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Fundamentals: When to Playtest vs Goldfish

David Ernenwein — Tue, 13 Sep 2022 14:00:00 +0000

When players build new decks, they often skip straight to playtesting. David E. explains why that's like skipping from concept design to full product release.

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Can We Unban These Cards in Commander?

Joe Mauri — Thu, 10 Mar 2022 15:00:00 +0000

Joe AKA Beardy takes a look at the current Commander ban list and the rationale for determining bannings. Is there anything that is safe to unban?

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The Commonality of All Investments

Sigmund Ausfresser — Mon, 09 Mar 2020 11:00:36 +0000

Emotions. Whether we're speculating on Magic cards or stocks, we all have to handle emotions in order to make optimal choices. This week Sig explores examples where emotion led to poor investments to help avoid these pitfalls in the future.

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Ravnica Allegiance: Spoilers, Facts, Specs & More

Edward Eng — Sat, 12 Jan 2019 12:00:24 +0000

The sequel to Guilds of Ravnica and the 80th expansion set in Magic: The Gathering's history is due to release on January 25, 2019. Here's what we know about Ravnica Allegiance (RNA) so far, including any cards in the spoiler, the guilds represented, and cards to speculate on before the full spoiler is released. The Guilds […]

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MTG Metagame Finance #25

Edward Eng — Tue, 25 Dec 2018 17:44:01 +0000

The holidays are in full swing and the new year is right around the corner. And as some of you may know, the stock market has been a bit shaky in the last month or so. But it seems Magic is still doing pretty well during this slightly volatile time. I think a good portion […]

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MTG Metagame Finance #24

Edward Eng — Fri, 21 Dec 2018 01:05:52 +0000

Ultimate Masters is still in full bounce back mode, and the last World Magic Cup has come to a finish. Plus, some sweet Ravnica Allegiance spoilers have hit the market so there’s gonna be a nice mix of things to talk about again in this piece. Owing to the spoilers, this might be a little […]

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Mtg Arena Has Been Framed! Who Is the Real MTGO Killer?

Kyle Rusciano — Tue, 11 Dec 2018 10:00:44 +0000

Magic Online has a problem. A card value problem. In a recent Channel Fireball article, Florian Koch showed just how much card prices have fallen over the past few years: That's right. To own a playset of the cheapest version of every Magic card ever printed on MTGO would have cost you roughly $28,000 in […]

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MTG Questions: What’s an Easy Way to Sell Bulk?

Edward Eng — Fri, 07 Dec 2018 10:00:42 +0000

This is the first article from my new series, MTG Questions. You might be familiar with the Hold ‘Em & Fold ‘Em series (rebranded as MTG Metagame Finance), which takes a tournament-oriented perspective. I decided to start this series to focus on more general aspects of MTG finance. The two series will work together, as when […]

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Unlocked: The Legacy Purge and the Trends It Creates

Brian DeMars — Mon, 09 Jul 2018 14:04:36 +0000

The banning of Deathrite Shaman may be the most significant in Legacy history. How will this impact the marketplace – and which cards should we be buying?

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Insider: Hapatra and other Commander Spikes

Adam Yurchick — Fri, 12 May 2017 12:38:39 +0000

Amonkhet and Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons has spawned a new Commander deck that has sent many cards spiking...

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Insider: Playing It Smart in Standard

Brian DeMars — Tue, 14 Feb 2017 19:55:17 +0000

We're seeing a clear rock-paper-scissors metagame develop in Standard, which means the staples are unlikely to change. Brian looks at some cards to pick up if you haven't already.

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Insider: An Early History of Market Bubbles

Douglas Linn — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 04:01:33 +0000

Speculation and market investment in Magic is in its Golden Era right now. We have access to information at a speed that we never had before in Magic. If you're spying for new tech, you don't have to wait for a tournament report on the Dojo or read about it a month later in Inquest - you can hustle over to GGSlive and watch Kibler cast Huntmaster of the Fells in real-time. This article is about Magic speculation and price bubbles in what I am calling the "early modern" era.

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Insider: Dissecting Dissension

Douglas Linn — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 03:59:56 +0000

Dissension, the third (and chronically-misspelled) set in Ravnica, showcased the remaining three guilds. We were introduced to the hellbent Rakdos, the gene-splicing Simic and the board-stalling Azorius guilds. Ravnica block is good for a couple money rares, but it didn't go as casually deep as I thought it would when I first thought about the block. Dissension has a few nice tournament staples aside from the obvious shocklands – let's take a look at the set!

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Insider: Figuring Out Fifth Dawn

Douglas Linn — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 05:30:39 +0000

Fifth Dawn was the third set in Mirrodin and was inexplicably focused on getting people to play all five colors. In the abstract, this is fine, but this was in a set full of artifacts that gave you advantages for running them. It would be like if Onslaught Block culminated in a set focused on super-powered spells instead of really good Tribal creatures...

Oh, wait.

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Observing Odyssey

Douglas Linn — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 00:20:18 +0000

Odyssey came off the heels of the fan-favorite Invasion Block. While Invasion's theme was gold cards, Odyssey's theme regarded the graveyard as a resource. Wizards R&D designed cards to exploit two previously-neglected ideas – benefits when one discards a card (the Madness mechanic) and the number of cards in the graveyard (Threshold). Although both mechanics […]

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Investigating Invasion, Pt. 2

Douglas Linn — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 04:04:20 +0000

We're picking up this week where we left off last week, taking a financial gaze at Invasion. I consider Invasion to be the first really modern set, because it expresses good understanding of color combinations and power level. The number of gold cards in this set guarantees that a lot of casual cards end up […]

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Navigating Through Nemesis

Douglas Linn — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 04:02:47 +0000

Nemesis was the second set in Masques block and brought with it some defining characters in Standard and beyond. We saw the Parallax enchantments, the Rebel queen, an amazing free spell and more. Some of the foils in Nemesis are worth silly amounts, so it pays to know the pricing on those high-ticket items. Let's […]

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Looking through Urza’s Legacy

Douglas Linn — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 07:39:24 +0000

Hello, and welcome to our exploration of Urza's Legacy! The second set in the Broken Block amped up the power even more for Magic. It was the first set to be printed in foil, as well. Foil-mania swept collectors around this time; fresh from $100 Pokemon foils, people scrambled to make sets. Importantly, foils were […]

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Examining Exodus

Douglas Linn — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 05:46:21 +0000

Exodus was a monumental set in a great block, and perhaps its greatest legacy is not any single card – it is the colored rarity symbol. For the first time, casual players who knew nothing of pack order could tell which card of theirs was rare – something challenging when dealing with cards like Avizoa […]

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Understanding Your Market

Matth Ward — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 06:57:38 +0000

by Matth Ward Some of you may call this game we play “Magic.” I call it, “The most successful global market in the history of human existence.” Tall order, huh? Not so fast, consider the “Matth.” What global economy has ever experienced seventeen years of economic prosperity without a single recession, widespread market downturn, or […]

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