I've already written about becoming a father recently, and between the increased expenses from the baby and decreased income from my wife being off of work, I've cashed out of a good portion of my MTG specs.

One of the great things about having separate funds for Magic is that when you need the money, you have the option of falling back on liquidating some easy-to-move assets. That's what I did this spring and summer, and now that my finances are a little more under control, I'm ready to start committing some money back into the game.

In many ways, I'm starting from scratch. This means I'm looking for low-risk, inexpensive buy-ins to build up a bit of a portfolio before the release of Khans of Tarkir. 

Where I'm Looking

After ignoring cards from Theros block for the entire year, they’re all I’m looking at lately. Nearly a year of drafting has led to the highest supply we’re ever going to get of these cards, and the summer doldrums have led to the expected dip in demand that makes this the best possible time to buy.

We've also got an excellent resource in Trader Tools. Being able to sort by spread is a great start to figuring out where the good opportunities are.

It's cool to see so many cards at single-digit spreads, especially from the fall set. Theros cards have by far the most supply (remember the 6:2:1 ratio from drafting), as well as having had the most time to settle to a floor price. Perhaps retailers are having trouble getting copies of these cards because everyone assumes they're worthless.

Sander van der Zee has been on Steam Augury for some time now, even doubling down in his recent Brainstorm Brewery guest spot, and though it's essentially a bulk rare right now, I'm sure he's happy to see the negative spread. I'm still not buying in, but it's certainly worth pulling out of bulk boxes. I'm just not sure that Jace's Ingenuity isn't better.

A Quick Aside on Commons and Uncommons

Seeing Titan's Strength at the top of this list, especially at above-bulk-rare pricing, is simultaneously vindicating and disappointing to me. I've advocated holding onto draft commons and uncommons until after rotation, but Titan's Strength is not one I have been pulling. In fact, I failed to pull some of the top commons being bought right now.

This tells me to be more patient with selling draft bulk. I guarantee that the three boxes of draft leftovers I sold during the Zero to Draft challenge had many copies of Read the Bones and Voyage's End, both of which I like a lot and drafted often during the format. Most painful of all is Gods Willing, which originally was in my pile of cards to save, but ultimately thrown back in to the bulk pile.

It just goes to show that you can't really know which draft leftovers retailers will be buying. After Searing Spear buylisting for a dollar, Lightning Strike seemed on track for at least a quarter, but the reprint in M15 plus being from a fall set has put this at a point where I wouldn't even be willing to send it in. Moving into Khans of Tarkir, I'm just going to accept that storing three or four longboxes of cards until after Theros rotates is worth the possibility of adding $40 of commons and uncommons to a buylist order I was sending in anyway.

Back to our Regular Programming

I've liked Anger of the Gods ever since Aaron Forsythe tweeted the following during Pro Tour Born of the Gods:

That is some serious pedigree, and the fact that the card is sitting at a decent spread (only nine copies are at five-percent, but over 100 are around 30 percent) and has the chance to perform in Standard makes it all the more appealing. That being said, I'm not rushing out to buy these at $1.50. Scooping these out of binders should be a priority, but my guess is the ceiling is $4 or $5 tops.

I say this because Slagstorm was more or less a staple in Wolf Run Ramp decks, which saw a ton of play in the Delver days. It was also from the small set Mirrodin Besieged, meaning there was less supply. It still only hit $4.

I'm hesitant to think that Modern play will make up for the threefold number of copies that Anger of the Gods has on the market. Still, many people at your FNM will see the $1.50 price tag, look at this as a "dollar rare," and give it to you for a pittance. This is a solid opportunity if you grind lots of trades.

Card Kingdom is buying 260 copies of Agent of the Fates for three cents under retail. I've seen mixed reports on Twitter about this card playing a role in GP Trial-winning decklists, but I haven't seen any on-camera play at any big events.

Is it casual demand? Is it secretly great in Standard and only Card Kingdom knows? I'm not sure, but I'm confident in CK's confidence, so I literally just purchased 24 copies at $0.40 each with free shipping. If the card goes nowhere and I bulk my copies out, I lose all of $7. The upside isn't super high, but doubling up on something so trivial is right where I want to be at this point.

Born to Journey

Interestingly, despite the lower supply, the spreads are higher in Born of the Gods and Journey into Nyx.

One card in particular sticks out to me from this group. Phenax, God of Deception is a casual mill player's dream. If Consuming Aberration is a $3 card, being a rare, a prerelease promo, and from a large set, then Phenax has a lot of room to grow.

I'm putting my money where my virtual pen is on this one too, purchasing five copies at $3.33 each shipped. Incidentally, while trying to remember the name of Consuming Aberration, I discovered another Dimir mythic that currently has a negative spread:

I'm not saying you should go out and buy that one, but just pointing out that you should be aware of the cards you may see in binders that can net you above retail on buylists. These are easy money in trades.

What about the other cards on the above list? I'm not really moved to buy anything, but if I were planning to play Standard next year, I would be sure to have my playset of Courser of Kruphix ready to go. Just because it was reprinted in the M15 Clash Pack (and by the way, how bad is it that a Google search can't find me the official spoiling of this product on the new Wizards website?) doesn't mean the card is financially dead.

Reid Duke wrote about the card recently, saying that it is, "among the best cards in Standard." The reprint has driven its price down, but we've seen in the recent past that a format staple has the ability to survive multiple reprints if it's widely enough played.

Waiting for the Fall

I'm slowly funneling a little bit more money into Magic, looking to double and triple up until I've got my MTG fund reestablished. The opportunities to sell are coming up with Khans of Tarkir. I'm looking forward to building up enough cash to enable another baby in a couple years!