Probably the biggest news this weekend wasn't the fact that Jund is really good in Modern - we all knew that. It was Aaron Forsythe's announcement of the Modern Masters set, which I emailed everyone about. The first spoiled card was Tarmogoyf. That gets everyone talking and we're going to talk this week about what we've deduced about the Modern Masters set - even though we only know one card for sure! There's a lot of shadow room that we can look into; find out what is and isn't there, due to the set size.

Reprints are probably good for you, even if you have a binder full of Goyfs.

First, this set doesn't come out for another nine months. In that time, there's an entire PTQ season. They announced this set well in advance of needing to cash out and they even stacked it in the favor of the person heavily invested in Modern staples. They created a demand for the cards and gave it to you! That was certainly nice of Wizards.

Reprints are probably good for you because the Modern market is small right now and could use a bit of growth. Yes, this will probably reduce the price of cards printed in the set, but it also increases the value of all the other Modern cards in your binder. This is a good thing, as many of them are unlikely to see reprints (more on this later!). The only card we KNOW will be in the set is Tarmogoyf, at Mythic rarity. That means that there will be a Goyf every five boxes of 24 packs, which means that it will be much more rare than Goyf was during the Time Spiral prizes on MTGO. Now I know that they're two different markets, but Goyf dropped from around 65 tix to about 43 tix, a drop of about 33%. That's all! They were being given out as prizes for Cube drafts for two weeks and the price, with Goyf in the rare slot, only dropped by a third. Sure, a third is a lot, but we've got to look at this as our only historical evidence and say that if you're holding Tarmogoyfs, you will probably not see a big drop in the price of your Goyfs.

Math time.

There will be 24 packs in a box at a price of $6.99. There are 36 packs of RTR in a box at $3.99 apiece. The boxes, then, are $168 instead of $143. That's not a big increase over the normal price, considering that you're going to get some really, really good cards instead of normal-powered stuff.

The average cost of a Return to Ravnica card is 26.6 cents.

The average cost of a Modern Masters card is 46.6 cents. One of those cards will be foil.

I am hopeful about the set because the cards are worth only a little under twice as much and I have a feeling that they are going to be worth, on average, a whole lot more. Let's put it this way - do you want to have the chance of opening the $50 card with mostly terrible and cheap cards in the booster? If so, you should get RTR packs. If you want to get a booster where you're much more likely to make up your cash with power uncommons, then Modern Masters is the better choice.  I have a strong sense that even at nearly double the price, it's going to make much more sense to crack packs of Modern Masters than it would be to crack Return to Ravnica.

A good rare is easy to find.

The biggest problem with the Modern Masters set is that there are so few rare slots. Only 53  and 15 Mythics. A grand total of 68 baller, awesome reprints with no filler. There are a lot more than 68 rares played in Modern, even if you limit yourself to anything before Zendikar. How about Elspeth, Knight-Errant? She'd be a Mythic, so there's two of fifteen slots next to the green monster. Dark Confidant? Sure, and rare at best. No reason that The Greatest couldn't be a Mythic, either. There are plenty of Legends that could absorb a Mythic slot; what about Vendilion Clique? Arcbound Ravager? And then we get to the rares, which are the bread that will sop up the expense of Modern. There's been talk about the Lorwyn filter lands in it, but that would make up nearly a fifth of the rares with just lands! I think it's safe to rule them out. Do as Sig says and get your Twilight Mires.

My most likely candidates for reprint as rares are Noble Hierarch, Cryptic Command, Vendilion Clique, Maelstrom Pulse, Knight of the Reliquary and Dark Confidant. Aaron hinted at Faeries battles in limited, which makes me think that Scion of Oona will show up, too. Those rare slots are going to fill up quickly. The spoiled art is obviously City of Brass, so there's another slot that gets filled. As an aside, don't we already have enough Cities in print? Are six editions not enough?

Uncommons are going to plummet in price.

If you've been flipping collections lately, I'm sure you know the joy of seeing Spell Snares in a box of junk. Those are ten dollar bills! There's a large pile of uncommons in Modern that are worth several dollars and I target them as most likely to drop in value. These include Kitchen Finks, Remand, Spell Pierce, Bloodbraid Elf and Desperate Ritual. Finks seem most likely, where a card like Desperate Ritual, with an obscure keyword, might not get consideration. We will also probably see Aether Vial reprinted again, though it just came out recently in the From The Vaults set.

While you are only opening a single rare, you're going to see three uncommons out of a pool of sixty in each pack. Math time, that means that you'll see a full set of sixty uncommons in each box (since each will have 72 uncommons, total). The price of the entire product must remain below $7 for people to avoid cracking and reselling, so the uncommons are going to suck up a lot of that price and drop down correspondingly. This is where you must be conscious of what is going to be reprinted and sell out accordingly.

Commons are anyone's guess.

Really, what commons see play in Modern? What's worth reprinting? I'm grasping for what any of those 106 commons could be. Lava Spike comes to mind. Little else does. If you've got an idea on this, I'd love to hear it.

The reason this isn't going to be like Chronicles

Chronicles is a bad set because most of the cards that got reprinted are awful.

Let's put aside the few, like City of Brass, Blood Moon and Tormod's Crypt, that would have been reprinted later anyway.

Do you know what prices were like for Legends cards? Even the worst Legends monsters were worth a lot of money and that's because Magic cards were bad and Magic players were bad. Let me give you a perfect example: Gabriel Angelfire. That is a bad card. That Angel was worth $40+ in Legends before his reprint because it was cool. Chronicles dropped its price to a few bucks and that's good in the long run because it just sped up what was going to happen to him anyway! There is no critical, competitive demand for cards like Gabriel and a $40 price tag would be unsustainable. The Elder Dragon Legends took a big hit in price and those are the most likely candidates for "would have retained set value," but come on - is someone gonna shell out $50 for Vaevictus Asmadi? As Magic players got smarter, a lot of hyped Legends cards plunged in value - even the ones that didn't see a reprint. Nobody is beating a path to Sunastian Falconer's door.

Modern Masters isn't going to be like Chronicles because the cards aren't going to suck. Pulling the all-stars from Modern history and reprinting them is going to be awesome. It's not going to have a lot of filler - we're looking at designers with four Master's Editions under their belts, so they know how to make good limited environments and how to rein in the Wall of Kelp reprints. Chronicles was almost all unsustainable filler and the money cards aren't the cards that were expensive in the first place - they're tournament-staple cards that people want older versions of. Modern Masters is going to be full of cards that you will actually want to open.

My really early prediction for what you should do with this set.

Hoard it. Buy it. Get as much preordered as you can. You are betting that each pack will contain $7+ worth of goodies, and I am confident that will be the case. This will be a popular product. This won't move the markets too much. That means that Kitchen Finks at $5 now may still be $2 later - how many power uncommons do you need to pull to see free packs? This is an exciting product and it's going to do a lot for Modern. Everyone is going to be surprised at how quickly this sells. Draft sets are $21 pre-tax at MSRP and with usual drafts going for $15 at many FNMs, this isn't much of a luxury good to stretch for. This is really big deal.

Until next week,

Doug Linn

At the time of this writing, it’s PT Sunday and some of the game’s best are hours away from battling for the $40,000 first prize.

Between the unbanning of Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle, the release of Return to Ravnica, and the announcement of Modern Masters, this has been quite the weekend for the Modern format as a whole. The nature of the Modern Masters set and the distinct lack of information available makes me hesitant to recommend aggressively buying cards over a certain price threshold that could be reprinted.

This make the best investment, with Modern in mind, the Zendikar fetchlands due to their necessity and Zendikar’s exclusion from the Modern Masters set itself. However, there is still a lot of information to be had from this Pro Tour, particularly the top 8 lists, which give us a reasonable representation of the field as a whole: lots of Jund, and a menagerie of everything else.

Jund

Being part of the most popular archetype at the PT, one of the real winners of the tournament would have been Blackcleave Cliffs, as a 4 of across the board in all 3 top 8 lists.Even without the announcement of Modern Masters, however, the number of Jund players in PTQ level events is lower than in professional ones with card availability and overall cost being the culprits.

As such, overall demand for Jund staples will be lower than one would expect, given its results this weekend, come the Modern PTQ season this winter. Thus, the potential profits will be much lower. I would put my money elsewhere.

Jund is generally considered a known quantity, as everyone remembers various horror stories attached to Bloodbraid Elf. However, one Return to Ravnica card may have changed the archetype going forward.

Deathrite Shaman’s viability in the format given its predication on fetch land mana bases should come as no surprise, and its ability to interact with an opponent’s graveyard is particularly relevant against the U/R Storm decks. It was in two of the Jund lists that made top 8, including David Ochao’s list that ran Geralf’s Messenger over the more common Kitchen Finks, a move that takes the deck in a decidedly more aggressive direction.

I think now is a great time to ‘sell high,’ given the hype the card received during coverage. It is still a fringe card in Standard and is not worth the $10 some retailers are selling it for, especially considering the set is still actively being used for Limited events.

Eggs

This deck went 9-1 in the Swiss on its way to the 1st overall seed in the top 8. There will be demand for this deck going forward, not only based on the hype it received during coverage, but also its relatively inexpensive cost (beyond the mana base, the most expensive card is Lotus Bloom, which is the best speculation target within the deck given its pseudo casual appeal).

I expected budget Modern decks to be very popular this PTQ season, given the financial uncertainty surrounding so much of the format, making Eggs and Storm staples very strong short term investments (3-4 month holds until Modern season begins).

Scapeshift/ Valakut

Valakut was unbanned and the world did not end. This is a good thing, unless of course you own a lot of Prismatic Omens, which Shi Tian Lee’s deck didn’t play.

Given the presence of the Shocklands in Standard, this deck is actually much less expensive than it appears and will be a prime candidate for Standard players looking to pick up Modern without spending much extra money.

Scapeshift looks like a good short term pick up. And depending on its results during the PTQ season, it could spike much higher than it already did after Valakut’s unbanning.

Infect

I wonder if Wizard’s R&D will come to regret the Infect mechanic.

It never feels fair when it's good and no one cares when it’s awful. Kelvin Chew’s deck is mostly inexpensive commons and uncommons, alongside fetch lands.

The only card that stands out financially to me is Inkmoth Nexus. We’ve already seen this card hit $10+ during Standard, and it could absolutely do that again come the PTQ season as one of the only expensive cards in an otherwise very cheap deck.

U/W Midrange

This deck is unfortunately uninteresting to me outside of Celestial Colonnade and Seachrome Coast, both of which have a lot of room to grow if this becomes the pseudo control deck of choice in Modern.

The Player’s Championship showed us the problem it has with the Jund matchup, but that will be less relevant in the coming months for the reason’s I already brought up. I expect Seachrome Coast to retail at $7-8 during PTQ Season, while Celestial Colonnade should hit $5.

Free Agents

Serum Visions and Inquisition of Kozilek are two non deck specific staples that demand will only increase for as Standard players make their way to Modern over the next few years. Whether you’re looking to flip them during the PTQ season or hold them longer, these two cards are great inexpensive investments.

~

This weekend was a new beginning for Modern as Wizards does its best to make the format a year round fixture rather than a burden tournament players must overcome, like Extended was towards the end of its existence. I assume that more things will be done beyond Modern Masters to achieve this goal, and in the long term I feel good about the future of the format, which makes me feel safe in investing in it.

Return to Ravnica, and rotation, has shaken up standard beyond all previous recognition, and now the format is starting to take shape. Normally after States there is a little slump in most of the Standard staples, but new decks do leave opportunities for big finds. The goal here is to move our inflated cards out (if you haven’t started doing so this past weekend) and use those resources to look at cards that might slot into, or change existing decks in the near term. Let's look at what to do next.

U/W/(x) Control

This deck appeared twice in the top 8 of the SCG open this past weekend, and we saw variation the week before splashing Red. I overheard pros at the Grand Prix talking about U/W/b control as well, likely splashing in for Lingering Souls and/or Tragic Slip and Sever the Bloodline. Sever the Bloodline is well under $1 right now, and I’m starting to stock up. This card is extremely powerful for control decks, and especially once Watery Grave and the Dimir guild hits Standard in a few months, this card will skyrocket. I’m moving in deep on this card and holding as long as it takes.

We also see the U/W Control decks Sideboarding Jace, Memory Adept to combat other control decks as well as a 5-mana removal for their opponents Jace, Architect of Thought. There was even a deck in the top 8 of this last weekends SCG Open that played one copy of Adept maindeck. At only $5, I don’t expect this card to dip much more, and has a decent chance of spiking a bit if it becomes increasingly popular to fight Jace with other Jaces. While I am not moving in big on these, I am going to pick up a couple sets and watch it closely.

Tokens

We saw a Junk Tokens deck pop up, featuring Armada Wurm, Sorin, Garruk Relentless and Angel of Serenety as the Mythics. Garruk is a reasonable target here, finable on EBay close to $10, while sold out on StarCityGames at $15. I don’t expect any value he picks up to last long, while he’s a powerful card, he’s usually fairly matchup dependant. If he is indeed good right now, the format will shift around him fairly quickly. There was also a Esper Tokens brew using Favorable Winds to pump Midnight Haunting, Lingering Souls and Talrand’s Invocation Tokens. While I like where this deck is going, I don’t like that the Favorable Winds doesn’t Crusade all of the creatures in the deck. I’m not ready to make any moves based on this list as of now.

Reanimator

There are a variety of Reanimator decks floating around. Cheating in a Griselbrand or Angel of Serenety is big game, and until people can definitively stop it (see: Grafdiggers Cage, et al.) it will continue to be around. Since most of the Mythics in this deck are still extremely expensive, I’d like to make a move on the hate cards that will see a bit more play in the short term to counteract that. I think the Cage is a good option at $1.50 while Rest in Peace likely won’t go up much higher than its current $3.

Modern

Separately from States, there is a Modern Pro Tour right around the corner. I expect to see a strong turn-out of Storm decks, which may put a slight spike into Past in Flames and Epic Experiment, two cards that can be found fairly cheaply at the moment. Epic Experiment will only move up a dollar or so, so I wouldn’t be picking them up, but I’d be holding ones I already had for a week or so. Past in Flames however is under $2/set and is a strong play. At the worst, holding them until Modern season early next year is guaranteed to double your money (barring any bannings in the deck which I find unlikely). Fetchlands, especially the blue ones, will pick back up, but you won’t see a return on that until next year so needs to be a move you can be patient with if you want to pick up a 20-30% spike on your money.

Overall you should be moving out your RTR cards for some Innistrad and Modern cards that have potential to gain from new Standard Decks and Modern popularity spike following the Pro-Tour. Watching buy prices on RTR cards slowly fall during the Grand Prix this weekend means you’ve got to act fast if you haven’t gotten rid of things yet, but there will be some cards that bounce back, so we want to watch how low some of these shocklands fall before Modern season gets too hot. We also want to be in anticipation of the remainder of the Modern manabase including Filters and Fetches.

Lastly, finding key hate cards that will shift the matchups of the new Standard decks before they become common knowledge is a big thing. How’s the best way to find those before anyone else does? Test the format. Jam some games with friends and find out what beats the new hot strategy. What sideboard cards break the mirror open? Find a card you believe in and go for it.