A good time to buy Modern staples

Modern Master 2017 have been replaced by Amonkhet and now is the time to get your Modern staples from MM3. Also, other Modern cards are down generally because everyone is focusing on Amonkhet, both limited and the new Standard.

I decided to put my money where my mouth is and invest heavily.



This time I invested as a long-term player of Modern and not a speculator. Still, I think I made some solid investments.

Here is a list of the stuff I got:

4 Liliana of the Veil
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Gemstone Mine (not in MM3 but still low)
4 Bonfire of the Damned (for RG Ponza)
3 Entreat the Angels
2 Griselbrand
4 Temporal Mastery
4 Arcbound Ravager
4 Blood Moon
4 Etched Champion
4 Gifts Ungiven
4 Inkmoth Nexus
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Primal Command
4 Ranger of Eos
4 Steel Overseer
4 Thragtusk
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Verdant Catacombs

Expect some more Modern videos on my youtube channel (above).

Cards I am buying right now

These are the cards I am picking up to sell later right now on Magic Online. I am not saying they are the best pickups. It just the ones I am buying personally. If you know of better pickups please let me know in the comments.

Fate Reforged
Fate Reforged was a small set with only a couple of valuable cards. They seem really cheap right now.

Picking those up to sell during a Standard price spike or long after rotation.
Monastery Mentor 8.36
Tasigur 4.34
Ugin 8.59

These cards are mostly in case of a Standard price spike. They just look very cheap.
Shaman of the Great Hunt 0.82
Brutal Hordechief 0.74
Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker 4.75

Boosters
I am also picking up some boosters hoping that their price increases after Play Points become a reality

Dragons of Tarkir Booster 2,14
Khans of Tarkir Booster 1.87

Long term specs
As long term specs I am picking up some rares that would skyrocket if reprinted and some Pauper cards that look like they could gain solid value in a couple of years

Chainer's Edict 0,05
Curfew 0.04
Spellstutter Sprite 0.04
Gush 0.05
Icequake 0.04
Underworld Connections 0.02
Desecration Demon 0.02
Mind Grind 0.02
Possibility Storm 0.02
Sylvan Primordial 0.02
Any RTR or GTC Shockland while Modern prices fall

The M14 Bulk Mythics project - final evaluation

A year ago I published a video about M13 crap mythics and how I would use my theories about redemption to earn money on M14 crap mythics. A crap Mythic is a mythic that goes below 50 cent at any point of its Standard life.

My actions a year ago

I invested heavily in M14 Mythics, particularly Windreader Sphinx, Darksteel Forge, Ring of Three Wishes and Devout Invocation.

At one point I even managed to move the price on Mo Souba for Windreader Sphinx.

I had 200+ copies of some or the Mythics. I did not dare go deeper at the time. And I was right not to.

Other sets
I tried to apply the same principles to other sets and found that the principle does not at all apply to small sets (Dragon's Maze) but that it applied (though somewhat less) to big sets (such as Return to Ravnica and Gatecrash).

I am now trying actively to buy any Mythic that goes below 50 cents.

So what happened to Windreader Sphinx?
When time came for the redeemers to get their crap mythics, the price of them increased violently. Just look at this graph

http://www.mtggoldfish.com/price/Magic+2014+Core+Set/Windreader+Sphinx#online

The right time to sell was December 18th or 19th. If you did you were looking at a solid 400% profit in a year if you bought at the bottom. Almost exactly like I predicted back in 2013.

So how did I do?
This is probably the part of this article you can learn the most from.

First I lowered the buy price on all the M14 crap mythics to 0,05 so I would not be one of the botters buying these from anyone and then lose money.

I put half of my crap mythics on the bots for sale at the estimated peak prices in November. Then I got nervous and decreased the prices. On December 8th a scraper bought every single copy of every one of them but at that time I had decreased the price to about 150% profit. So still not breakeven.

After that I put in the rest of them, once again at the estimated peak price.

The peak came on December 18th but it was somewhat lower than I thought so I did not sell any of them. I started selling them manually to other bots and told my partners to do so too. They did but I got caught up doing other things (it was Christmas Time, after all). The bots failed to sell even though I decreased my price to be the lowest on Magic Online.

As everyone was selling (surely some did so in panic) as the price dropped that drop was swift and quite soon we were back at pre-peak prices.

So I am stuck with a lot of M14 bulk and I went about breakeven on the whole deal.

What I will do next year
I am already picking up any bulk mythics from THS, KTK and M15 but so is everyone else. There are a lot more speculators doing exactly the same thing this year. I don't think we will ever see prices drop as low as they did last year - Hythonia was almost below 30 cent at some point.

Maybe this will never get as good again ever but I will still be picking up those 50 cent mythics when I can AND next year I will pay more attention to selling them.

Buying cards at rotation

Every year people say that rotation is different every year - that this is the year that people have finally learned that the eternal cards are great pickups at rotation, that there is a huge number of speculators that are driving the market. The same is true for this year. True in the sense that people are saying that. And this year they may be correct!

Just look at the graph for Abrupt Decay.

http://www.mtggoldfish.com/price/Return+to+Ravnica/Abrupt+Decay#online

You should have picked this up long ago. It will not drop to its lowest point on October 20th as it "normally would".

But even then, this does not matter. You should still pick up all the cards you need for eternal formats two weeks after rotation. You should still buy all your speculative cards two weeks after rotation.

Why? Simple. They will not get any cheaper if they are indeed eternally playable. Even if you missed the boat on Abrupt Decay, people that play only Standard (and there must be plenty of such people as Standard is by far the largest format) will have to sell theirs now, increasing supply when demand stays the same.

There is also redemption happening roughly in December for Mythics, making them great pickups right after rotation.

Ferocious Finance

Ferocious Finance is a new series of MTGO Finance videos published on my YouTube channel MagicGatheringStrat. They are done by Ferociousllama and is replacing my earlier series Weekly Finance Tips.

As of today three episodes have aired. The show is weekly and is produced with much better audio and video equipment than my own show was.

Here are the two first episodes. Subscribe to youtube.com/magicgatheringstrat to get updated when a new episode airs. Next one is due tomorrow Monday the 14th.


Episode 2 (July 6th)

Episode 1 (July 3rd)

Also, Ferociousllama and myself would be very interested in hearing what you want from a video series on MTGO Finance. Let us know in the comments below.

Vintage Masters

It is Vintage Master Preview week.

Marshall Suitcliffe talks about the draft format here: http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/li/299

I have found GatheringMagic and Wizards together have the best spoiler pages (this time spoilers have been all over the place, being revealed buried inside articles, on reddit and elsewhere)

Gathering Magic:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10152346165842025.1073741852.76993727024&type=1

Wizards:
http://www.wizards.com/magic/tcg/article.aspx?x=mtg/tcg/vintagemasters/cig

It looks like a fun draft format (especially for someone who was around at the time these cards were played) but lets talk about what this means financially for speculators and bot owners.

People will dump stuff on your bots
Some cards will probably never recover their value. Force of Will is never going to be a $100 card again (it is just a rare in Vintage Masters). The Dual Lands will take years to recover, if they ever do. Don't have your bots buying these cards.

So how do you handle this?
There are several options.

* Stop buying this week
* Lower your buy prices so that someone else gets dumped on
* Stay on top of what is being spoiled and immediatly adjust

You should have been aware of this risk months ago. Always look ahead and see what is coming so you can minimize risk. A small bot chain can get wiped out by a massive reprint release like Vintage Masters.

The weekly article by Pete Jahn is a good place to see what is coming. Here is his latest article: http://puremtgo.com/articles/state-program-may-9th-2014

Price predictions for Vintage Masters rares
When predicting card prices, it helps to look at precedents, similar sets that did similar things. Modern Masters come to mind.

The first question is if Vinage Masters will be drafted as much as Modern Masters. That is a very complicated question that probably deserves its own article. I will assume that it will.

The bottom for Modern Masters prices was July 2nd, 2013, as you can see here:
http://www.mtggoldfish.com/index/MMA#online

Cryptic Command was the most expensive rare at its bottom, costing 7.7 tickets on June 17th.

Demand for Cryptic Command was huge. Modern was popular already then. Vintage will never be as popular as Modern, not even if you include Legacy demand in that calculation.

Hypothesis: No rare in Vintage Masters will be as expensive as Cryptic Command. 

So, if you time your buying right, you should be able to get Force of Will and Dual Lands for less than 7.7 tickets. Maybe even much less.

Mythics (and special rares like the power nine) are harder to predict.

What should you do if you have Vintage Masters rares?
Sell them. Yesterday. All of them. They will be crashing hard.

If you have money uncommons that are now being reprinted (such as Reanmite), your situation is even worse.

Commons (Daze is highly likely but not spoiled yet) will not be worth more than 15 cents (Manamorphose was one of the most expensive common in MMA and can be looked on as an example).

When should you buy Vintage Masters for speculation?
The bottom for Modern Masters was earlier than I thought before I started writing this article. My kneejerk advice would be to buy the week after the drafts end, but it is possible that you should buy earlier. So make sure you buy heavily into the set no later than the week after the drafts end. One caveat, though: If Vintage fails to take off, this might just be another Master's Edition set and you might have to pick your speculations carefully. If you bought into Modern Masters last year, it did not really matter which cards you bought. The majority of them have gone up.

Good luck and I hope you enjoy Vintage Masters.

Cards I bought today

There are a lot of Flashback Drafts on Magic Online these days. Right now, today, you should be picking up your Odyssey Block cards. A block usually bottoms out the weekend AFTER the draft ends. Next weekend you should pick up your Time Spiral cards.

I have been using the principles from this article about what to buy at any given moment to create my list below: htttp://mtgolibrary.blogspot.se/2014/03/what-should-you-buy-at-any-given-moment.html

I have picked up the following cards over the weekend:

Black Sun's Zenith at 0,15 tix

Cabal Ritual 0,29 tix

Deep Analysis 0,15 tix

Earth Rift at 0,15 tix

Grand Abolisher at 0,17 

Nimble Mongoose at 0,43 tix

Necromancy at 0,28 tix

Prismatic Strands at 0,15 

Standstill at 1,48 tix

Submerge at 3,42 tix

Treachery at 2,5 tix

VI Fireblast at 0,55 tix

I have also picked up Ajani's Chosen at 0,06 tix and Mana Bloom at 0,05 tix but that is very speculative 

Hope you find this useful. If you have any finance tips you wish to share, please do so in the comments below.

Randomly, I also made a video about today's buying spree:

Cards to buy right now

There are a lot of Flashback Drafts on Magic Online these days. Right now, today, you should be picking up your Scars of Mirrodin cards. A block usually bottoms out the weekend AFTER the draft ends. Next weekend you should pick up your Odyssey Block cards.

I just noticed that if a card is currently not being played, the Flashback Drafts affect it a lot more. I knew it did, but it has become even clearer lately. 

Compare the graph of Caged Sun here (only played casually)

http://www.mtggoldfish.com/price/New+Phyrexia/Caged+Sun

with Inkmoth Nexus (played in Modern right now)

http://www.mtggoldfish.com/price/Mirrodin+Besieged/Inkmoth+Nexus

That means that people are now aware of this effect and a lot of speculators and players are picking up their InkMoth Nexuses. You, the smart finance person, should then pick up all the cards that are not being played right now that are crashing due to the Flashback Drafts.

Having said all that, here are some very concrete pickups that you (or your bots) should invest in.

I have been using the principles from this article to create my list below: : ttp://mtgolibrary.blogspot.se/2014/03/what-should-you-buy-at-any-given-moment.html

I have picked up the following cards over the weekend:

Beast Within at 0,30 tix
Caged Sun at 0,30 tix
VI Fireblast at 0,55 tix
VI Funeral Charm at 0,21 tix
Inquisition of Kozilek at 0,53 tix (it has gone up)
Kaervek's Torch at 0,15 tix
Life's Finale at 0,07 tix
Mark of Asylum at 0,07 tix (This is based only on the Brainstorm Brewery tip)
Molten Rain at 0,15 tix
No Mercy at 0,6 tix
BOK Sowing Salt at 0,3 tix
Spinning Darkness at 0,28 tix
Staff of Nin at 0,07 tix (This is more speculative)

Tectonic Edge dipped down a lot for a very short while but it has not gone up far too much already.

Hope you find this useful. If you have any finance tips you wish to share, please let me know.

Also, a special shoutout to this excellent MTGO Finance blog that I discovered this morning: http://blog.mtgprice.com  Check it out.

What should you buy at any given moment?

I often receive questions like this: "Dan I have 205 tix on my account currently not playing mtgo can you give me some tips on what to invest and sell? Can log in everyday ect. Thanks"

That question is impossible to answer, because I have not been given enough information.

Look at some of the possible answers:

Invest everything in Pauper staples that are currently low

This is a high-return, high-risk investment. If you manage to buy Pauper cards for 15 cents each that have historically been over 1 ticket, you can get 500-2000% out of this after only 4-6 months, but so much can go wrong. What if the cards you bought are reprinted in Vintage Masters? What if the deck that uses the cards has a new replacement card, which prevents your cards from ever spiking again? What if Pauper never gets as popular as it used to be when Daily Event were around? 

Risk: High. Possible return: Up to 2000% in 6 months.

Invest everything in M14 Mythics and sell after rotiation for redemption

This is the safe alternative and still significantly better than any stock options. Look at the M13 Mythics. Right after rotation, they were all 2+ tickets. Currently you can buy some of the M14 Mythics below 50 cents. In November you should be able to sell them for at least 1 ticket each.

Risk: As low as it gets on Magic Online. Return: Up to 400% in 9 months. 100% looks very easy.

Invest Everything in Modern Staples right after Modern PTQ Season ends

If you go down this route, you will have to wait until August to buy. Then you wil have to wait until Modern PTQ season comes around again. That should happen in June 2015 but you never know with Wizards of the Coast. Looking at the way Modern cards are spiking already, you should be making some very nice profits.

Risk: Low.   Return: 100-600& in 10 months.  Cards will be very easy to move compared to the above alternatives.

Invest Everything in Theros cards when they bottom out. Sell during Standard PTQ Season

In June 2014, Theros cards will be at their lowest Point Before they rotate in October 2015. Why? Well, read this: http://mtgolibrary.blogspot.se/2013/11/when-to-invest-in-fall-set-theros-for.html

If you buy the Theros cards in June, you should be able to sell them in February (given that Standard PTQ Season do not move in 2015).

Risk: Medium. Return: Up to 100% in 8 months. Cards are super easy to move.

----------------

I could go on and I probably will at a later time. But the Point is that I can not answer your question unless you tell me your goals and answer the following questions:

• Why are you investing in Magic Online?
• When do you need the Money?
• What will you do with you profit?
• What kind of risk are you willing to take? Could you take a loss?

Weekly MTGO Finance Tips episode 7

Short summary of the video:

• Avoid trying to call shots for the Pro Tour. It is fun, but real MTGO Finance is about the long-term grind for the EV, not about bragging what calls you made and hide those who failed.
• Buy Molten Rain (0,15), Great Furnace (0,19), Unmake (0,36)
• Sell Tarmogoyf, Dual Lands, LED and Force of Will.

Want to know why shotscalling is bad and will lose you Money in the long run? Check this out:

MTGO Weekly Finance Tips

Just started a series on YouTube that I will do every Monday with a couple of Finance tips. I do a segment on the podcast Pauper to the People and I will do the YouTube video right Before that segment, so they will overlap.

This is the first episode:

Basically, I am doing four different specs right now.

1. Buy Pauper. Extremely high risk. Flashback drafts and the loss of Daily Events have hurt the Pauper staples (Always very unstable) a lot. Some cards have dropped 90% or more (Snuff Out for example). If you want to do a high risk adventure speculation, invest in Pauper staples. Returns of 800-1000% in a year is not unthinkable. Only for the brave.

2. Buy Modern staples. Just five months to the first Modern PTQ season since early 2013. Prices will soar and some cards (especially MMA that was recently drafted) are still low. Pretty solid returns.

3. Sell Standard. Even Theros cards (but especially RTR Block and M14) should spike soon. When the Standard PTQ Season in Paper ends on March 9th, the stuff that will rotate this fall will start falling.

4. Buy Penny rares. I have a special place in my heart for Penny Rare speculation. I just sold 213 Nightveil Specters and now I am trying to get rid of 200 High Priest of Penance. If one Penny Rare hits, it pays off for a lot of them that did not hit. Speculating on Penny Rares brought me into Contact with Daniel who managed to summarize a lot of thoughts about Theros Penny Rares (below)


P.s. I am also buying M14 Mythics, but that is the subject for a whole other article. D.s.


My friend Daniel on the Theros Penny Rares (in response to my own thoughts on the subject):

Okay, so here is my line of thinking on the cards I'm targeting from THS right now..

Rageblood Shaman - I believe the block is bound to produce some more Minotaurs; I think that's a given. We already have Rageblood, Reckoner and Fanatic of Mogis, which makes for a decent good core. This spec may be predicated on a good 1-drop Minotaur but I also think an above-average Midrange piece could cause a spike as well. There's very little risk here at .02-.05 and a decently high ceiling.

Reverent Hunter - I've had some experience against mono green devotion and think it can be a very real deck. Whenever I see this guy hit the board, he's a 5/5 for 2G. Also working to its advantage is that he scales so he isn't a specifically bad late game draw. Casting cost is nice, typing is nice (human) and the current price is nice at .04-.06. I'm in.

Arbor Colossus - 6/6 for 5CMC, can grow and has a relevant ability (walls/shoots down cloudfin, nightveil, stormbreath and etc.). Good card overall but I'm looking to grab it for under .1 if possible.

Those are the main ones I'm looking at right now. As for mythics, I grabbed two playsets of Underworld Cerberus for .64 because I think at least one of his abilities will be very relevant in the upcoming meta. It doesn't have a ETB trigger, which is a big deal of course but the super evasion plus dissuading hard
removal seems very good.

To a lesser extent I like Prognostic Sphinx (has some appeal if control mirrors become a thing IMO), Nighthowler (is a better Reverent Hunter if GY shenanigans take off), Prophet of Kruphix (would be buying if it were .05 cheap; on the fence), Daxos of Meletis (have play tested and my opponent ALWAYS targets him first; I think it means something), Reaper of Wilds (I'd be happier here if it were cheaper and the Golgari Scryland was being released in BNG), Polis Crusher (efficient body:cost, hope ability becomes a little more relevant) and Ember Swallower (see Crusher although it's alarming that red devo hasn't made any use of him).

 

Oh, by the way, here are the exact numbers on the mana intensive 3CMC lords..
 
Knight Exemplar - high of 1.5 

Field Marshal - 1.6

Merfolk Sovereign - .13

Grand Architect - 1.4

Goblin King - N/A

Goblin General- 1.4

Balthor the Stout - .19

Elvish Champion - 2.5

Elvish Archdruid - 1.2

Lord of the Undead- 4

Death Baron - .88

Cemetery Reaper -.95

Captivating Vampire - .9

* for cards with multiple reprints, I took the high of their first Printing.

When to invest in the Fall set (Theros for 2013)

This fall people have asked me several times when to buy Theros cards. I have always answered "between December 15 and New Year". That is still my answer, but let us examine if that is really the truth, using data from the last Three fall sets, as well as considering how the non-existence of Daily and bigger events affect this.

When should you have bought Return to Ravnica cards?

One of my favorite MTGO Finance sites, mtggoldfish.com, has a very useful index function.

Let us look at the index for Return to Ravnica here: http://www.mtggoldfish.com/card/RTR

So the bottom prices of RTR were Dec 14 2002, Jan 5, 2013 and Another dip on Feb 9, 2013.

That does reflect well on our hypothesis, but we also need to consider the differences between Theros and RTR. Theros will be drafted all year, first alone, then with Born of the Gods and finally with both Born of the Gods and Journey into Nyx, whereas Return to Ravnica was not drafted at all during Gatecrash.

Let us look at the fall set of 2011 then.

When should you have bought Innistrad cards?
We are only considering the Standard Life span of the cards here, so the real answer ("right after rotation!") is not relevant to our Theros discussion.

Here is the ISD index: http://www.mtggoldfish.com/card/ISD

We have the two deepest bottoms at Nov 29, 2011 and Feb 22, 2011 but then ISD drops again (!) and reaches its very lowest Point in May 2012, right around the release of Avacyn Restored.

ISD was also drafted differently. It was drafted with its first small set, DKA, but then it was not drafted at all during Avacyn Restored.

We will need to look at Scars of Mirrodin, which was actually drafted just the way that Theros will be drafted. What did that do the price of rares and mythics from SOM?

When should you have bought Scars of Mirrodin cards?

Once again ignoring the huge effect of rotation, lets have a look at the index: http://www.mtggoldfish.com/card/SOM

There is again a valley around Christmas. The very lowest points are Jan 17, 2011 and March 3rd, 2011, but then something strange happens. There is a huge dip! On June 16, 2011, SOM prices are as much as 20% lower than in February. There is also very importantly no significant spike in prices during the first two quarters of the year. The spike comes right when M12 is released.

Goldfish has no data for Zendikar. If anyone knows where to find that data, let me know.

What will be the effect of the non-existence of Premier and Daily events?
All events bigger than 8 players are gone from Magic Online when I write this. This has caused prices to drop. This will probably accentuate the drop around Christmas, making picking up cards in December more attractive than what would have otherwise been the case.

Standard PTQ Season
This year, Standard PTQ Season has been moved. It now runs from December 7, 2013 until March 9, 2014. This probably means that Standard prices will go up as soon as PTQs return to Magic Online and that they will drop more sharply during the second quarter without PTQ support.

The conclusion
It is probably premature to buy into Theros in December and if you can wait until May/June, you should do so.  My suggestion? Buy playsets that you need (I will do so, especially as I advocate Selling Everything from Theros block as early as in March 2015 with the current PTQ season Schedule unchanged) in December and then buy your speculation stock in May/June.

MTG Finance articles I have written

I find writing and doing videos about MTGO finance very challenging, as it is quite a sensitive subject. Therefore I have done so much less than I should. I think mtgolibrary might be the right outlet for me to publish my finance Writing, so expect more MTGO Finance articles from me in the future.

Before I proceed to do so I wanted to highlight some of my earlier work as well as a really good article on my own website mtgostrat.com.

An introduction to MTGO Speculation
This is the only one that is not mine. The writer is Jason Grant and he intends to publish more Finance articles on mtgostrat.com: 

Speculation 101 with Jason: http://mtgostrat.com/2013/11/real-way-go-infinite-mtgo-speculation-101/

Seasonal Trading on MTGO

I feel that the long term cycles on card prices for MTGO are very exploitable and something that most bot operators overlook. This article will be updated eventually, so take into account that it was written Before they moved Modern PTQ Season.

Seasonal Trading on MTGO:
http://puremtgo.com/articles/mtg-finance-seasonal-trading-cycles-over-year-magic-online

You will fail when you speculate on MTGO
Warning! Speculation on Magic Online will probably fail for you. Here's why: http://youtu.be/mHwCO4QCWqA

Spread your risks
Me on Good Bots and Spreading Risks: http://mtgostrat.com/2013/09/mtgo-finance-good-bots-spreading-risks/

With a special shoutout to the bot owners that have treated me the best as a customer.

Earlier om mtgolibrary: When to sell your card
When do you sell your card? http://mtgolibrary.blogspot.se/2013/11/when-to-sell-magic-online-card.html

The Most Important Thing
The Most Important thing about MTGO finance: http://mtgolibrary.blogspot.se/2013/10/the-most-important-thing_23.html