Well cats and kittens, this is one you’re going to want to bookmark. Not just the normal bookmark you use for Quiet Speculation, but one for just this article. This week we’re going to look at how the Scars of Mirrodin prerelease prices are shaping up, and I’ll continue to update the charts and graphs herein up until the release date of October 1st.

Before we fall into a haze of numbers I want to show everyone the amazing deck box that will be sitting next to me for all my punted games.

When I asked Rachel to make it for me over 6 months ago I didn’t realize how much work it was going to be. She starts with nothing but wire, pliers and metal sheers and makes magic (no pun intended). She can be found at most of the big Magic events in the northwest quietly hand crafting various concoctions from bracelets to life counters to deck boxes. I’m really happy with how it came out so I’ll show a few more pics
with the interesting backdrops I cooked up from the man cave.

Some of her other work can be found at her Etsy shop http://www.etsy.com/shop/GypsymoonChain and http://http://gypsymoonchain.deviantart.com/.
If you’d like a one of a kind deck box (or something else) she is taking commissions if you can toss her $250 and six months to do it. She can build (smith?) in just about any 30x40 pixel design and in all the good colors (red, yellow, green, blue, purple, black, silver, gold, and copper) and can be reached at gypsymoon_chainmail@hotmail.com.

And now on with the spreadsheets.

As has been my habit since the release of Zendikar, I spend a clinically insane amount of time collecting presales data from eBay along with the prices from a few of the online stores. Those who have been following me on twitter for a while now might remember me sending out some unruly Google spreadsheets filled with ill placed data. This data might in fact be why Kelly Reid wanted me to write for him and was probably the foundation of all my data wrangling for this site. Contained in this article is information similar to what I used to send out over twitter but it’s been reformatted a little for easy digestion.

First up is the highs and lows of the last seven days.

[iframe https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=0AukC5EWiTvOpdGdRTXRTUnpIMDdnNEVuckJaOEtub2c&single=true&gid=14&output=html&widget=true 100% 600px]

It shouldn’t come too much of a surprise to anyone following the feeds and news which of cards the top spots are going to. At the time of writing, Venser, The Sojourner, Espeth Tirel, Koth ,the Hammer, and the Mox Opal were in the lead by a good margin. They will likely stay as the most sought after cards several weeks after the release, but I think the dust will settle soon and we’ll be able to tell the Jace, the Mind Sculptors from the Lotus Cobras.

I’ve included some interesting anecdotal information such as the highest and lowest prices they have sold for in the last week as well as the quantity that’s been sold and their Standard relevant Demand Index values.

The next chart is pretty similar to the one above and has some of the data from the graphs below, but give you a small snapshot of how the cards are trending up and down. I’ve also incorporated the Demand Indexes of the top 30 cards in Standard and sorted the list by their Demand Index values.

[iframe https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=0AukC5EWiTvOpdGdRTXRTUnpIMDdnNEVuckJaOEtub2c&single=true&gid=16&output=html&widget=true 100% 600px]

The following list is sorted by total number of sales per card.

[iframe https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=0AukC5EWiTvOpdGdRTXRTUnpIMDdnNEVuckJaOEtub2c&single=true&gid=18&output=html&widget=true 100% 600px]

By the looks of this list, WotC chose the right buy a box promo card. Memoricide was spoiled pretty early on though so that could account for the rather large quantity sold.

Also for your viewing pleasure I present you with some pretty graphs. They should be fairly self-explanatory.

*Note
I've revamped the graphs a bit to make them comparable with Internet Explorer (by default, IE doesn't trust the content from Google spreadsheets, so unless specifically allowed it blocks images originating from the Google spreadsheet domains). I don't think they are quiet as pretty when restricted to the amount of space i have to squeeze them into, so here are some direct external links to the my online graphs.

External link to Graphs, page 1

External link to Graphs, page 2

[iframe https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=0AukC5EWiTvOpdGdRTXRTUnpIMDdnNEVuckJaOEtub2c&hl=en&single=true&gid=19&range=B2%3AC3&output=html&widget=false 100% 353px]

[iframe https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=0AukC5EWiTvOpdGdRTXRTUnpIMDdnNEVuckJaOEtub2c&hl=en&single=true&gid=19&range=B4%3AC5&output=html&widget=false 100% 353px]

The chart colors are chosen automatically by Google and I’m color blind so I’m not really sure how easy those are to read. Please let me know.

More interesting than the graphs above are these next few. These are the reason I started collecting all this data in the first place. I originally wanted to see how the amount of time cards from each set were spoiled affected card pricing. For the most part it’s about what you’d expect. More time from prerelease to release means more in presales both in quantity and total dollars. Since I don’t have Wizards sales figures I can’t really say how that influences the retail sales of a set in the long run but I’m working on some theories regarding the relationship between the time a set is spoiled, prerelease attendance, and pack sales. I hope you’ll find the following information as interesting as I do.

[iframe https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=0AukC5EWiTvOpdGdRTXRTUnpIMDdnNEVuckJaOEtub2c&hl=en&single=true&gid=19&range=D2%3AE3&output=html&widget=false 100% 353px]

As you might have noticed, I added in the newest spoiled cards in tiny text on each relevant day to show related spikes in sales. Please note that the cards listed may have been spoiled earlier, but that is the first day in which they have closed eBay sales.

[iframe https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=0AukC5EWiTvOpdGdRTXRTUnpIMDdnNEVuckJaOEtub2c&hl=en&single=true&gid=19&range=D10%3AE11&output=html&widget=false 100% 353px]

[iframe https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=0AukC5EWiTvOpdGdRTXRTUnpIMDdnNEVuckJaOEtub2c&hl=en&single=true&gid=19&range=B6%3AC7&output=html&widget=false 100% 353px]

I like these two graphs quite a lot as well. I think they give a really good and definitive sense of how well a set is being received by the public. Some of the following are a but of a visual mess, but I’m including the rest of these graphs because I went to a lot of effort to make them and I think many of you might get something useful out of them, if not just like them in general.

[iframe https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=0AukC5EWiTvOpdGdRTXRTUnpIMDdnNEVuckJaOEtub2c&hl=en&single=true&gid=19&range=D6%3AE7&output=html&widget=false 100% 353px]

[iframe https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=0AukC5EWiTvOpdGdRTXRTUnpIMDdnNEVuckJaOEtub2c&hl=en&single=true&gid=19&range=B8%3AC9&output=html&widget=false 100% 353px]

[iframe https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=0AukC5EWiTvOpdGdRTXRTUnpIMDdnNEVuckJaOEtub2c&hl=en&single=true&gid=19&range=D8%3AE9&output=html&widget=false 100% 353px]

[iframe https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=0AukC5EWiTvOpdGdRTXRTUnpIMDdnNEVuckJaOEtub2c&hl=en&single=true&gid=19&range=B10%3AC11&output=html&widget=false 100% 353px]

Lastly, I’d like to provide you with some data to print out take with you to the prerelease and release events so that you’ll be well armed to snatch up the cards you want and to ditch the rest in a flurry of sleeve rending chaos.

First we have two lists, one sorted by their color and then into alphabetical order (like how they are listed on www.mtgsalvation.com) next to a list sorted by the highest average price.

[iframe https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=0AukC5EWiTvOpdGdRTXRTUnpIMDdnNEVuckJaOEtub2c&single=true&gid=4&output=html&widget=true 100% 600px]

As you can see I’ve added in some average online store pricing (at the of writing I’m collecting prices from Star City Games, Cool Stuff Inc., Channel Fireball, and Gaming Etc.) Below is an offsite link that might help you in printing it out.

Direct link to the above sheet

Lastly I’d like to give you a link to a pocket sized list that I tried to format for mobile phones. In case you have to type the whole address on an unfriendly number pad I’ve shortened it as much as i can for you.

http://bit.ly/aT7hkZ

Chris McNutt
@fatecreatr on twitter