I’ve been off of Insider articles for a little while, but I’m back now, looking to make some money and help you all do the same.

The big lesson I’ve taken away from the summer is that there are stronger forces in the MTG world than the current PTQ format.

Like most of the MTG finance community, I did okay in the early part of the year on my Modern specs (if you can call picking up underpriced staples speculating). I made money outing a few cards, but I also got greedy and held a bunch of stuff. My thought process was something like this: Modern PTQ season is only four months away. If Modern prices are so high right now, just imagine what they’ll be like when everyone needs cards for PTQ decks! Great job, genius!

So I held my Primeval Titans that I bought between $8 and $9 and could have buylisted for $13-something at their peak price. Now I can get like $10, which means I haven’t really lost any money, but rather than holding out for my target price of $15, I should have just taken the guaranteed and very reasonable profit. Great job, genius, indeed.

Ignoring the Signs

I made these decisions in the face of years of historical lows during the summer months, but I blithely believed that moving Modern PTQ season to this time period would change everything.

Needless to say, I was wrong, and although many of these cards will recover all lost value between September and March, I’ve tied up money that I was anticipating freeing up around this time. It was a mistake, and in hindsight I can see it was shortsighted (i.e. idiotic) to assume the finance world as we know it would change just because of PTQ scheduling.

In 2015, I’ll be much more aggressive about selling off Modern staples during the first four months of the year, if not sooner. I should have adopted the “leave the last ten percent” mentality, but in my arrogance I convinced myself that I would be leaving way more than ten percent on the table. Lesson learned: pay attention to history.

Applying History

I’ve written before about long-term Standard trajectories. If history is to be our guide—and that’s the new hypothesis I’m working under, remember?—then Theros block staples are at their low points right now.

Supply has peaked: M15 is the new hotness, so most of the Theros that will be opened has already been drafted. Demand has bottomed out: it’s summer, so fewer people are playing. Standard is stale. People are getting rid of their rotating RTR cards and many are wrongly trading out Theros as well.

All of that will change. Khans of Tarkir is coming, and when it does, we’re going to see the yearly reinvigorated interest from the community. All of a sudden, no-longer-being-drafted Theros cards will come into sharp demand, especially the ones that go well with what we now know is a set based on the three-color enemy wedges of Tarkir. So which Theros cards are good buys?

Planeswalkers

There were five planeswalkers in Theros block, and at least some of them are probably underpriced.

Both Xenagos, the Reveler and Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver, are currently under $8. Although these were printed in the highly opened large-set Theros, they are both mythics, so four-of play will still stretch the demand on the number of copies in print. It’s very rare for a planeswalker in Standard to see its price dip below $5, so the risk here is minimal.

Being two-color planeswalkers may limit the upside on Xenagos and Ashiok, but moving into a three-color block means that plenty of gold cards will be seeing play. With any post-rotation competitive play at all, these could triple overnight. Short of that, they’ll still probably grow above $10 just due to casual/FNM demand. Trade for these whenever you see them and keep an eye out for copies you can snag at $5 or $6 in cash.

Elspeth, Sun's Champion has been a key player in Standard for the last year, and I don’t expect that to be any different after rotation. Buying in for $20 a copy doesn’t really sit well with me, but if you want to play white-based control after rotation, be sure to pick up your playset before Khans spoilers start. These are worthy targets in trade.

Ajani, Mentor of Heroes is the one planeswalker in the block that I don’t like at its current price. At close to $20 retail as well, Ajani sees only a fraction of the play that Elspeth does, but he does come from a smaller set that sold significantly less.

That’s the only thing I see being a factor in Ajani’s favor, and although I could envision a world where the price went up, I don’t anticipate it and will be flipping past these in binders at this price.

Kiora, the Crashing Wave is a cool card and I am biased in its favor. It is probably deserving of an evaluation similar to that of Ajani, but I just can’t bring myself to do it. I’m going to invoke the all-powerful words, “I don’t know” on this one, which means I like the card and want to trade for copies of it but that is probably wrong if you want to make money. So I don’t know.

Hopelessly Devoted to Blue

Devotion can go one of two directions after rotation: On one hand, it can run its course, fading out of our collective consciousness with the rotation of Nightveil Specter and the like. On the other hand, R&D may just decide that devotion is sweet enough to support in both adjacent blocks, giving us a whole bunch more hybrid cards to support it.

Mana costs likely won’t be as clean as Nightveil Specter and Boros Reckoner in a three-color block, but if Wizards decides to continue supporting devotion, cards like Master of Waves and several of the gods could be great pickups.

Even without Standard play, devotion cards may be good pickups anyway. [card]Master of Waves[/cards] does in fact see fringe play in Modern, and is currently at an all-time low price. It’s not unappealing to casual players, is a mythic, and has seen competitive success. I don’t hate this as a pickup.

As for the gods, many of them may never again be at as low a price as they are now. Even without Standard support, indestructible generals for Commander games will always be in demand, and we can expect to see these grow over the years. Standard play will just be a bonus allowing you to profit a little more quickly, but trading for these to hold in a long-term box is probably safe no matter what.

You Don’t Have to Scry

I admit the shockland debacle has me a little scared of the scry lands. We watched Seachrome Coast go from $5 to $20 a few years back, then saw Clifftop Retreat take a similar jump. We never saw such a spike with shocklands.

This may be explained by the fact that devotion made mono-colored decks all the rage this year, but it could also be indicative of the player base coming to realize that having one’s lands is the first step to being flexibly competitive. The fact is, shocklands have defied history this year, and that’s cause for concern.

The scry land cycle, or at least particular cards in it, will probably go up, unless Khans of Tarkir makes for an especially aggressive format. If most decks want untapped lands at every point in the curve, the scry lands probably won’t go anywhere. The morph mechanic tends to put creatures onto the battlefield and smooth draws, which certainly indicates aggression, but we’ll see.

There’s no doubt that the scry lands are powerful, even in aggro decks, so I may be worrying over nothing. Nonetheless, I’m approaching the scry lands with extreme caution.

Thanks for reading today, and here’s to making money in the post-rotation world!