturf

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I'm going to give this to you straight. Last week's deck sucked. It was a re-hashing of something that I built when I was trying to find joy in Standard and failing. I played with it a decent amount and while I saw how the deck could preform better with different draws, it was glaringly obviously that the deck had some fundamental flaws. I would like to thank Warleader's Helix for being the card that illustrated this to me.

I was sitting there, jamming a match against Esper, and wanting nothing more than to topdeck... a burn spell. Dramatically more than I wanted to draw Thundermaw Hellkite. Being able to deal large volumes of damage at instant speed was allowing me to ignore my opponent a lot better than Geist or Hellkite ever were. That got the wheels turning. I was criminally undervaluing Warleader's Helix by ever asking myself if it was "good enough". One card. Four damage. No reliance on a creature surviving to deliver said damage. And in a format with Snapcaster Mage. Warleader's Helix is the Truth. I'm sorry, Aurelia. I will appreciate your gifts more in the future.

Geist of Saint Traft is just well past his prime. I can't tell you how many Far/Aways I've been running into, and a Gray Ogre is straight embarrassing against the aggressive decks. I don't know the exact numbers, but edicts and beatdowns make up a very high percentage of the metagame. This made me lean towards wanting Boros Reckoner as my three drop, but after more testing I'm just thinking I don't want to be a deck that plays creatures that only attack and block. I would like to thank Ken-Min Yeoh for helping me come to this conclusion.

Inspiration

In case you missed it, here is the deck that was SCG Dallas this weekend. My first impression of this list is that it's... well, a little rough. That planeswalker/Assemble the Legion split tells me that there was a great deal of uncertainty about how this deck wanted to play the late game and I can't say that I'm impressed by Turn/Burn in a deck that isn't generally capable of using it as a combat trick to get a two-for-one. That said I like a lot of what is going on with the deck. Warleader's Helix, Sphinx's Revelation and Snapcaster Mage make for a fantastic core of a counter-burn type shell.

My first impression was that the absence of Restoration Angel was somewhat surprising, but then I spent a good amount of time losing to Ghor-Clan Rampager and having my Angels edict'd by the black decks. That being the case, having a miser's Aetherling sounded pretty fantastic. It shouldn't ever die to edict, and while it's inefficient on the blocking scene there's no reason you need to play more than one, so it won't hurt too much against the aggressive decks.

After messing around with Ken's list and my list I ended up with the following:

Another Version of the Truth

spells

4 Augur of Bolas
4 Snapcaster Mage
1 Aetherling
4 Pillar of Flame
4 Searing Spear
1 Detention Sphere
2 Warleader's Helix
4 Sphinx's Revelation
2 Dissipate
4 Azorius Charm
2 Thought Scour
1 Supreme Verdict

lands

4 Hallowed Fountain
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Sacred Foundry
4 Steam Vents
4 Sulfur Falls
4 Clifftop Retreat
2 Cavern of Souls
1 Island

The differences from my list last week are dramatic, to say the least. Let's just say I like what Ken was doing a lot better than what I was doing. Even still, this list is relevantly different from his, so let's talk about where I deviate and why:

All of the Pillars (of Flame)

A lot of players trim on their Pillars, and that's pretty reasonable. The card is fairly lackluster against slower decks/ decks that don't have x/(2/1) creatures or creatures that they don't care much about attacking with. That said, I'm always going to want access to all four against blitz and/or decks with Voice of Resurgence. Having all of the Pillars in all of the games, as I said last week, significantly increases your odds against very aggressive decks. They'll consistently be beating you down hard and early, so you need to consistently be able to answer their threats.

I also haven't minded Pillar as much against slow decks now that Warleader's Helix is a thing. It's a lot easier to just burn an opponent out with this sort of archetype than it was before Dragon's Maze and that often ends up being my game plan.

Cavern of Souls Versus Desolate Lighthouse

I was definitely among the players most excited when Desolate Lighthouse was spoiled but I just can't justify playing it over or in addition to Cavern of Souls in this deck. This deck has a lot of colored mana symbols and only one Aetherling. Not being able to cast spells sucks and not resolving Aetherling can be game over outright. That and the only other creatures are 8x Wizard. The value from Augur and Snapcaster help make up for the fact that we're not looting, and I can't say that I really miss it. If you're greedier than I then by all means, jam Lighthouse. But do it in addition to Cavern.

Augur of Bolas over Think Twice

I absolutely agree that decks like this want to be able to generate card advantage, and Think Twice is a fine option. I elect to play Augur over it for a few reasons though. If Augur's body is relevant, then it's pretty clearly a more efficient two-for-one, since with 23 Instants and Sorceries it will usually hit. Another point for Augur is that Think Twice doesn't block Burning-Tree Emissary or kill Lightning Mauler in combat.

The biggest selling point though, from my perspective, is that the innocuous body of Augur really helps in the execution of the burn plan against the non-creature decks. When your burn isn't doing anything else, just rumbling for one every turn and throwing a couple Spears and Helixes at your opponent will win games.

What I can tell you definitively about this deck is that playing with this recent incarnation has been the most fun I've had playing Standard in years. It's pretty clear that the deck is going to have some trouble against Sire of Insanity. If you have answers to this problem beyond just "ignore it", I'd love to hear them. I'm thinking about trying Devil's Play. Either way, this deck is potent, and IMO a blast. A great improvement over last week's.

Thanks for reading.
-Ryan Overturf
@RyanOverdrive on Twitter

Jason’s Archives: How Much Do We Trust Wizards, Anyway?

Posted on by Jason Alt

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Greetings, Spacklers!

Boy, there sure is a lot of info out there.

Asimov Warned Us

It was Asimov (albeit talking about anti-intellectualism, not a children's card game) who talked about "the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'" Since MTG finance is essentially pattern recognition in its purest form (something we as humans do unconsciously, giving us concepts like "luck" and "superstition"), we can look to historical data to tell us what's going to happen.

But what do we do when an upcoming set's release is unprecedented and all we hear are false equivalences? Worse, how do we deal with information proliferation in an age where anyone with a keyboard can express their opinion? Has the internet eliminated the need for expert opinion or has it just made it harder to filter through the noise to get to real, useful information?

How in the world should we, as financiers, approach Modern Masters?

No One Knows

It's safe to say no one knows how Modern Masters will affect things. With Chronicles being too long ago for most of us to recall and MTG finance not really being as much of a thing back then, we don't have much of a comparison. Even if we could safely compare the two, is it fair? Chronicles was a shock to everyone. The game was in its infancy and while the cards weren't as valuable as they are now, they were still discovering the intrinsic value of the secondary market.

Chronicles dealt a severe blow to the confidence of the people with money invested in the cards and nearly ruined the game. Modern Masters solves these problems by making the set a limited release and making good on a promise never to print cards on the reserve list. But what effect will a glut of new cards have on the secondary market? What should we do?

There are a lot of opinions being bandied about on the Magic Finance Subreddit, another discussion forum that uses the Democracy to highlight good ideas and/or promulgate awful ones.

However, if you delve a bit deeper, you can use the upvote system to get a general idea of what the community thinks the effects of Modern Masters will be. Whether or not these proclamations are made based on real analysis, opinion or guessing, if they get more upvotes, it's likely a greater percentage of the community agrees with that idea. While it's true no one knows for sure, everyone seems to think they do, and you can make out quite well if you're prepared for what people think will happen.

Exhibit A

Thoughtseize at Mythic or Uncommon?

Crunching the numbers, there is no black rare slot in the set left for Thoughtseize at rare. With Thoughtseize flirting with an $80 price tag a few months ago, would Modern Masters really be much of a success if it didn't help people get the copies of this card, played as a four-of, that they need? Thoughtseize at mythic will do almost nothing for the price tag, and it seems unlikely to be printed at mythic anyway.

The community seems to have decided that Thoughtseize will be in M14 (doubtful), Theros (maybe) or Modern Masters as an uncommon. Boy, wouldn't that drive down the price. What we have is a situation where either Thoughtseize is reprinted in a set coming up, likely as rare, and its value goes down a bit, so you should sell now, or it's going to be in Modern Masters as an uncommon and you should really sell now. Add to this the fact that the OP in this thread said the discussion caused him to buy another Thoughtseize now to complete his set. Others will likely follow suit.

So who's right? Will it be in M14? In Theros block? Will it be in Modern Masters as an uncommon? Here's the best part! It doesn't matter! We can argue all we want, and there is certainly a bit of that in this thread. But it doesn't matter!

No one has proposed a scenario where the price of Thoughtseize goes up in the short term. If it isn't reprinted at all, its price will continue to tick up in the long term, following its current trajectory, and may even see a small short-term bump when it's not reprinted in the near-term, but when that flattens out you can rebuy at the same price. Meanwhile, you are guaranteed to be selling at the peak now, and in most cases you can rebuy for much less soon. Selling is a no-brainer and all the speculation out there seems to be inclining people to buy, not sell.

Exhibit B

Dealing with Singles

The highest-upvoted comment says the commons and uncommons are going to tank (I agree) and the rares and mythics won't drop that much (I don't know that I agree). Is he right? Again, it doesn't matter. We have a small cross-section of the community here, true, but this is a subreddit that people opt into. The people reading and posting in it are inclined toward finance, so what they think tends to indicate how the "herd" is going to behave with regard to finance decisions when the packs hit the shelves.

If people don't think rares or mythics will drop much, it's a good time to sell them (if you think they're at their peak) and buy in later. Whether or not the people are ultimately proven correct, you need to know what they're thinking in the run-up to this set. If you have any commons or uncommons that are spoiled or likely reprints, you should have sold already. There are more sellers than buyers right now for those, so make sure you don't wait.

This article isn't about telling you basic stuff like that, though. It's about letting you know what everyone else is thinking. The QS forums are a very good tool, but the info is just sitting there for free on reddit, so why not take advantage?

Exhibit C

General MM Ideas

The general perception of Modern Masters is that not enough will be printed to meet demand. The high prices for boxes on the secondary market, the proliferation of the notion that there is one print run, distributed in two waves, and the general balking at sites charging $300 a box, all indicate that the burgeoning community of next generation financiers seems to feel that even with super-high EV these packs are probably not worth buying and won't affect the prices much.

But how can those both be true? If they won't bring prices down, they are worth buying. Both of these attitudes, which seem to contradict each other, show that the community is divided on the issue and no compelling argument sways the masses.

Which is correct? Will the packs be a bad buy at $12-$15 each or will there not be enough printed to bring prices down? It doesn't matter! If the community has no idea, it's almost assuredly a good idea to sell what you have now and wait for sealed product in a second wave where the presale prices have calmed down a bit. There is almost no chance of having to rebuy for more money later with more copies of the cards out there, so I'm selling what I have.

You guys know how I feel about free information, I'm very vocal about it. My entire Gathering Magic column was born from my advocation of Twitter as a medium for free Magic knowledge, financial and otherwise, as well as a good networking tool. The Finance subreddit is a little green but even if you think people know less than you, there is a lot of data to be mined, and it's never a bad idea to know what people are thinking.

I'm not suggesting the subreddit will ever replace the QS forums (I still swear it's fora); it's a supplement. The information on both places is different, but valuable. You can bounce your ideas off of a newer audience, see how people react to things and generally just crowdsource. In a lot of cases, crowdsourced answers are more accurate than those derived from asking a small number of experts.

This doesn't have to be depressing. If ten million people are all wrong about Modern Masters, but they act on bad information, what good did being right do you? You missed out on financial opportunity, and being able to predict behavior is an opportunity for serious financial gain. I'd recommend checking the MTG finance subreddit at this address.

Standings From What's Still a Stale, Stalled Standard

GP Guadalajara

Standard is slow to adopt new archetypes, and it may take rotation for players to switch from "look how much better this one new card made my old deck" mode to "here's a new archetype, so you can take that gun out of your mouth, Jason" mode.

Maybe the Central American metagame is a little different and we'll see something interesting in this Top 8.

Blitz. Reanimator. Naya.

Fascinating. At least there's no Jund, I guess.

Alfonso Ramirez Padilla managed to pilot the new "Bhorzhov" deck I've seen bandied about and I like it. It's a good, slower shell that fits Sire of Insanity a bit better than stupid old Jund. While Jund tends to topdeck well, this deck topdecks better, running nothing but solid removal, utility creatures and, most importantly, spells like Unburial Rites and Lingering Souls that it's totally OK to pitch to Sire.

Players will have to get more creative with Sire after rotation (or they'll just turn their hand into Ooze food in the same old stupid Jund colors, more likely) but for now, WHEEEEEE. This deck is basically a modified Aristocrats deck, keeping the powerful "Act 2" engine that made the former better than the non-act versions of the deck (against which I advocated) and eschewing weak creatures in favor of more removal and bigger creatures.

It manages as good or better against aggro (too many creatures and 1-for-1 removal spells from Act 2 were not enough to slow down Naya and Gruul blitz) and doesn't lose to the same decks that beat aggro the way the Aristocrats tended to. When Blasphemous Act is gone, the reasons to run Obzedat, Ghost Council over Blood Baron of Vizkopa are fewer and farther between. Blood Baron is getting more work done than Joan Rivers. Thank you for not boring me, Alfonso Ramirez Padilla.

Domri Rade is getting even more respect. I think he could go up after rotation. Everyone is ready for Jace, Architect of Thought to jump, but Domri could see a similar spike. People will still want to play red and green together, and this guy is card draw, removal and a clock all in one. When there are fewer small creatures to attack him and more fatties to find with him he gets a lot better. Your fights become more one-sided, he's easier to protect, and drawing an extra fatty is much more oppressive than using his +1 to draw a turn seven Experiment One like you might now. I'm snagging these in trade.

Does anyone else hope they don't print Acidic Slime in M14? For the time being, everyone is excited about Acidic Slime and Progenitor Mimic. Mimic is poised to go up. The new legend rule lets you copy saucier targets like Prime Speaker Zegana, a slower format means he'll do more work and the loss of cards like Conjurer's Closet (which didn't see a ton of play) and Restoration Angel (which did) could make this pseudo-flash much better in a new, slower Standard. Mimic won't be cheaper than it is now for a while. Inside sources claim this card was hot at the GP and the SCG Open both.

Insert Shoehorned "Double Standard" Joke Here

Some Lists

Hopefully Different Lists

This was Memorial Day weekend. It's my birthday soon, my beloved Blackhawks just embarrassed the Red Wings at home to force Game 7, it was barbeque weather... I just couldn't care about the coverage for a double Standard weekend in Dallas.

Accordingly, I was totally baffled by the listings here. Coverage says Aaron Barich got first one of the days and merely Top 8'd the other day --"merely". Heh. When my buddy Josh Glantzman did the same thing I made a huge deal out of it-- but the coverage has him listed in first both days. I wish I knew better who really got Top 8 and who won, but it doesn't matter that much. Let's just look at the decks, I guess.

I don't want to spend a ton of time on this since there isn't much new here.

I'm assuming this guy won Saturday with a deck that I like rather a lot. Aetherling is not a card I expect to be worth a ton of money, no matter how good it is, but they're good to target now because they're probably too cheap.

This deck is a nightmare to pilot, but the options give you a chance to win every game if you play tight enough. It's a real skill tester but I like the answers it has, the clock is has, the resilience it has. I found myself wishing they'd reprinted Lightning Helix instead of Warleader's Helix. They obviously could never have done that in a format with Snapcaster Mage, but it was nice to dream. Warleader's Helix is less than half as good as Lightning Helix, but even that is stupid good right now. This deck is losing a lot of tools in the rotation, but I feel like it can find replacements without having to add a color.

Peddle sure has changed a lot in the past few months. With all of the good Simic and Izzet cards coming out, it made little sense to keep black in the deck at all. Ral Zarek seems like he's found a home, but I still stand by the "more cute than good" pronouncement I made of his +1 ability when the card was spoiled.

I like this deck a ton, though. It can stem the tide of aggro, and if control doesn't answer some of its nuttier interactions such as Progenitor Mimic + Thragtusk it has a ton of inevitability. I like how this deck looks, now. As much as I like Jeff Hoogland's contribution to the game, I'm going to have to give the new Peddle builds the nod over RUG Flash.

Bant Hexproof got a lot of resilience in the form of Voice of Resurgence, but the deck still scoops to its own draws. Mulliganing is too punishing, and even adding more creatures may not be enough. Sweepers pants the deck, and mulliganing post-board into hands with permission is risky. The deck has a large number of "forced" mulligans inherent in its mana base, low creature count and trying to mull to sideboard cards is bad news bears. A few removal spells and the deck folds like a cheap suit. It punishes its opponents' bad draws and steamrolls people when it's good, but when it's bad, it's the worst deck in Standard.

Desecration Demon is poised to do some serious work soon. It's already a monster, and Lingering Souls, Doomed Traveler and Huntmaster of the Fells leaving will help it do even more. This is a bulk pickup right now in trade and it's $2 TCG mid. Several sites are paying over a dollar for this guy. Get them now.

Unfortunately for this deck, Disciple of Bolas is leaving us. I really wanted that card to catch on, but it never did and I'm not really sure why. It is so much advantage rolled into one card. Oh well, you can tell the metagame it's a good idea to run Mutilate, but they don't have to listen. This guy did, though, and he was probably a few OMW% points out of Top 8. If he had made Top 8, a lot more people would be taking his deck seriously. Funny how that works. I like this build and it encourages you to buy a lot of Liliana of the Veil, which you should be doing anyway right now.

The rest of both Top 8s looked familiar. Lots of Jund, R/G Aggro and Reanimator. I'd look into promising control decks that don't lean too heavily on Innsitrad block cards if I were you. Aggro is attractive right now, but it's losing a lot of its speed, mostly in the form of its good one-drops. Playing doofier ones like Rakdos Cackler is an option, but all control has to do to delay the clock is break up battalion. Control will have fewer hardships going forward than midrange decks which lose Huntmaster and Thragtusk. They can't take as much early damage as they used to.

That's all the Magic news that's fit to print and I bid you adieu. Check with me next week.

Insider: The Impact of General Reprints on Price

Posted on by David Schumann

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Welcome back readers. With the positive responses I got from my article about how judge foils affect a card's value I thought I'd delve deeper into the question of reprints. While judge reprints and limited print runs (Commander/Duel Decks/Planechase/etc.) can potentially devalue a card, chances are much higher for a reprint in an actual block or core set to decrease a card's value, as many more are added to circulation.

So we want to get an idea of price changes that occur after general reprints. I've compiled some data on several reprints, found below. I'll comment on each one individually, and then sum up my findings in the final section.

First a side note about what I call "immediate reprints." This term refers to reprints like the M10 buddy lands (Glacial Fortress, Dragonskull Summit, et.al.) which are released within a year of the previous printing. Immediate reprints are much more difficult to track down. The price may or may not have had time to stabilize and often won't change since the card remains in Standard for an extended time frame. For this reason, we'll focus exclusively on cards that had a significant time gap between their last printings and their reprints.

Our working hypothesis is that the sample cards will show relatively stable prices up until the time they were spoiled, at which point they will drop slightly as people unload their old ones. Then prices would drop even further when the set is actually released.

The Sample

Let's define the criteria we're looking for in our sample cards.

  1. Cards whose first printing was at least somewhat valuable. When bulk rares are reprinted they will usually stay bulk.
  2. Rares and mythic rares. Uncommons are occasionally valuable but usually not.
  3. No Timeshifted cards. The probability of getting a Timeshifted rare is lower than that of a regular rare, so they enjoyed lower print runs.

All prices come from Black Lotus Project, when available (at times there is a lack of information, or a plateau for an extended period). When this occurred I used MTG stocks for replacement data. I mention this because BLP prices are often noticeably lower than elsewhere on the internet, since their prices are all pulled from MOTL.

It's also important to note that I did not include data from two months after a reprint became legal. For example, Meddling Mage, while maintaining its price 1-2 months after its release, continued to drop to the $2-3 range where it remains today.

Card Name Original Printing (Release Date) Reprinting (Release Date) Gap
Grim Lavamancer Torment (Feb 4, 2002) Magic 2012 (Jul 15, 2011) 9 years
Mutilate Torment (Feb 4, 2002) Magic 2013 (Jul 13, 2012) 10 years
Time Warp Tempest (Oct 13, 1997) Magic 2010 (Jul 17, 2009) 12 years
Quicksilver Amulet Urza's Legacy (Feb 15, 1999) Magic 2012 (Jul 15, 2011) 12 years
Darksteel Colossus Darksteel (Feb 6, 2004) Magic 2010 (Jul 17, 2009) 5 years
Haunting Echoes Odyssey (Oct 1, 2001) Magic 2010 (Jul 17, 2009) 8 years
Ball Lightning 5th Edition (Mar 24, 1997)* Magic 2010 (Jul 17, 2009) 12 years
Mindslaver Mirrodin (Oct 3, 2003) Scars of Mirrodin (Oct 1, 2010) 7 years
Akroma's Memorial Future Sight (May 4, 2007) Magic 2013 (Jul 13, 2012) 5 years
Gilded Lotus Mirrodin (Oct 3, 2003) Magic 2013 (Jul 13, 2012) 9 years
Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker Conflux (Feb 6, 2009) Magic 2013 (Jul 13, 2012) 3 years
Meddling Mage Planeshift (Feb 5, 2001) Alara Reborn (Apr 30, 2009) 8 years
Rites of Flourishing Future Sight (May 4, 2007) Magic 2012 (Jul 15, 2011) 4 years
Door to Nothingness Fifth Dawn (Jun 4, 2004) Magic 2013 (Jul 13, 2012) 8 years

* Not actual original printing. Ball Lightning was printed several times in a row in under-printed sets.
 

The Data

Card Name Price Upon Spoiling ($) Price at Reprint Release Price 2 Months After Reprint % Change in Value Comments
Grim Lavamancer $7.43 $5.76 $4.13 -44.4% It's interesting to note that Grim Lavamancer, after a minor downturn upon spoiling, actually went up to $9.51 before plummeting back down. This is likely due to old school players seeking the original Torment prints for Standard use. It also helps that this is a Legacy staple for burn decks and was originally printed in a middle set.
Mutilate  $2.48  $2.42  $2.2 -11.29% This card didn't really change a whole lot, which makes sense given its value before being spoiled was primarily related to casual and EDH.
Time Warp  $2.88  $2.44  $5.84 +102% Time Warp actually saw a price increase two months after being released in M10. This may be due to the fact that it was primarily a casual card until its reintroduction into Standard and also because it was printed at the mythic rarity, thus reducing the number added to circulation.
Quicksilver Amulet  $3.34  $2.41  $2.33  -29.6% This is a highly desirable casual card and while its pre-spoiled price was only $3.34, I was easily able to trade these at $5 prior to their reprinting solely based on casual demand and scarcity.
Darksteel Colossus  $9.76  $7.79  $4.69  -52.04% This was the original king of the robots, one of the prominent Tinker targets in Vintage before he was replaced by his nastier brother Blightsteel Colossus. It's interesting to note that unlike Time Warp, which also jumped in rarity, his price still dropped dramatically.
Haunting Echoes  $4.99  $3.6  $2.04 -58.91% Haunting Echoes saw play during its Odyssey block stint in the powerful Traumatic Echoes deck, which utilized mill and library removal to empty the opponent's deck as early as turn 5-6. Mill is often a "casual" win strategy and the people who enjoy the mill strategy love doing it.
Ball Lightning  $5.42  $6.34  $4.49 -17.15% Ball Lightning was considered an iconic card, especially for burn players, so its reprinting caused a lot of excitement. People seemed to scramble to get old copies, thus the rise in price, before the M10 copies pulled the price back down.
Mindslaver  $2.26  $2.69  $2.31  +0.02% It's important to note that this card shot up upon its spoiling and then trended downward to its previous price. It did go from rare to mythic rare though, thus limiting the influx of supply.
Akroma's Memorial  $14.27  $7.33  $4.26  -70.14% I have to admit my surprise at how much this card dropped with its reprint. This casual all-star was difficult to find in trade binders prior to its reprinting. Its price may also have taken a blow courtesy of Eldrazi Monument (which competed for the same spot in most casual decks).
Gilded Lotus  $6.53  $3.51  $2.48  -62.02% If Akroma's Memorial was difficult to find in trade binders, Gilded Lotus was nigh impossible prior to its reprint. This was quite often an automatic inclusion for any EDH deck as it allows for massive ramp while color-fixing, however being reprinted at regular rare in a highly-opened set dropped the value rapidly.
Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker  $16.99  $12.66  $10.66  -37.25% This card is a casual player favorite, a planeswalker, an iconic Magic character, with very powerful abilities. It still dropped by 37%.
Meddling Mage  $7.45  $12.38  $8.21  +10.2% While Meddling Mage saw a nice jump upon being spoiled, its value continued to drop after release, eventually settling into the $3 range.
Rites of Flourishing  $1.12  $0.69  $0.59  -47.32% A good "slightly above bulk" casual/EDH card for group hug decks, this card has fallen to the "bulk" status courtesy of its reprint.
Door to Nothingness  $1.63  $0.6  $0.5  -69.32% Another casual favorite as it has the "instant win" factor. It dropped dramatically as many more copies hit the market and demand was unable to catch up.

 

Important things to take away from this chart:

  1. The average value change caused by reprinting was -27.66%.
  2. Cards from smaller sets (or 3rd sets) whose value was heavily based on lack of availability plummeted the most (Akroma's Memorial/Gilded Lotus/Door to Nothingness).
  3. Often many cards shot up in value upon being spoiled, but quickly plummeted back down. Thus, if you have original copies (and don't care which version you play) unload within a day or two of spoiling.
  4. The shorter the time gap between the reprints the higher the likelihood of a massive price drop.
  5. Changing from regular rare to mythic rare doesn't necessarily prevent a card from dropping in value (in fact one of our worst offenders did just that; see Akroma's Memorial).
  6. Another factor to consider is if the card is still legal in Standard. Many of the cards on this list are still legal (M13 reprints) and Standard card values tend to be dependent on the metagame. Often the best gauge for a card's casual value doesn't occur until after it has rotated and the influx of rotational supply has died down.
  7. A reprint with different artwork can be worth more or less than their original printing, depending on the overall attitude towards the artwork itself (similar to the judge promos mentioned last week).
  8. While the chart doesn't always show it, there are two outcomes when a reprint is spoiled; a) it begins to drop almost immediately as players unload their original copies understanding they will most likely drop in value or b) they get a sudden jump in price as players try to pick up the originals believing, however, it's important to note that if b) occurs it's almost always followed by a sudden drop again. So if you have copies of the originals and you see the price going up after spoiling, don't expect it to remain up. (This trend was noticed on Meddling Mage, Grim Lavamancer, and Mindslaver)
  9. Casual reprints at the mythic rarity may rebound back to their original price or even above (Time Warp is now listed at $4.78), however this will most likely not occur until after they've rotated (see #7). Cards to watch out for are Akroma's Memorial and Nicol Bolas, both of which I expect to rebound somewhat (although Bolas had another printing in the Duel decks, which is likely to deflate his long-term value). My guess is that both will end up above $10 within the next two years, barring anymore reprints.

Insider: Cautious Investing with Modern Masters & Legacy

Posted on by Sigmund Ausfresser

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Talk about information overload! Who has been keeping up with all these Modern Masters spoilers? It’s interesting to note how Wizards of the Coast is doing their best to keep this set balanced from a value standpoint.

In other words, every pack won’t contain a $10 rare. Or even a $1 rare for that matter:

For each of these disappointing reprints, there is one more valuable card in Modern which won’t be reprinted. On the one hand, I’m actually glad Wizards didn’t make Modern Masters a set of the 227 most valuable cards in Modern. Sealed product would have been even more cost prohibitive and the Limited environment would have been garbage. I’m confident Wizards made this reprint-set a fun format to draft.

So What’s Next?

As of writing this article, only 72 cards have been confirmed on MTG Salvation. I suspect this number to be much higher by Tuesday. Until then, there is no certainty a given card won’t show up.

Even then it will be inevitable that some cards will not be listed in Modern Masters. I see no sign of Mutavault yet, nor Noble Hierarch. To me, the biggest card missing is Thoughtseize. We will have to see if all three of these cards remain absent from the set as spoilers continue to roll in.

It may be tempting to hop online and buy the internet out of all the Modern playables which did not see a reprint. My advice: refrain from doing this. Speculating on expensive cards in Modern simply because they are not seeing reprint is incredibly risky. There is nothing to stop Wizards from putting the “overlooked” cards right into M14 or even Theros block.

Sure, a card like Thoughtseize could climb through the roof should it not be reprinted. But Wizards has been fully aware of this card’s high price and equally high utility in Modern and Legacy. I am confident we’ll see this one before next Modern PTQ season. And even if I’m wrong, will it be worth the risk?

Speculation and quick flips can be a fine strategy for some people. I am just stressing the high level of risk with buying into cards not in Modern Masters. You may be able to catch momentum in the market and harness some of the movement for a quick profit. But to me the potential downside is much greater.

Expected Value of Sealed Modern Masters

The fact that Skeletal Vampire and (arguably worse) Greater Gargadon are in Modern Masters tells me something more about Wizards, beyond their attention to the Limited format. They are not willing to print an overpowered and overpriced set. I can respect that.

But there may be an impact here on sealed product prices. Currently Modern Masters Booster Boxes are available for preorder on eBay for $250. This price has been creeping up from the $200 I observed a couple weeks ago. Is momentum still upward? This is tough to say.

How would you feel if you paid $30 to draft Modern Masters (since these are selling way above MSRP), only to open Greater Gargadon, Skeletal Vampire, and Molten Disaster? You may have a solid Rakdos deck drafted, but you would not be making much value out of your packs. You may also be inclined to avoid the Tarmogoyf lottery in the future.

My initial reaction to these spoilers, after “no Thoughtseize yet?” is “these boxes should settle in price”. There appears to be sufficient bulk in this set so that packs cannot be opened willy nilly to open value. And no matter how much you hype up the set, there’s no way someone can artificially inflate preorder prices of these singles. There is no perceived shortage of supply of most of the rares, and no one is going to pay $1.99 for Molten Disaster.

Because the preorder prices on Modern Masters singles are somewhat restricted by the price of their counterparts, there may be some motivation for dealers and stores to refrain from opening packs to sell the singles. This is especially the case while sealed product is so high. They would just as soon let the players gamble their money and open these packs. Should this happen, more sealed product may be available on the market. As a result, I would expect prices on booster boxes of Modern Masters to decrease once the set is released.

Then again, my argument that people won’t want to gamble so much money to open a Tarmogoyf is not wholly true


Shifting Gears to SCG’s Double Standard

We’ve had another Legacy-less weekend at the SCG Open this past weekend. This is really so disappointing. The current Standard format is largely boring and unevolving. Sure, there were fifteen copies of Voice of Resurgence in the Top 8 (although it looks like none made it past the quarterfinals). But the energy for spectators to watch live coverage of Standard just isn’t there.

I still cannot fully understand SCG’s move to less Legacy on Sundays. Their attendance argument makes sense, but it’s incongruous with their recent price hikes on Legacy staples. What are they accomplishing by selling Force of Will for $100? They certainly aren’t selling a lot at that price judging based on how many they present in stock:

That’s a lot of Force of Wills that no one can play with because they are being held hostage by a major vendor. The same observation can be made with Lion's Eye Diamond:

So many copies in stock
 not selling.

Follow my rationale here and please do comment if I’m flawed. Star City Games, the largest Legacy tournament organizer in the Western Hemisphere, has made it clear by their actions that some Legacy tournaments are not paying out acceptably. Therefore, they are reducing the number of Legacy events they’re offering each year. Thus, demand for Legacy – especially in the regions getting an alternate Sunday event – would likely decrease.

After all, I’m not going to buy that last Underground Sea for my Legacy deck if I know the local SCG Open this year is going to be Standard-Standard.

With this decrease in demand, we would expect prices to temper. But instead the opposite has happened – they’ve increased yet again.

We’re not talking pennies here, either. Underground Sea has increased about 20% according to the mtgstocks.com curve. Why would these Dual Lands increase in price if there are fewer opportunities to use them? With the price hike coming so recently, I find it difficult to believe it’s directly related to increased player base. Did Dragon’s Maze really drive that many more players to Magic? If it was truly demand driven, wouldn’t the curve be less steep and begin rising around Return to Ravnica, like Polluted Delta did?

I guess I can’t provide any hard evidence, but I am beginning to wonder if Legacy is in a true bubble. People talk about price memory – no one is willing to sell their Force of Wills for less than $50 because that’s what they all paid for them. This argument holds true but only to a point. That’s like saying gold will never sell for less than $1600/ounce again because so many people paid more than that for their gold. Any Wall Street investor or goldbug could tell you the fallacy behind this rationale (chart from http://www.bullionvault.com/gold-price-chart.do).

Reactions may be incredibly delayed, but bubbles always burst. I’m not suggesting Legacy is dying. There’s a strong enough player base so that the format will remain strong. I’m merely commenting on the irrationality of the latest price jumps.

“Price memory” is driving bubble-like behavior. Should SCG decide they wanted to move their Legacy holdings more quickly, they could easily drop their prices and flood the market with new copies, thus dropping prices further. The cycle would continue until the “Invisible Hand” sets the new price. This outcome is more likely than some people would like to admit – and with each non-Legacy weekend, the odds of a Legacy price pullback increases a tiny bit more.

Buy Nothing?

Ok, so I’ve sat here and written about how buying Modern is bad now, buying Legacy is bad now, and Standard is boring now. It seems like I’m advocating a buy-nothing strategy. This isn’t exactly the case.

Standard will be rotating soon. With that rotation, cards from Return to Ravnica will become stronger and more in demand. I am still supportive of acquiring Shock Lands, although their prices are slightly less favorable already. Abrupt Decay and Supreme Verdict are still fine trade targets. And I’ve even warmed up to Jace, Architect of Thought.

Outside of Standard, there are plenty of Modern cards worth acquiring which aren’t in the spotlight. Birthing Pod is a ban-risk, but the card is still cheap enough such that purchasing a few presents some upside. Worldwake Manlands – specifically the blue ones – have moved well lately, and Modern season should amplify this. And while Mox Opal is getting all the attention after the Legendary rules change, Inkmoth Nexus should see a price increase as well.

Net, there are plenty of places to look to – but they are more geared towards safer investments rather than hyped speculation. If you enjoy the rush of speculation, feel free to buy the most valuable Modern card not in Modern Masters. You may make handy profit if you’re quick enough, but please keep the risks in mind. Likewise, I’d avoid investing in Legacy beyond what’s needed for decks at this point. Upside is limited and downside is apparent. There are plenty of better opportunities out there.




Sigbits

  • Remember the Wurm tokens created by Wurmcoil Engine? I remember how they buy listed to SCG for $3 at one point. I am beginning to believe the Elemental tokens created by Voice of Resurgence may follow a similar price trend. These are sold out at SCG at $1.99 and I’ve seen copies on eBay sell for an average of $2.50. Knowing how obscure these are, and how little Dragon’s Maze will be opened, this seems like a safe way to invest in Voice of Resurgence with less downside risk.
  • Misdirection has been getting some buzz on Twitter lately, and I recently bought a foil Japanese copy from eBay on a whim. Star City Games has just a few regular copies and two foil English copies in stock, and I could easily see a sudden price increase there.
  • Thespian's Stage is another noteworthy card coming out of the recent rule changes. The card now combos well with Dark Depths. Is this strategy viable in Legacy? I doubt it. Is this strategy viable enough to increase the card’s price? You betcha! Copies are up to $1.99 on Star City Games and mtgstocks.com has also indicated a recent price increase.

-Sigmund Ausfresser
@sigfig8

Insider: Finding Value in Dragon’s Maze

Posted on by Matthew Lewis

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Dragon's Maze (DGM) has been available online for a couple of weeks now, and the market prices on cards from this set have settled down enough to make early analysis possible. Keep in mind that DGM is a 3rd set, which historically has meant higher prices on average. If there's going to be a 45+ tix card in the latest Ravnica block, chances are it will be from this set. Let's dive in and look at the latest expansion.

The Rating System

I use this rating system to think about the value of mythic rares. I feel the system has utility and is a good way to assess whether or not cards are worth buying. Each mythic is followed by the current price and a rating, either Good Value, Fully Priced or Borderline. I also present a Top Overall Pick.

  • Good Value -- At current prices or in the given price range, this card is a buy and I expect it to see higher prices in the medium- to long-term. These cards are the best speculative targets from a value perspective. Some of these cards might never make a splash in competitive constructed formats, but the risk of loss, if bought at the suggested prices, is low.
  • Fully Priced -- This is the other end of the spectrum, where downside risks are high. Fully Priced cards might maintain a high price, but further gains are doubtful. Do not buy these at current prices to speculate on.
  • Borderline -- This is somewhere in the middle of the other two, with some possibility of moving up or down in price. For cards with this rating, further scrutiny is required beyond just the price. If you have a large amount of capital, buy some amount of these cards and scoop up more if the price falls.

All prices are taken from mtgotraders and are current as of May 23rd, 2013.

Fully Priced

Blood Baron of Vizkopa: I think we'll be seeing more of this card in the future, but I expect further price weakness over the coming months. I'd be a buyer in the 4-5 tix range, but the current price is 9.14 tix and so it's Fully Priced.

Legion's Initiative: Expect this card to continue to drop in price. Comparable anthem effects have been printed that don't see much use in Standard, such as Intangible Virtue. Stay away from this card. Current price is 3.92 tix and Fully Priced.

Maze's End: Its use in Block Constructed has pulled this card up from pure junk into the overpriced range. Also, prereleases were popular online and everybody who participated in those events got a date-stamped copy. Current price is 3.14 tix and Fully Priced.

Ral Zarek: Planeswalkers get a bit better with the latest rule changes, allowing you to refresh the loyalty counters by casting a second copy of your favorite planeswalker. Looking at the power level of recent ones such as Vraska, I think it's somewhat obvious these rule changes have been costed into the more recent 'walkers. My sense for this card is that it will be a solid role player in Standard but the price should continue to drop in the short term. I'd be a buyer in the 6-7 tix range, but the current price is 9.75 tix and thus it's Fully Priced.

Reap Intellect: Pure junk with value only to redeemers. This card is already down to 0.85 tix and will be going lower, but should hold 1+ tix in the Fall. Buy this one for 0.5 tix or less. At the moment though, this is Fully Priced.

Borderline

Deadbridge Chant: This card has seen some application in Standard Jund lists, but I am skeptical of its staying power. Current price is 3.14 tix and Borderline.

Master of Cruelties: Never-before-seen abilities are tough to evaluate in a vacuum and this card features one. This means that this card is probably mispriced at the moment. Although it might not ever warrant use in a constructed format, don't count it out. At 1 ticket or less, I'd aggressively load up on this card. Current price is 1.57 tix and Borderline.

Voice of Resurgence: The early constructed star of the set, this card was in Craig Wescoe's PT Dragon's Maze winning Block Constructed list. It also made made an impact on Modern showing up in Pod lists at GP Portland the previous week. Sam Black was even musing about it's application in Legacy in his latest article at SCG. At its current price of 37 tix, I find it very difficult to recommend a buy on this card, but if there's going to be a 45+ tix card in DGM, this is it. I'd be a buyer in the 25-30 tix range, but at current prices this card is Borderline.

Good Value

Council of the Absolute: Cards like this have a good chance of being used in predictable metagames. Fighting through a sea of artifact hate, Pierre Canali won Pro Tour Columbus in 2005 with a Vial Affinity list featuring Meddling Mage as a key four-of. Once Standard settles down, this card could see more application. I like this card a lot at 2 tix or less. Current price is 1.26 tix and Good Value.

Progenitor Mimic: This saw a price bump overnight as a result of the legendary rule changes. For clone variants like this one, I don't think it's clear yet whether the changes are positive or negative overall. I think this card has a decent chance of making an impact on Standard. Current price is 2.98 tix, and I'd be a buyer at up to 4 tix. Good Value.

Savageborn Hydra: At first I just assumed this was destined to be junk, but after casting my eye on the chart of Primordial Hydra, I was forced to take a closer look. The core set hydra has seen two printings with the M13 version going for 5 tix and the M12 version for 6+ tix. I think it's safe to assume that redemption and casual appeal are what keep that card at such a lofty price for a junkish mythic. This suggests to me that Savageborn Hydra is a good deal right now as it is comparable to Primordial Hydra. Also, I think it has an outside chance at showing up in Standard. Current price is 0.93 tix and Good Value.

Top Overall Pick(s)

Looking back at my picks from Return to Ravnica (RTR) and Gatecrash (GTC), my two top picks of Vraska the Unseen and Domri Rade are still languishing at or below the range where I felt they were good value. I still believe that Domri Rade will get a chance to shine in Constructed (possibly in Modern), but Vraska looks to be fringe playable at best.

This shows to me that suggesting a top pick and focusing exclusively on that is a poor way to speculate on the latest mythics. Predicting how a given card's price will fluctuate is difficult, but somewhere in the latest set there is always some value to be found. Thus, diversifying over a few picks seems to be prudent and in hindsight this is borne out, as buying a basket of the Good Value cards would have included Sphinx's Revelation from RTR and Prime Speaker Zegana from GTC. Both of these saw large price jumps (100%+) in the weeks following my mythic rare reviews.

For this reason, I'd suggest buying a basket of Progenitor Mimic, Council of the Absolute and Savageborn Hydra. These three cards are the ones I think hold Good Value at current prices. Buying a basket of these is a low-risk speculative bet. I'll be accumulating these cards for my own portfolio this weekend and over the coming weeks.

Insider: The Myth of Making Profits

Posted on by Corbin Hosler

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Editor's Note: Corbin is out for the week due to the tornadoes in Oklahoma. Instead, we are running one of his classic articles from a couple years ago. If you like this one, be sure to check out his later follow-up article as well, found here.


 

Let me share with you a conversation I’ve had several times with my girlfriend after returning from FNM.

Marianne: So how did it go?

Me: It was okay. I went 3-1 playing, but I made like $30 trading!

Marianne: Great, so are you taking me out to dinner tomorrow night? Or are you going to buy me shiny things?

Me: Well, it’s more like “theoretical money”

Marianne: So macaroni and cereal again?

Me: (sigh) Yeah, but I really like those!

This example shows clearly two traps you can fall into. First, while macaroni and cereal sound great when you’re a kid, they get old after four years in school. Two, thinking you made money trading just because at the end of the night you walk away with the cards that Star City Games is selling at higher prices. (Shiny things is code for “engagement ring.” Be on the lookout for your significant other trying to casually slip it into conversations like this)

The Myth of Making Profits stems from the fact that many traders believe that trading their Predator Dragon for your Thoughtseize means they have profited the difference in the sell prices of the two cards. This simply isn’t true. All they have done is trade one piece of cardboard (that beats up on Extended) for another piece of cardboard (that makes a really huge Dragon to beat up on everything). Neither player has profited from this exchange, they have simply gained or lost value.

Profit comes in only when these pieces of cardboard are turned into actual money. Trading up is not the same as profiting from trading. As covered numerous times on this site, cards sitting in your binder do nothing. They represent unrealized profit and restrain you to macaroni and Captain Crunch. Don’t get me wrong, you need to make “theoretical money” while trading, but you can’t stop there and rest on your laurels. It’s great to flip through your binder and see that shiny near-mint Tarmogoyf and other Legacy goodies like Force of Will. I assume you aren’t looking at Survival of the Fittest because you took the advice of those on Quiet Speculation and sold them before the Dec. 20 banning.

But what is the next step, and how do you take it? I’ve covered before Why We Trade, which basically means every person needs an endgame. A destination. Your own personal Mordor. For some, it’s collecting. For others, it’s playing the deck you want. For many of you, I suspect that end goal is to make a profit, which is the endgame I’ll be referencing today.

If you’re planning to flip the cards you pick up in trades into cash to buy Red Lobster, shiny things or just more Ramen, you need to understand the difference between buy and sell prices (you can read about my latest selling venture here). Star City Games sells Abyssal Persecutor at $15, but buys it at just $8. Selling through Ebay means you lose 12 percent to fees. Both incur shipping costs, in both your time and money. These things shouldn’t deter you from using these venues to cash out your cards, but you need to understand the back end of selling when you’re trying to get into the game. The time you put in trading is just the beginning, and it’s by far the easiest part of cashing out with your cards. Luckily, QS has some resources to get you going in these areas. Doug Linn wrote an excellent primer on Ebay sells here and Chris McNutt keeps you updated on all the best Buy List prices regularly.

Another common option is to sell directly to a dealer in person. This is by far the easiest option, and allows for haggling on prices, but availability can be an issue if you don’t have dealers in your area who buy regularly. For instance, in my hometown of Oklahoma City, there’s only one shop that even buys cards, and they offer ridiculously low buy prices (and then try to sell you Survival of the Fittest at $65).

But there is a fourth option, and one that is criminally underutilized – Selling cards directly to players. There are multiple factors you have to be aware of when going this route.

The first is that you need to be aware of your surroundings. If the store owner doesn’t like you selling cards in their store, take it out, and I don’t mean right outside the door. Wait until the night is over and do it elsewhere. You don’t want to upset the store owner, and they understandably have a complaint if you try to take their business right under their nose.

If you sell cards on a regular basis, you need to understand the legal implications of it, and at what point it becomes a small business where you need to report profits on your taxes. Unfortunately, I don’t have the knowledge to guide you through this process, but selling a few cards every month is unlikely to cause you any trouble.

It doesn’t hurt to ask a player if they are looking to trade for cards or if they are interested in buying if you can’t work out a trade. Cash can also be used as a throw-in to even up trades.

The reason selling cards directly to players is appealing is because it helps you to circumvent the Myth of Making Profits by eliminating a ton of back-end work. You save a few dollars on shipping and an hour of your time (and gas money) by making a deal on the spot. Both you and the player buying from you are in an advantageous position by dealing like this. For them, they can get a card for cheaper than the sell price online and don’t have to pay shipping and handling (and have no wait) while getting what they want. For you, you sell a card for at or better than its Ebay price while avoiding all the hassle associated with selling online. You can offer better prices than brick-and-mortar stores because you don’t have the overhead.

I want to make it very clear that I am NOT advocating pricing out your local store. You need them a lot more than they need you. You must be extremely careful to not step on anyone’s toes. Personally, I play at a store where the owner has a limited singles collection, and doesn’t mind other players buying cards from one another. I suspect this is the exception, which means you have to be very conscious of your local environment before going this route.

If you can clear those hurdles and receive the go-ahead to sell your cards, don’t be afraid to do it, even if it’s at a lower price than you would get on Ebay. Chances are losing out on a few dollars by selling it in person is well worth it, because the hassle of shipping cards through the mail is a lot greater than handing someone that card from your binder.

Last week at FNM a friend loaned me his BUG deck to play with, marking my first tournament that I’ve cast Jaces in real life (It doesn’t suck). I went 4-0-1, grabbing first place and earning $24 in store credit ($20 after the $4 store credit entry fee). I also made a few trades and sold a couple of cards, making it a very solid night all around.

His:

Master of Etherium ($4)

Mine:

[card]Inexorable Tide[card] ($1)

Net: $3

My partner wanted the Tide for the Poison/Proliferate deck he was building, and didn’t mind parting with the Master for it. With the play the Master is seeing in Extended, there’s plenty of chance I’ll be able to flip this easily.

His:

Scalding Tarn ($13)

Kitchen Finks ($3)

Mine:

Abyssal Persecutor ($15)

Net: $1

I have a lot more long-term hope for the Tarn and the Finks than I do the Persecutor. The Finks is really necessary for a lot of Extended decks, so I’ll either end up playing it or trading it up in a few months. The fetchland is a safe hold that is a lot more likely to retain value long-term than the Mythic that rotates in less than a year.

Sells:

I also sold a few cards on the night, as I mentioned. I was able to unload a Persecutor for $14, which is a very good price since it goes for $10-11 on Ebay. Note that as I mentioned above, this deal works for my partner and I both. After shipping, he saves at most a few dollars from getting on Ebay, and has to take the time to find an auction, bid on it and wait for it to ship. This way, he gets the card he wants at no hassle and in return I get a premium price for it.

My other deal involved a player really wanting to finish his Vampires deck before the tournament. This is basically the dream scenario for a trader, and I was able to capitalize.

His:

Fauna Shaman ($8)

$10 cash

Mine:

2x Consuming Vapors ($4)

Foil Vampire Nighthawk ($4)

Total: $12

Net: $6

The point of this trade is to demonstrate that my profit, while strictly using SCG values, is about $6. But if you account for the Myth of Making Profits, you’ll see that the $10 in cash I picked up goes a long way to making this trade better for me because I don’t have to sell the cards I received to earn that cash, saving at least an hour of my time. In addition, my partner was willing to use SCG values on the cards, even though he was essentially buying them rather than trading, which means he could’ve got away with offering premium Ebay prices for the cards rather than SCG prices. In the end, we both got what we wanted and walked away happy from this trade/sell, making it a success for both of us.

That’s all the space I have for this week. I’m taking a week of for Christmas, but I’ve chosen my favorite article of the year to run next week. It was actually written for Doubling Season (the original home of QS’s current content), so it’s a safe bet many of you haven’t seen it. I think you’ll enjoy it if you check it out.

Until the New Year,

Corbin Hosler

@Chosler88 on Twitter

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Corbin Hosler

Corbin Hosler is a journalist living in Norman, Oklahoma (also known as the hotbed of Magic). He started playing in Shadowmoor and chased the Pro Tour dream for a few years, culminating in a Star City Games Legacy Open finals appearance in 2011 before deciding to turn to trading and speculation full-time. He writes weekly at QuietSpeculation.com and biweekly for LegitMTG. He also cohosts Brainstorm Brewery, the only financial podcast on the net. He can best be reached @Chosler88 on Twitter.

View More By Corbin Hosler

Posted in Buying, Finance, Free Insider, Selling11 Comments on Insider: The Myth of Making Profits

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Beating Thragtusk Standard

Posted on by Mike Lanigan

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The Standard format creates philosophies among players that can be drastically different from one player to the next. When playing at a local event or FNM, my idea of fun is usually to play a different deck for every tournament. This does a couple important things for my game. The first is it helps improve my deck building skills, which is something I always strive for. The second thing it does is expose me to a wide range of cards and how they play in the format. It’s one thing to play against certain powerful cards, but you gain a new respect for them when you cast them yourself. Being familiar with both sides of matchups makes learning how to beat different strategies an easier process.

My philosophy does not suit all players though. Many players follow the one deck routine. This play style is great for those players who don’t have enough money to invest in more than one deck, but it also has other merits as well. If you always play the same deck, naturally you will become more proficient at it. That experience is one of the most valuable parts of the game. Playing the same deck does not mean making no changes to your list. In fact, it may be that you play a different version of the same deck at each event. You should never ignore new developments in the format. Even if you play the same deck the whole season, your list should be constantly evolving.

Same deck people have another advantage that I figured out this week. Standard in the past few years has become somewhat circular. For example, at the beginning of the Return to Ravnica format, Jund was one of the most popular and powerful decks. While it never disappeared from the format as a whole, for a while it was not well positioned. Other strategies which left Jund struggling to find answers became prevalent. This caused many players to abandon the deck altogether, but some of them stuck with it.

Reid Duke is a great example of this as is my friend Josh Millikin who just won PA States. Both of these players understood that Jund was a powerful shell to work with and so they never gave up on the deck. They both played the deck at almost every Standard event and were constantly improving their lists from week to week. At one point, Josh even had a bunch of white cards in the deck. Because they stuck with the deck, the format has come back around again to where it is one of the best options available.

Thragtusk Back on Top

Standard has come full circle once more and the dominating presence of Jund and Junk has solidified Thragtusk’s place in the spotlight again. For me, the realization that Thragtusk is the best card in Standard right now really helped me hone my angle of attack. If Thragtusk is the best card in Standard and the two best decks are utilizing it to great effect, then from my perspective, I need to focus on beating that card.

My strategy for beating Thragtusk decks has been to play Aristocrats. Unfortunately, this is not as good as it once was because there is much more instant speed removal than previously. If you go for your Boros Reckoner plus Blasphemous Act combo to kill them, it is likely they will just kill your creature in response. Jund vs. Aristocrats is very winnable for either side so defaulting to Jund is still a great way to attack the format.

What other strategies can we develop that will beat both Jund and Junk? There are three decks I want to talk about today that are aimed at achieving that goal.

G/W Aggro

The first deck I have been working on is G/W Aggro. The goal of this deck is to exploit the power of both Voice of Resurgence and Advent of the Wurm. These two Dragon’s Maze cards change the way the game is played. Not only can you play your threats on your opponent’s turn, but they can no longer interact with you on your turn.

The other card I wanted to include that would shape the deck was Ajani, Caller of the Pride. The three-mana planeswalker is great at dealing more damage and the ability to surprise-kill your opponent with the double strike and flying option seems appealing. Here’s the list I have at the moment.

Untitled Deck

Creatures

4 Avacyns Pilgrim
3 Arbor Elf
4 Voice of Resurgence
4 Strangleroot Geist
4 Loxodon Smiter

Spells

3 Rancor
4 Call of the Conclave
4 Lingering Souls
3 Ajani, Caller of the Pride
4 Advent of the Wurm

Lands

4 Temple Garden
4 Sunpetal Grove
4 Isolated Chapel
4 Overgrown Tomb
3 Gavony Township
4 Forest

For an aggro deck, this list does a lot for us. The first thing to note is that it is quite resilient. There are many hard-to-deal-with threats and cards that replace themselves. Both of these qualities are excellent against control decks. With Jund not running Pillar of Flame, your creatures become quite hard to kill.

One problem this deck has is a lack of evasion. The second problem is that it has no way to deal with Fiend Hunter or Olivia Voldaren, two big parts of Jund and Junk right now. Not being able to interact with them seems like it would cause issues for a deck like this. There may be a way to address this issue, but I have not found it yet. G/W Aggro is a solid deck and you will definitely win some matches with it, but it is not quite powerful enough to attack the format the way I am looking to do.

B/W Zombies

The next idea that I have been exploring is the second coming of Zombies. There was a small zombie theme in the Varolz, the Scar-Striped deck I tried out, as well as my most recent version of Aristocrats. In both of those decks, I liked the aggressive zombie parts and how they functioned in the current format.

If your goal is to beat Thragtusk, you need to do one of two things. Either you need to play bigger and better spells to render it obsolete, or you need to be fast and beat them before they can stabilize. Utilizing the one-cost zombies is a great way to race them. With the available cards, I think pairing white with the undead tribe will work the best, but if not, we can always go back to red.

Untitled Deck

Creatures

4 Gravecrawler
4 Diregraf Ghoul
4 Rakdos Cackler
4 Cartel Aristocrat
4 Blood Artist
4 Geralfs Messenger
3 Restoration Angel
2 Obzedat, Ghost Council

Spells

4 Tragic Slip
3 Lingering Souls

Lands

4 Godless Shrine
4 Isolated Chapel
3 Orzhov Guildgate
1 Vault of the Archangel
11 Swamp

Take note of the twelve one-cost creatures. One of the best ways to beat Jund is to play a one-drop on turn one and two more on turn two. In addition to the aggressiveness of the deck, you also have added resiliency with cards like Restoration Angel. Even Cartel Aristocrat makes the deck harder to beat because instead of your zombies getting removed from the game with a Pillar of Flame searing their brains, you can sacrifice them instead. I also think the ability to sacrifice all of your creatures with a Blood Artist in play is a powerful interaction in Standard right now and one that should not be overlooked.

One card I wanted to add which didn’t end up making the deck was Sorin, Lord of Innistrad. Both the token making ability and the emblem fit well in this deck, so that could be an idea I return to later.

Burning Them Out

The final strategy I want to discuss today is the result of many hours dedicated to beating the Thragtusk decks. I spent much time trying to figure out the format by researching available card options and talking to players about decks. My first question was, what is the absolute best card for an aggro deck to have in hand if they want to beat Thragtusk?

My conclusion was Skullcrack. Not only do they not gain the five life they need to stabilize, but they also lose an additional three more. Previously, we have not played this card because there were too many other decks that it was ineffective against. However, we may have arrived at a place in the format where maindeck Skullcrack is not out of the question.

The other theory I have been working on is that Ghost Quarter is almost the same as Wasteland in Standard right now. That might not be quite true for every deck, but it is for a number of them, and most of the matches where it matters. If a deck is playing Thragtusk, Ghost Quarter should punish them for their greedy manabase. After analyzing data of the successful green-based decks, it is apparent that many of them do not have any basic lands.

If they do have basics, they are all Forests. What this means is that Ghost Quarter can still be effective against midrange decks by allowing us to cut them from certain colors. If possible, use Ghost Quarter to target a non-green land, or their only land with a certain color. If their only red source is Rootbound Crag, hitting it is fine because they will either be able to replace it with a Forest or nothing.

Here is the list I’m starting with.

Untitled Deck

Creatures

4 Rakdos Cackler
4 Vexing Devil
4 Burning-Tree Emissary
4 Firefist Striker
4 Flinthoof Boar
4 Ash Zealot
3 Ghor-Clan Rampager
4 Hellrider

Spells

3 Boros Charm
3 Skullcrack

Lands

4 Stomping Ground
4 Sacred Foundry
4 Rootbound Crag
4 Clifftop Retreat
4 Ghost Quarter
3 Mountain

There are some important things to note about this deck. First is its similarity to Naya Blitz. The comparison is obvious because they function with the same colors and they are both decks based around Burning-Tree Emissary. The difference is that this deck is built in the style of Mono Red and Blitz is built after decks like All in Red and Kuldotha Rebirth decks. There may be green and white mana in this deck, but it is more like Mono Red splashing those two colors.

The maindeck Skullcrack would be sideboarded out against other aggressive decks, along with the Boros Charms most likely. The sideboard would start with Boros Reckoner and Domri Rade as the package to bring in for the anti-Thragtusk cards.

Regardless of whether you prefer to stick with the same deck for the entire season or you would rather play a different deck each week, prepare for the metagame you expect to play against. Look at the successful decks and base what you play on them. Other players will be adjusting their decks to play the new cards and if you don’t also adjust, your deck will become outdated and poorly positioned.

Tournament Tips: Overthinking

At the last PTQ I attended, I was playing Aristocrats. My board was Gravecrawler and Cartel Aristocrat and his was Avacyn's Pilgrim and three lands. On my opponent’s turn, he played a shockland untapped but did not use his mana. This signaled he had Restoration Angel in hand.

When it came time for my attack phase, I pondered which line of play was the correct one. There are two choices here. Either I think he has Restoration Angel, so I shouldn't attack, or he was bluffing in which case I should punish him for taking the damage. After working on the problem mentally for a moment, I arrived at hidden option three. Even if he had Restoration Angel, I could attack and sacrifice my Gravecrawler before blocks to give Cartel Aristocrat protection from white. Ultimately I decided to take the more cautious line of play and didn't attack.

In this instance I believe not attacking here cost me the game. It's hard to tell that it was a misplay, but I think attacking is just better in this situation. My opponent did play Grisly Salvage by the way, but he also had Restoration Angel this game, although I have no way of knowing when he drew it.

There are three take aways from this game. First, don't out-think yourself. Attacking was not that bold of a play because I had Cartel Aristocrat in play, but at the time it seemed like suiciding my guys. Second, make plays depending on the matchup. I should have determined that attacking was worth the risk because as the game progresses, my chances of winning lessen. Finally, analyzing your plays will help you become a better player. My friend and I had a long discussion just about this game and this series of plays. Trying to break down where the game went wrong is a huge factor to improving your game.

Until Next Time,

Unleash the Thragtusk crushing Force!

Mike Lanigan
MtgJedi on Twitter
Jedicouncilman23@gmail.com

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Yawgmoth Thran Physician Wrath of the Skies Vivi Ornitier Urza's Saga Underworld Breach Ugin Eye of the Storms Ugin's Labyrinth Tezzeret Cruel Captain Tamiyo Inquisitive Student tameshi reality architect Spider-Punk Sowing Mycospawn Solitude Shifting Woodland Sephiroth Fabled SOLDIER Ruby Medallion Recruiter of the Guard Ragavan Nimble Pilferer Quantum Riddler Psychic Frog

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