Introduction:

Hi everyone, my name is Kyle and I'm excited to start writing here on Quiet Speculation. In the real world I live in San Francisco, and work as a security engineer for a large software company. I have been a paying member of Quiet Speculation for 5 months now and I've really enjoyed interacting on the forums and learning from the other writers.

I have been playing Magic since Unlimited, and my favorite format by far is Vintage. I haven't gotten to play much since I sold my paper collection, but I am patiently looking forward to the release of the Power 9 online. Because I do not have any paper cards my primary focus will be Magic Online, but I'm hoping my articles will also be interesting to those who primarily focus on paper.

My Speculation Mission:

I joined Quiet Speculation because my fast approaching January wedding had taken a large portion of my disposable income away from my hobbies, and I wanted to find a way to make my Magic expertise reduce the cost of Magic, or possibly make it free. I've always been a financially-minded Magic player, so the shift has come pretty naturally.

My primary strategy had always been one of buying and holding, but as I started to speculate I wanted to take this further. However, even with the excellent advice and support of everyone in this community I found myself lacking confidence, and I made a few early mistakes. This got me thinking... at work I make a large number of risk based decisions, but I usually make these decisions with the support of some data source. If I could provide myself with some aggregated data that I could trust, maybe I could start analyzing the data and making better decisions, with more confidence.

Automation:

This brings me to the stuff that I'm really looking forward to sharing. The internet has made a treasure trove of information available on every topic and Magic: the Gathering is no exception. Wizards of the Coast is kind enough to provide daily decklists from MTGO and it was in these decklists that I found the confidence I was looking for.

For the past 5 months I have been working continuously to build a mini data warehouse for for collecting and reporting on this kind of Magic Online data. Using a cloud based CRM platform, I gather, store, and sort MTGO data in an entirely automated fashion. At first I thought I might make a website similar to mtggoldfish, but then I found mtggoldfish and had to change my plans! I have refocused on a building a system capable of answering more specific and complicated questions that I might come up with, and so far I'm very happy with the results.

I have also been dabbling with a bot chain as a side project. After losing a small sum to some pricing inefficiences I integrated my bots with the previously described data warehouse and have been working on using the stored MTGO data to more accurately price cards, and make the bot more resistant to market manipulations.

My Articles:

Finally we can get to the point of all this: articles. I wanted to start off by giving you a taste of my motivations and interests so that you might have some idea of my perspective. I'm not an economist or an experienced speculator but I believe I have an interesting perspective that is worth sharing. In future articles I plan to describe in more detail the ways in which I've gone about some of the above projects, including mining data, reporting on it, and some of the ins and outs of botting that I have experienced.

This is not a technical website however, it is a speculation website, so my articles would not make much sense unless they were tied back to the realm of finance. To do so, I plan to use the various reports and analyses I've been making to provide secondary portions to every article. These are sections that I hope will interest all the speculators on this site, and provide them with the same confidence in speculation that they have been providing me.

Modern & Rotation:

If you have read this far, I think it is only fair to provide you with something financial. In the forums not too long ago I wrote the following article on which rotating cards would have eternal value: https://www.quietspeculation.com/forum/index.php/topic,4125.0.html

With so many targets on that list, I thought it might be interesting to combine the rotating cards with their modern brethren of the same rarity. From the following list, we can gather some context on absolute card popularity within the Modern format, and comparable prices (I am unsure when this article will be released but at the time of writing these prices were bot sell prices). Also, please note that lifetime in this context is 5 months, the total life of my collection activities.

Mythics:

Rares:

If you prefer, the above tables are reproduced here as a google doc.

Here are my takeaways from the preceding lists, but please feel free to add your thoughts in the comments:

• Liliana of the Veil is currently the most played mythic in the modern format, and also the most expensive. I like most have been waiting for a significant reduction in price on rotation, but this report serves as a great reminder to me that this dark lady will be a buy for me at almost any price, even if I only acquire a playset.
• Huntmaster of the Fells keeps looking better and better as a speculation target. 7th place is a much higher slot than I expected for a $5 mythic and as a creature this card will probably continue to find it's place in the Domri Rade decks that have been getting so much attention.
• Olivia Voldaren may not have the lifetime numbers of the previous 2, but recently she's been seeing a lot of action. I think she will be the 3rd and final entrant into my mythic rotation portfolio.
• Snapcaster Mage is the best rotation rare in the top 30 modern rares, coming in at #7. Looking at the comparative prices in the region, I think this card could certainly climb to $10 or more during the next big Modern push. I will be buying a good number of these, especially if the prices goes lower.

Conclusion:
Hopefully that gives you an expectation of what you will find in my future articles, and I look forward to your feedback and thoughts!