Market Report (March)

Today we will be looking at the Standard Rares & Mythics Averages of three Standard legal sets from the past month and then speak directly to some impact cards that Dragons of Tarkir have given us so far.

Let's begin with our quick market recap for March.

Theros - This month was a very good one for Standard's current oldest set as it benefited greatly, or possibly entirely, upon the announcement of Shorecrasher Elemental. The triple-blue creature easily thrust Mono-Blue Devotion back into the spotlight and Master of Waves jumped an unbelievable 220.68% from March 6th all the way into the following day.

Master of Waves: Averages (Jan. 16 - Mar. 31)

Source: MTG Stock, mtgstocks.com

This also led to a 27.8% jump on the Mono-Blue God, Thassa, who's price had been heavily stagnated going into spoiler season as few expected any support for mono-colours in the final set of a multi-coloured block.

Thassa, God of the Sea: Averages (Jan. 16 - Mar. 31)

Source: MTG Stock, mtgstocks.com

The set's index (^THS-RM-A) was on trend to fall below the 100 point mark before summer, but this month's gains have seemed to push that back another month of two. The set closed at 107.62 with an intra-month high of 114.10 after Master of Waves and Thassa helped rally for an extra 9 points.

Theros Rares & Mythics Averages (^THS-RM-A)

Source: MTG Investments, Mar. 1 - Mar. 31

Fate Reforged - After celebrating it's two month birthday this month, Fate was given the unfortunate gift of steady declines as chase mythics became the only thing holding up the value of the set.

The index closed the month at 113.37, down 6.1% from the first of the month despite a 19.4% gain on the newest chase mythic: Whisperwood Elemental.

Whisperwood Elemental: Averages (Jan. 16 - Mar. 31)

Source: MTG Stock, mtgstocks.com

The 3-green-green centre of the Green-White Devotion deck saw steady gains and could possibly make it's way up to the $15 mark by mid-April and could climb to more than $17 if there's a strong showing at Pro Tour Dragons.

Fate Reforged Rares & Mythics Averages (^FRF-RM-A)

Source: MTG Investments, Mar. 1 - Mar. 31

Khans of Tarkir - The 2014 Fall set was beat down this month as Fetch-Land prices continued to decline and dragged the index down by 9.4% to finish at 95.92.

Sorin and Siege Rhino also fell by 15.3% and 14.8% respectively as Abzan looked to be falling out of favour at the most recent events leading up to Dragons of Tarkir's release.

Khans of Tarkir Rares & Mythics Averages (^KTK-RM-A)

Source: MTG Investments, Mar. 1 - Mar. 31

Now let's talk about some cards to look out for this month as the second Pro Tour of the year is only a week away.

First off, the set's index opened on March 28th at 124.54 and closed the month up 9 points, or 7.2%, as Thunderbreak Regent looked to have one of the strongest showings at the first Dragons event and jumped 42.1% in the three days after launch.

Thunderbreak Regent: Averages (Mar. 5 - Mar. 31)

Source: MTG Stocks, mtgstocks.com

In my opinion, this is definitely the breakout card for Standard and could be only one good Pro Tour showing away from a $12 price tag in the short term. Definitely not worth picking up at this point as I wouldn't expect a price higher than Tasigur's after Pro Tour Fate. 

Despite being one of the biggest flavour fails of the set, no one can deny that Deathmist Raptor may be one of the strongest constructed cards in the set and his price certainly matches that level of expectation. Setting new highs every day, the 1-green-green creature opened at 15.49 and quickly rose to 15.99 in the three days after.

Those who bought into the Lizard Beast before March 19th stand to make a killing if he continues to climb to prices usually only reserved for Planeswalkers.

Deathmist Raptor: Averages (Mar. 8 - Mar. 31)

Source: MTG Stocks, mtgstocks.com

All around it looks to be a nice start to the new set and looks like we can expect big things in the constructed in the coming weeks, but it remains to be seen how large of an impact this set will have on prices for it's life in Standard.

I'm anxious to hear what you have to say. What do you think of Dragons of Tarkir? What card(s) from the new set will shape Standard in a new way?

Thanks for the support ad happy hunting.

 - Jay

How Do I Make Money During Spoiler Season?

Now that we're nearing the end of spoilers and Dragons of Tarkir is finally starting to take shape, I'd like to explain how I personally make money during this time.

There's many ways to do this obviously, but I have my own feelings about the best ways to do it and when is the best time.

First, it's important to keep up to date as closely as you can as new cards could be spoiled or leaked at any time. The best resource for these I believe is Mythic Spoiler (mythicspoiler.com) as they keep it very recent throughout the day and it's easy to find it all in one place. There are several individual sites that may get it to you faster, but most people use Mythic Spoiler and therefore, you won't really have any sort of head start on the market if you find it a few minutes earlier.

Second, is the idea of following the hype around new cards. Is the card good? Who cares. The real question is what someone is willing to pay for it. What matters is whether someone out there thinks it's a good card. If someone out there is willing to pay big money for certain cards, then it would almost be a crime to not let them overpay for something you can make a profit from.

Third, is whether the cards resemble anything previous to it and whether that means people will pay more attention and ultimately pay more money. Same thing as before; it doesn't matter whether it's good/bad, better/worse, awesome/stupid. What matters is whether you can make a profit on someone else's misevaluation. Cards that do things that resemble previously good cards tend to have high price tags and hype after they're spoiled (i.e. Ojutai's Command).

Which brings us to my fourth point: how do we make money on this? There are two ways of doing this. Buy-Sell and Sell-Buy.

Buy-Sell - Probably the most common form of speculation during pre-order and spoiler season. This is the very simple idea of seeing, what you believe to be, an undervalued card from the set. As such, you then buy copies at the current price in order to hold until the player base sees the real value of the card.

Overall, I personally believe this is the slowest, least profitable, and riskiest forms of investing in a new set.

1. Speed - It’s no secret that shipping can sometimes take more time than expected. Especially when it comes to new cards that are being opened from boosters. If, for example, a shop that you pre-ordered from has delays, it can lead to very big problems with the timetable you have in mind for your investments (i.e. Pro Tour).
2. Profitability - Here’s the issue with this model’s profitability: the market dictates your margins. In almost every case, as soon as product starts to be opened, cards lose value. Everyone in the mother is going to start trying to sell things they opened at pre-release on eBay because they know that in another 2 weeks, it could be worth half as much. This then leads to issues with your margins because demand takes a huge hit during this time outside of chase mythics. I tend to call it the “Hype Cycle”: demand increases slowly for pre-orders, then decreases rapidly upon release.
3. Risk - Going off of the same ideas as profitability, cause they really do go hand in hand, risk is without a doubt the major reason I don’t use the Buy-Sell method. After a new set is released, and we enter the downward portion of the Hype Cycle, the majority of card prices immediately start to fall and there’s very little likelihood of the card ever rising to its pre-order price again outside of strong tournament results (i.e. Pro Tour, first Grand Prix) and even less likelihood of it surpassing it. This means that if you intend to invest long term, it will almost certainly lead to losses.

Sell-Buy - Now this model, however, is my personal preference. The basic idea is to minimise your contact with cards and only focus on buying trends. You do this by selling cards before you buy them. Now, on it’d face, yes it seems to be more risky, but the Hype Cycle dictates that prices rise very quickly during spoiler season and then fall very quickly upon release.

The best way to go about this is by staying updated on spoilers and evaluating them as quickly as you can by reading comments and ideas from other players. This will allow you to properly gauge the consensus from the players about the card’s value. After doing this, check prices online and set up your own listings on your preferred site. I personally prefer eBay because it’s usually the first place people go to look. After you’ve created your listing and they have all sold, it’s your job to keep an eye on prices and decide when to buy. You should be able to find good prices within the next week or two before release day and, hopefully, profit. As a little extra hint, when you buy them, simply address the order to your buyer and save yourself the extra few cents on shipping.

The reason I really like this model is because it really allows you to play the market and follow the Hype Cycle and determine your own profits, so to speak. In my opinion, there really isn’t any other way to do it: fastest, most profitable, and least risky.

1. Speed - The reason that this is definitely the fastest way on making money is because you’ve essentially taken yourself out of the equation. What’s happening is that your actually matching up your buyer to your selling and collecting the difference between the two prices. If you follow my advice and just address the package to your buyer when your make the purchase, you actually never touch the cards which means fast service.
2. Profitability - One reason that this very profitable is because you get to determine your own profits/losses and this lets you focus entirely on the money instead of the cards.
3. Risk - While we can’t completely eliminate risk, I believe that this style of selling is much less risky because we know how the Hype Cycle works and how to follow the trends. This means that if you’re fairly certain that a card is being overvalued, then it would definitely be in your best interests to follow this model.

My apologies for the incredibly long article and the lack of pictures. This was much more meant to be an information piece and I hope it helps.

I'm anxious to hear what you have to say. Are there any problems with my thinking? How do you make money during this time?

Thanks for the support and happy hunting.

 - Jay (@mtg_investments)

Compositions & Why They're Useful

One of the main things I've been focusing on lately is creating a few compositions the track the growth and cycles of various formats in the coming months.

Today, I will be walking you through the compositions that I use and check on a daily basis and where I get the numbers from. Note that all of these are changed promptly at 12:00 am PST everyday.


"Standard Rares & Mythics - Averages" (^St-RM-A) - This first one is created by using the sum of averages from every Standard-legal set's highest priced rare and mythic cards (top 10 for small sets, top 15 for large sets). This is a pretty valuable one for analysing the overall health and growth of the market and is also useful later on in conjunction with some other compositions. The higher it goes, the more expensive the value of Standard is at that moment.

"Standard Rares & Mythics - Lows" (^St-RM-L) - This one is actually found in the same way as the last one with just one difference; using the sum of the lowest prices of the same cards to get an accurate read on the growth, decline, or stagnation of the market prices for the most valuable, Standard-legal cards. And much like the last one, the higher it goes, the more expensive the value of Standard is at that moment.

"Standard Rares & Mythics - Averages minus Lows" (^St-RM-AL) - This one a combination of the two previous to measure the difference between the averages (^St-RM-A) and the lows (^St-RM-L). The close the value gets to zero, the closer we are to a trough in the cycle (low prices due to low demand).

"Set Name Rares & Mythics - Averages" (^xyz-RM-A) - This next one is the same sort of information you get from the (^St-RM-A) with the exception that this specifically measures an individual set and its meta-game impact on Standard. In the symbol, "xyz" is replaced with the three character set name found in the bottom left corner of each card with the new border (M15-present). Higher value show a high impact set, while low values show a low impact set.

"Set Name Rares & Mythics - Lows" (^xyz-RM-L) - This one is essentially the same with the exception of using lows instead of averages with the same idea of high values equaling high impact sets and low values equaling low impact sets.

There are also several others that can be useful but these are, I believe, the most useful ones for people who trade casually.

I'm interested to hear what you have to say, and let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks for the support and happy hunting.
 - Jay

What's the Deal with Dragons of Tarkir?

Spoiler season is just around the corner once again and I usually don't like doing this sort of thing, but I feel like some people aren't actually making any predictions this time around. So, here are some of my personal predictions for the upcoming Dragons of Tarkir set.


Dragons - This should go without saying, but we're probably going to have quite a few dragons in this set. One thing that we don't have answered is at what rarity or mana cost do they start at. In my opinion, I think we'll definitely see common, mono-coloured dragons at the very least and maybe even some multi-coloured ones as well in the range of the 2-4 drop slots on the curve. In terms of uncommon level, I think this could be a very good place to include a cycle of enemy, two-colour dragons that resemble the rare from Fate Reforged. And as for the rares and mythics, I'm not entirely sure what they could have planned because Mark Rosewater assured us that the block is not about Wedges, so I actually doubt we'll see three-colour dragons  in this set apart from maybe one cycle in the mythic slot.

• Mono-coloured, common dragons between the 2-4 drop slots (one or two cycles)
• Enemy two-colour, uncommon between the 3-5 drop slots (one cycle)
• Wedge three-colour, rare/mythic between 4-6 drop slots (maybe one cycle, probably not)

Machanics - At Pro Tour Fate Reforged, Mark Rosewater explained on inside R&D that he had to take All of the clan mechanics from either Dragons or Khans. This means that we know at least two of the mechanics that will be in this final set. The mechanics we know are as followed:

1. Abzan (white) - Khans: Outlast, Fate: Bolster, Dragons: Bolster
2. Jeskai (blue) - Khans: Prowess, Fate: Prowess, Dragons: unknown
3. Sultai (black) - Khans: Delve, Fate: Delve, Dragons: unknown
4. Mardu (red) - Khans: Raid, Fate: Dash, Dragons: Dash
5. Temur (green) - Khans: Ferocious, Fate: Ferocious, Dragons: unknown

As you can see, we still don't know the mechanics for Jeskai, Sultai, or Temur. However, with the two mechanics we do know, we can likely make a few other predictions as to Bolster and Dash.

We can likely come to the conclusion, based on the cards in Fate Reforged with these mechanics, that there could be (1) white cards with Dash, (2) Black cards with Bolster. However, we fall into the same sort of problem with Rosewater saying that the block isn't about Wedges, which this theory could contradict.

That is, unless there's something here that is telling us that this could be a strictly mono-coloured set, and that the clans of Tarkir have actually dissolved and have divided into their centred, mono-colours of their previous clans. This could explain why, in Fate Reforged, Dash was only on Black/Red cards and Bolster was only on White/Green cards because it could show that a mono-coloured set might use Dash for white and Bolster for black, BUT that just sounds crazy given everything we already know about the colour wheel itself, so this might not make any sense.

Narset, Plansewalker - Oh yes, I said it. Now that Sarkhan is dead and we just got Ugin, there seems to be something missing from the Planeswalker brigade. Enter Narset, Khan of the Jeskai as you probably already know. Lore information from Narset and the Jeskai contain the following quote that very easily could be interpreted as a Planeswalker spark.

Source: The Mana Source, youtube.com/TheManaSource

Could Narset be our first three-colour plansewalker? In my personal opinion, yes and no. While I would like to believe that Wizards decided to finally venture into this territory, my gut tells me that if she is printed, she will likely be two-coloured. However, I do think she will obviously contain two of the Jeskai colours and my vote would be Blue-White. The reason is because I feel that Blue-White has such a weak representation as it is and a two-colour, control-based planeswalker would easily fill that hole.

Here's another thought though, if you'll just bare with me for this last bit. Perhaps Narset may have left Tarkir. If you notice in the last piece of the sentence above, you'll see that she is committed to her clan. What if, like I said before, the clans dissolve and Narset answers her planeswalker spark and leaves the hostile Tarkir. If we don't see her at all in this set, we may actually come across her in later sets with a clear but also interesting storyline for us as players.

I'm anxious to hear what you guys think about all this. What do you expect from the new set?

Thanks for the support and happy hunting.
 - Jay

Modern Analysis: Siege Rhino

Pro Tour Fate Reforged showed us that the Modern format is alive and well after being shaken up by numerous banned & restricted changes. Modern is a large format and has seen an equally large increase in player base since the release of Modern Masters in the summer of 2013. The format has grown organically since its inception and has been the preferred eternal format for the new generation and doesn't look to be going anywhere anytime soon.

One of the absolute all-stars of the Pro Tour this last weekend was the inclusion of Siege Rhino into the most played deck in the Modern portion of the event: Abzan. Rhino has already made its presence known in Standard since its Khans release a few months ago and also surprisingly found a home in Modern before and after the new banned & restricted announcement.

Siege Rhino is currently trading at an impressive $7.72 average, which is up almost 40% from this time last week. Jared Yost (Brainstorm Brewery) wrote a very valuable analysis of the most recent Pro Tour and showed that the only rare with more copies in the Top 8 than Rhino was Scalding Tarn, and they even had more copies than any mythic in the Top 8.


Jared Yost Top 8 Analysis (Pro Tour Fate Reforged)

Source: Brainstorm Brewery, brainstormbrewery.com

Whether these numbers prove that Rhino has what it takes to stay in Modern long-term, prices for the Khans rare were reflective of the card's representation over the weekend and the card had a Monday average that settled at $6.95 and has continued to climb in the days following.

Siege Rhino: Averages (Jan. 19 - Feb. 11)

Source: MTG Stocks, mtgstocks.com

Obviously, most of the value comes from the fact that it is currently a dominating, Standard legal card, but the question is: how high could we expect the card to rise to over its remaining Standard life?

Siege Rhino: Lifetime Financials

Source: Echo MTG, echomtg.com

Siege Rhino's 52 week high occurred after the card's impressive showing at Pro Tour Khans of Tarkir and climbed to an unbelievable $10.00. However, the card hasn't climbed to anywhere near this since its showing at the Pro Tour this last weekend and I'm not so sure that it will. While the card has seemed to have proven itself time and time again, I think the card has shown itself to be too sensitive in gains to warrant a long-term investment right now.

Prices are also likely to be driven down within the next couple weeks as suppliers try to offload before prices are driven down by heavy volume. This means that it's not really the time to buy or sell at the moment. While the increasing demand is causing a big uptick in the market value, I personally think there isn't much sense in selling right now and would more encourage potentially trading up in equity.

I'm anxious to hear what you all think about this.

Is Siege Rhino still on its way up? Can it's price be maintained over its Standard life?

Thanks for the support and happy hunting.

 - Jay

Investing: Amulet & Why You Might Be Doing It Wrong

After a second place finish at Pro Tour Fate Reforged and a Grand Prix Top 8 just days before, Modern's Amulet of Vigor seems to be making a massive climb in popularity and interest from every angle of the Magic community, including the finance community. And whether the deck is here to stay, or destined to fall out of favour relatively soon, we have the potential, at the moment, to make a good bit of money whether this remains a pillar of the format or a fad.

The deck is extremely hard to play and involves many complex decisions that many players believe cannot be done by the average casual or competitive player. There's very little tournament results at the moment outside of its two Top 8 finishes at some of the largest events this year, which leads some to believe that it was simply a deck chosen for the specific events in an attempt to surprise. I personally am on the fence about that speculation.

But, here are some of my personal thoughts about the deck and some areas where you might not have thought about yet.

Amulet of Vigor - The deck's namesake, Amulet has jumped to a new 52 week high of $7.97 and some believe that it may continue to rise to another Modern rare that is just out of the reach of new players. "120% gains over night can only be the work of the Pro Tour," I said to myself Sunday morning. I had some meeting to attend and couldn't watch the end of tournament, but I already knew that it didn't matter who won at that point, because Amulet would be the real winner from this weekend. While the card may be a good investment, I wouldn't recommend valuing them very highly as I fear that it may be an overnight sensation that goes no where after. Try buying for less than $6.00 and try your best to sell playlets for no less than $28.00 by this weekend and you should be in the clear.

Primeval Titan - Here's one of the all-stars of the deck as well. The 6/6 land fetching not-so-jolly green giant may be one of the better investments from this deck because of it's potential in this very deck. However, I personally think that this card may be a good one to pass on because I doubt that it will ever be used in Modern outside of this very deck and doubt even more that we will ever see it in Commander again as a fallback means of liquidating.

Karoo Lands (Green) - Here's another idea that could be much less risky however. Invest in the mana base. While the original Ravnica block lands are common, foils might be the best way to go in this situation in order to make sure of a Commander-based fallback plan. There's a lot of potential for foils of these cards to increase in demand over the course of this Amulet fad, but if it doesn't work out like you'd hoped, then you can still try to sell to players in need of Karoo Lands for Commander. And, likewise, if you have some non-foils laying around as well, now would be the best time to try and sell obviously.

Overall, I'm still not so sure that Amulet decks are here to stay, but I definitely believe that now is the time to get in and out as quick as possible in case this whole thing has blown over by the next Modern event. Because if it has a poor showing, I think we can see Amulet and Titan fall back to their pre-Pro Tour prices and those Karoo lands you have will just start collecting dust again.


I'm anxious to hear your opinions on this. Is Amulet here to stay? What are you adding to your portfolio?

Thanks for the support and happy hunting.
 - Jay

Legacy Analysis: True-Name Nemesis

Let me preface this by saying that I am not a Legacy player. But, in looking around at prices recently, I came across True-Name as a card that I felt like I should address.

When it first came out back in last October of last year, the card instantly became the terror of Legacy and was such given the incredibly high price tag. However, in the last few months, the card has seen an almost unprecedented decline in value from its 52 week high of $34.00 all the way to nearly creating a new 52 week low.


True-Name Nemesis: Lifetime Financials

Source: Echo MTG, echomtg.com

These numbers give us a clear sign that it may be time to start buying again. With Treasure Cruise banned, I don't think it would be too outrageous to think that Stoneblade decks could start making a return to the top tables of Legacy events and we could very well see an uptick approaching an all-time high within a year or maybe even less.

In terms of tournament play, True-Name continues to get major traction at the top tables in a variety of decks outside of just Merfolk. But, there's also not as much format-warping play as to warrant a banning like Cruise because, I believe, if Wizards wanted to do that they would have done it last year with the release of Born of the Gods or, more recently Fate Reforged when they cleaned house of all their previous mistakes. This means that we can likely have the confidence to invest and not get burned nearly as much as we could have during the card's height last year.

Here's another thing you may not have considered. This card may never be reprinted. Wizards has already acknowledged that this card was a mistake, and there doesn't seem to much of a possibility of the card ever seeing a reprint because of this, or at the very least within the next year. If the card isn't reprinted, we could see prices approach absurd levels if he remains a powerhouse in Legacy.

As you may be able to tell already, I believe this card is just begging to be snatched up right now. I would say that anything less than $15.00 right now is a steal at the moment, and anything less than $17.00 is definitely still worth considering very carefully. Prices have stalled fairly hard the last few weeks and we seemed to have reached the lowest they can go, which means things can only go up from here.

I would say to buy now and hold on until the prices from the next Core Set level out, before selling for no less than a 30% gain and look for a maximum return of over 60%. Or, the other option is to hold until the card reaches a long-term price level that could approach the all-time high within two years.


True-Name Nemesis: Averages and Lows (Oct. 28, 2013 - Feb. 6, 2015)

Source: MTG Stocks, mtgstocks.com


I'm very curious what you have to say about this.

Thanks for the support and happy hunting.
 - Jay