Draft: Minor KTK Closeout Quick Hits

– I draft red, A LOT.

– If I open one more Alter of the Brood, I’m going to kill someone.

– Speaking of pulls, I haven’t pulled shit.

– As I typed the last sentence, I just pulled a Sorin, pack 2.

– I tend to do well in match 1 and then lose everything else, making 4-3-2-2 more profitable for me.

– The amount of times I’ve been able to draft compared to the amount of money I’ve actually spent leaves me satisfied.

– I’ve seen a lot of Ugin’s Nexus being passed very late.

– Pack 3 of this final draft and I pull a Windswept Heath. Before this windfall, with shitty pulls, I was averaging around 6.50 a draft.

– I won no drafts so far.

– I think I value removal too high as I tend to be scraping for creatures, late draft and then I wonder why I lose when he removes my bomb and I’m holding 2 lands in hand.

Finance: Bellstriker Is The Next Big Thing in Mono Red

Something very interesting happened this weekend. A mono-red deck made it to the top 8 of the StarCityGames Standard Invitational. That’s not the interesting part. The noticeable part is that this mono-red deck only ran 1 Goblin Rabblemaster and zero Monastery Swiftspears. On it’s own that drops the price of the deck by about $40. What did it run in its place? A playset of Lightning Bezerker and more interestingly, a playset of Zurgo Bellstriker.

  

The fact that 4 Bellstrikers are being run in a super aggro deck isn’t the crux of this. It’s the fact that Bellstriker could start seeing play, replacing the $10 Rabblemaster and it’s currently below $3 each. You could potentially pick up a playset of these for $10. It probably wont hit the heights of Rabblemaster which was from a low volume core set, thus being scarce, but DTK already has a reputation of not being a very valuable set and therefore will result in less boosters getting cracked and we could see this card approach the $7 mark if it becomes a staple in budget decks. 

Price movement on the card is already rising from $2.18 to around $2.60 and I would take any price below $3.50. There is always a place in standard for cheap mono-red decks and those usually run between $80-$120. It’ll take another strong showing or two to really jetset the price, but this is a spec that can easily jump up, and it still has a spot in very budget decks meaning it probably wont drop below $2 even if it’s not super competitive.

Bellstriker is also moving A LOT on Pucatrade, at #5 for this week. Move fast.

Verdict: Pick up multiple playsets of this immediately. As I’m writing this I’m already seeing it selling out on ChannelFireball and SCG. Troll and Toad has them for $3 and on a restock SCG will have it at $4.

Quick Hits

– I firmly believe that Monestary Seige will see play in some sort of deck. With Mono-Blue devotion still being hyped, at this point either the deck will find it’s niche or be relegated to jank. If it finds it’s spot, we could see this Siege jump in price. Maybe pick up a personal playset and watch what the brewers are doing. 

– In the same vein, if mono –blue tanks badly, if you see Master of Waves drop back to around $3, pick up a playset or two. This is already being included in most modern merfolk decks and being a mythic post-rotation will definitely keep the price elevated, not to mention it’s also being played in almost all blue commander decks. 

– My personal baby, Crucible of Fire is still doing well, but I’m having the age old problem of finding buyers. Regardless, I’ve already made profit on them and this is the kind of card that will stay high unless there is a massive reprint.

– It might be time to start hoarding KTK sealed product.

– Thoughtsieze is stabilizing at $20. Now the question is, do most people sell it at rotation, dipping the price before it ricochets back up due to modern? Or does everyone hoard their playsets because they see the previous incarnation was $70 at some point? I’m afraid it’s the latter, so lock in your playsets now. 

Sealed: My Current 4 Booster Sealed Experiment

Yesterday was a relatively minor day for me. Wrestlemania 31 is upon us and as a huge wrestling fan, I’m excited to see Brock Lesnar run train on Roman Reigns. As such, I spent the day listening to wrestling podcasts and Bryan Alvarez over on Wrestling Observer.

Between law school, working out, home responsibilities and sleep (or lack thereof) I haven’t had time at all to stream, let alone take out 3 hours of my evening to play some sealed or Swiss draft. I’ve even been looking into Commander decks in order to play more casually and have seriously considered selling off my $500 worth of standard cards online.

In paper magic, I still have half a box of KTK and FRF to open and my 540 cube is basically balanced although it hasn’t been updated for DTK and I have a few other minor alters I want to make but don’t know what to cut for (Is Pack Rat too oppressive?).

However, with this weekend coming upon us and 8 KTK packs in my inventory (Which of course, aren’t worth shit), I’m at the crossroads where I’m deciding if I should do a sealed daily, 3 drafts or 2 4 booster sealeds.

It’s all about Estimated Value in this case and knowing yourself as a player. I know that I tend to get frustrated with a bad pool or bad game and while I don’t get salty enough to rage quit, I’ll usually end up punting more easily because I’m tilted. Unfortunately, MagicEV hasn’t been updated since the winter,but we can still glean some information from there. First of all, at a 50% win rate, phantom sealed costs about 2 dollars an event. This is perfect for my plan to practice for GP Montreal, and save my real money for the Sealed Dailies and PPTQs when I get good, which usually take about 8-10 events for me to get a handle on a set.

Meanwhile, what do we do about these 8 pack of khans? They are sitting at a sell price of around 1.8, and I’d rather play with them than sell them (I have this strange idea that I’m going to be able to collect a full redeemable set) so the real question becomes, “which of the limited events do I do?”

As of right now I’m leaning towards 4 booster sealed. Not only do I get to open 4 packs a game, 2 wins garners 1 KTK pack and 2 FRF packs. This means that 2 wins basically helps us split even. I know what you’re thinking, “but Colt, 2 wins in KTK swiss drafts also pay out the product needed minus 1 KTK pack.” You are correct, so that means they both have around the same EV for a higher than 50% win rate, but the 4 booster sealed let’s you crack an extra pack AND if you 3-0 you win 6 packs as opposed to in swiss draft where you’ll only win 3 (aka your product back).

I’m writing this very “stream of conscious” and to be honest, I haven’t completely done the math, but as of now, I’ll be using my extra packs to fund 4 booster sealed events. I’ll give a full report whether or not this was worth it. If anything, it’ll be an interesting experiment.

Finance: Is Redeeming MTGO Sets Profitable?

As any MTGO player should know at this point, WoTC offers set redemption for players who collect an entire set, allowing you to turn your digital cards into freshly printed physical cards. The caveats are that you can only do this with a full set collection (if you want playsets, you need to redeem four full collections) and there is a $25 fee per redemption.

The $25 redemption fee is a double edged sword. By increasing the barrier to converting digital product into tangible physical product, the artifically depressed the price of digital product, making it much more affordable to play online. The fact that you can draft with prize support for an average of about $10, even if you lose evey time, opposed to $15 and that standard and modern dekcs usually cost half the price as their physical counterparts allow much more people to be involved on the competitive level. The issue is, it makes the entire redemption process less attractive when you critically think about it.

Let’s take a look at Khans of Tarkir. A set with very attractive Mythics and Rares who’s redemption price is probably at the lowest we’ll see. 

KTK as a digital set costs around $65. Factor the redemption cost and tax that comes with that and we’re looking at around $95 spent to get a full physical set of KTK.

A physical set of KTK has a retail price of $190. That looks good, about $100 profit, but this isn’t factoring shipping, tracking and supplies to ship costs. Furthermore, this is the retail price, this doesn’t factor the fact that a lot of these 30-50 cent rares aren’t going to move or wont be cost effective to ship to buyers who only want 1 Master of Pearls. This also doesn’t afactor the fact that the retail price includes all the commons and rares worth about 15-30 cents that rarely get bought. All in all , the retail price for every card worth over 50 cents (a total of 41 cards) in KTK nets a total of $151.16. Once again, that is not including shipping, associated costs and assumes that you actually sell every card over 50 cents. The average sale will be $3.69 but this is skewed due to the fetchlands. The mode average sale is $1.50.  Worst case scenerio, you have to send every card in a pennysleeve and toploader, in a stamped enveolpe. Every stamp is 49 cents (God, I remember when it was 36 cents…) and in the worst case you’ll eat into your profits $20.09 in just stamps. You can get 50 top loades for about $5 and assorted sleeves you probably have lying around. Subtract this from your profits and subtract the redemption cost itself and we’re netting a profit of $29.07.

That is a $0.71 profit on each card. 

For the average Magic: The Gathering financier, redemption sets are NOT worth it. Having a profitable card is nothing if you can’t liquidate for as close to retail price as possible. The time and effort to make those $30 isn’t worth it, not to mention the fact that you’re probably not going to have an issue moving the fetchlands, but who’s really looking to buy Ugin’s Nexus? I’m sure somebody is, but are you going to be lucky enough to grab their sale?

Verdict: Unfortunately, pass. I like redeeming a collection of each set and keep it wrapped and displayed because I play a lot of limited and finishing off a set usually only runs me an extra $10 or $20 to fill any holes and then the redemption fee. Otherwise, other than pet projects or if you’re convinced the set price is going to jump next year and you have the means to sell it as a set, I say nay.

Draft: Was I The Only One Who Liked M15 Draft?

Was I the only one that actually liked M15 as a draft format? I keep hearing about how “uninspired” and “bland” it was, but to me, it was the perfect draft set. 

The set was almost perfectly balanced. Every two color combo seemed to have a clear strategy associated with it. The artifact subtheme made artifacts cool and relevant. The rares had a good number of junk and a good number of bombs, but even all the rares had answers so matches never turned into a “bomb-off”. I particularly liked that there were “build around me” uncommons (Ajani’s Pridemate and Ensoul Artifactspring to mind) that rewarded forward planning in the draft portion and had proper support cards. 

Yes, triplicate spirits was a ridiculously powerful card and may have been better suited as an uncommon, but even that wasn’t game breaking since there were enough stronger fliers and reach creatures to deal with them (although Triplicate Spirits + Sanctified Charge may not have been as well thought out as it should have been) and it wasn’t really dangerous unless they somehow had 2 or 3 of them in their deck and you were playing green/blue without Netcaster Spider or bouncers. 

Sealed wasn’t as good as most games turned into “who opened the most Lightning Strikes or Ulcerates”. In Sealed’s case, the fact that there were 6 packs from the same set opened, worked against it as it was very difficult to make a 3 color deck, although that didn’t stop RGB decks from trying. 

All in all, M15 drafting was really cool. You never felt like you had a particularly bad deck and it was really easy to shift colors during the draft if it was obvious people were fighting over one (usually white, leaving blue wide open).  The set itself didn’t sell well meaning that a lot of the rares have retained value, leading to better value in pack opening. Lastly, the set is just fun. There’s a certain charm to it’s simplicity and there are still a multitude of fun decks to draft and play as if you’re willing to go off the beaten path. You haven’t lived until you played a Generator Servant into a haste given Stormtide Leviathan. 

Finance: The Guarenteed Spec That I Hate

If someone came up to me and said, “Hey Colt, I have a sure thing that is definitely going to hit, definitely going to be in demand, and because everyone knows the price is going to go up, no one is going to sell these when they go out of standard so supply will be rediculously low,” I’d usually jump at the oppertunity to buy a bunch of playsets and hrde them away while premptively counting the profits I’ll use to finally buy revised duals. 

The problem is, this “guarenteed spec” isn’t anywhere near a secret. You don’t need insider info to know the price is going to rise after rotation, it’s not secret deck tech or anything, most decks in its colors will want a full playset just becuase there’s no reason not to have it. It’s like the Tarmagoyf of non-creature spells, except it’ll always stay less than $200 because it’s not a finisher, but its utility means that it will never go out of style.

I am, speaking about, of course: Thoughtseize. (Herein “TS”)

Thoughtseize is the bane of my existance. It’s one of those cards that throwing it into a deck makes the deck about 50% better. If you play black and you’re not running TS either main board or in the SB, the first reaction you’ll get is, “why aren’t you playing it?” It’s the ultimate card in that there is no reason to not have TS in your 75. Even if you run a budget with 2 duresses and 2 despises, you are immediately at a disadvanage because they are not TS. It’s the same reason why running scry lands or shocks or fetches can singlehandedly make a deck many times better. Magic is a game of consistancy and TS offers disruption at a cheap cost and it will consistantly always hit something you want out of your opponenets hand. You don’t know true despair until you’ve seen a turn 1 thoughtseize into an immediate concession. 

And this card isn’t only in standard. If a modern deck plays black, it needs TS in it. At first printing, post rotation, TS capped out at $70 each. Now, we’re hovering around $20. Unless there is a MASSIVE reprint (which seems unlikely becuase it was just reprinted in Theros), prices will never dip below $20 again. They may never hit $70 again, but there will always be demand for this standard and modern staple. I hate that I have to tie in so much money into playsets of TS, but it’s the closest thing to a sure thing we’ll ever see.

Except MAYBE the fetches….

Sealed: 4 Color “Morph”

I finally had a free 3 hours after completely bombing two 4-3-2-2 drafts where I scrubbed out in the firs round of each one, so I decided to do a sealed. I was actually going to do the 4-pack sealed since I’m convinced that let’s you open the most packs for the least amount of money as long as you have a 50% win rate, but I’ll save that math for another day. Log story short, I was watching “Cops” and not really paying attention and accidentally joined a regular 6-pack sealed.

The pool I was dealt could have been much worse. I had Yasova, Brutal Hordechief and Silumgar as my bombs, making my decision to go Sultai very easy. What really caught my attention was the Secret Plans and the Trail of Mystery. I was thrilled to finally be able to make a cool morph deck. However, as I was building, I realized that my removal was really weak so I begrudgingly splashed red for 2 arc lightnings and a Vaultbreaker. I ended with this:

Fortunately, the lifelands I got were perfect for red+sultai and Frontier Bivuoac gave me extra value with a red source.

During the games, I realized that I never dropped Trail of Mystery and although I was able to play Secret Plans once, I never played a morph with it so it was irrelevant. The real MVP was Silmugar who kept all those pesky 2-1 and 3-1 creatures at bay and Grumag Angler who would hold the board down and late game was usually cast for just 1 mana. It’s funny because other than Silumgar, my bombs didn’t take voer the games. Usually I cast them and they acted as a lightning rod for their removal so that my Aven or Bond-Kin were safe since they used their removals on my bombs.

My last game I was worried I was going to lose, but my opponent rage quit after he saw me target his sole creature, the 5/5 Krotiq. What he didn’t know was that I was doing a very convoluted play that involved Hunt The Weak and saccing a creature for a Hooded Assassin kill, but as soon as I targeted the Krotiq, he rage quit. Whatever. 3-0 and got my first QP of the season… which ends in like 3 days….

God damn it.

Finance: A Pre-DTK Review

While everyone is panicking about set reviews and speculating on pre-orders, we’re in a position to look back at cards that worked, cards that didn’t, and what the future might hold, particularly with a reprint set, a core set that will likely be full of reprints, and new set rotation. 

The Good 

Edit   

Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth – Everyone knew that this EDH staple would drop when it was printed again, but no one expected it to bounce back so soon. If there is another dip in price that brings it close to the $5 mark, I would snap buy these but I think that time is over. The out of standard price is high and apparently M15 sold much less than expected, so supply isn’t as massive as the fetch lands. The one thing to consider is that there was a FTV printing, but I still think this card will stabilize around $15. 

Verdict: Exit 60% now to lock profits if bought in at $5 or less. The rest, hold to see if post-rotation spikes the price. 

  

Master of Waves – While I was messing around with mono-blue aggro devotion, I picked up two players for $4 a card. This card is spiking purely out of anticipation, every knew that for mono-U to work best, we needed a UUU cmc card and it looks like we got it in DTK. 

With standard as diverse a format as it is, I doubt we’ll see Blue Domination again. The Merfolk modern price looks to be around $5, so I’m exiting my small position and keeping a playset just in case I want to play a deck that doesn’t need dual lands. 

Verdict: Sell into the hype. 

  

See The Unwritten – When this card was $2.50, I was talking to someone on QS about sepccing on this and we both came to the conclusion that it was a solid pick up. I never pulled the trigger on it and now I’m salty as hell. 

The good news is that this card is rising and has multiple functions. It fills the graveyard for delve and other potential gy mechanics and it cheats one or two creatures onto the field for 6 mana in a color where ramp is prevalent. It’s not far fetched to play this on turn 4 and get one or two beast incarnates on the field. Especially with an Eldrazi set looming where this card will still be in standard, the opportunities for this look good. 

Did I mention it’s a mythic? Yes, it’s in the most opened set of all time, but as soon as people stop drafting KTK, I feel like this can crack at least $8. 

Verdict: Buy in.

The Bad

  

Icy Blast: This card is perfect in Temur or UG decks and it’s actually undercosted for the fact that you’ll usually be playing it in ramp colors anyway and it’s an instant. I went deep on this and it’s actually a little frustrating that it hasn’t caught on. However, all is not lost yet. If Mono-U actually catches on, we could see a playset of these being played and powered by Shrine to Nykthos to aid in blowouts. Basically, we’re hoping for these to rise to about $1 each. These are buylisting for 8 cents, so I have a standing buy for all icy blasts in my LGS at 12 cents.

Verdict: Hold. If you can grab some super cheap as throw ins during trades, do so. 

  

Sultai Ascendency – The card is a scry/mill 2 each turn for 3 in one of the top color combos. The issue? There is already so much that you want to do on turn 3 other than drop a dead card on the board. Tri-color in cubes is hard to organize making this card borderline worthless. If Tasigur or Sidisi catch on in EDH, than this card will jump a bit, but there are a few issues with this. Normal S.A. foils are overcosted as it is at $1+ already. Second, there was a foil promo that was given out that is selling at around 40 cents. 

Verdict: Pass. This card seems borderline worthless and it’s in an EDH color that only has two commanders, neither of them a tiny leader. If you bulk buy junk and you get a few of these, you can put them in your “compost box” and check on them every few months, otherwise fuck this card.

Questionable Plays

  

Mutagenic Growth – I’m not sure what I was thinking when I grabbed a bunch of these for 65 cents each. Maybe I’m hoping it’ll be the next big thing and go up to a dollar even though it’s a common. I’m throwing these in the compost box and hoping that everyone throws these in their modern decks.

Verdict: Burn your money for more value

  

Rattleclaw Mystic – Aggressive mana dork for G. Unfortunately, no hexproof means it wont completely take Sylvian Caryatid’s slot post-rotation. However, Temur and Abzan aggro will find this guy helps both ramp and apply pressure for cheap. Not only that, it also helps for further mana fixing making your land much more stabilized. It’s stabilized at $1.50 but I can see this crashing if Bird of Paradise is reprinted in Magic: Origins. If BoP is NOT in M:O and there aren’t any other dorks and the price for Mystic is still under $2, I’d grab some, especially if there is a Mystic into See the Unwritten into Eldrazi combo later.

Verdict: Wait. Too much risk to buy in now.

  

Monastery Siege – The blue siege of the cycle looks good for a grindy control deck. It takes the place of military intelligence that had been finding it’s way in mono-U decks, it synergizes well with Thassa and it help you control your opponent’s resource management by making all their spells overcosted. At 69 cents, this card can definitely take off and hit the $2 range if it catches on in both mono-U and/or UB Control. 

Verdict: Looks good enough that I’d pick up a few playsets.     

Interesting Notes: 

– Battlefield Thaumaturge – This card is heavily wanted on PucaTrade but none are moving and the price keeps jumping from mid 30 cents to 50 cents and back down. It helps with mana but along with the conditional hexproof, I don’t see it being that playable. Found it interested that it was so highly desired and none are being sold.

– All KTK uncommons are at or near their peak price, with the exception of Murderous Cut. I’m curious as to whether it will see a resurgence back to about a dollar after Hero’s Downfall, Bile Blight and Drown In Sorrow rotate out, but I still think 60 cents is too expensive a buy in. If it drops under 40 cents, I say go for it. 

– A full set redemption of KTK from MTGO is about $95 included taxes and shipping in the United States. A full set would normally cost $190, retail. Including shipping costs, selling the set would most likely net a profit of around $50 in the current market. I’m unsure as to whether it’s worth the effort for $50. 

– A full foil set redemption will run about $230 and retails for over $500. If you have the bank roll, this may be the bet to make. You can unload most of them (Clan leaders, planswalkers, etc.) and hold the Seige Rhino and foil fetches. These 6 cards themselves are worth the redemption and all of them being modern staples all but ensures that they wont plummet in price.