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Throughout the week I observed some noteworthy trends in the MTG market. Some interesting developments were taking place, and these movements catalyzed an article idea in my mind. Heading into the weekend I was excited to already have a topic to write about. It was going to be an upbeat article centered around some market turnaround observations.
Then on Saturday, Wizards of the Coast dropped a bomb on us: next year’s Pro Tour schedule.
Notice something different? What appears to be missing from the “Format” list, which was added to that list only recently?
No Modern!
So now I have to reshape my article into a “good news, bad news” theme in order to communicate my observations from earlier this week along with implications from this recent development.
Here it goes…
Good News!
These last couple months have been a drag on MTG Finance. I’ve shown numerous price charts showing general declines since late spring. The Modern season bump never occurred and cards like Snapcaster Mage and Birthing Pod continue to suffer. Shock lands didn’t give us the bump we were anticipating and fetches have pulled back out of reprint fears.
But then this past week something amazing happened. We saw two sudden buyouts, reminiscent of when Magic finance was in its heyday!
I almost had forgotten what these buyouts looked like. It had been so long! In fact, I’ll even admit there were days at a time when I didn’t check the Interests page on mtgstocks.com. Price movements had become so boring that the daily movements didn’t get me excited. As a result, the jump on Sliver Overlord completely skipped over my radar and I managed to acquire only one measly HP copy at the old price.
Fortunately I did catch the Flames of the Blood Hand buyout in progress. I managed to grab a few copies from retailers before they caught onto this price movement.
But the point here isn’t to dwell on my hits and misses. Instead, I want the message to read loud and clear: buyouts are back again!
Sliver Overlord was suddenly scooped up thanks to the reappearance of Slivers in Magic 2015. Flames of the Blood Hand was suddenly bought up because of its recent success in mono red decks in Modern. The red sorcery isn’t as powerful as Skullcrack, but apparently life gain strategies in Modern are so prevalent that playing some Flames of the Blood Hand as “Skullcracks 5-8” is good enough. I guess that’s what happens when Kitchen Finks are everywhere and Soul Sisters is kind of a thing.
It’s not just Casual and Modern formats that are driving price spikes. Check out what happened to Goblin Rabblemaster this past weekend thanks to multiple deck appearances at the Pro Tour.
Yet another buyout, this one from Standard play (although some Eternal format speculation may be taking place as well). Perhaps these price spikes will catalyze further interest in MTG Finance driving additional opportunities ahead. My main takeaway is simple: it’s once again time for me to check mtgstocks.com every day and monitor trends very closely. These buyouts can drive a lot of value for astute speculators in front of the curve.
While I don’t particularly like to blindly guess which cards will jump, I am a huge fan of buying up cheap copies during a buyout to flip for small profits one week later. I don’t get to sell at the peak, but by buying overlooked cheap copies during a spike I can secure copies at the old price to sell at an inevitably higher price – even if that price retracts slightly from the peak.
Long live the buyout. It indicates a sudden surge in MTG Finance interest yet again.
The Bad News
Do you have dreams of making the Pro Tour? Do you grind out test games for hours each week to perfect your abilities? If so, then you may find yourself playing a lot less Modern now.
Wizards of the Coast recently restructured the Pro Tour Qualifiers by creating pre-qualifiers to be run at local shops. The local shops can pick their favorite formats, but this means there is no longer really a “PTQ Season”. We used to rely on seasonality to shift market focus and drive some price changes. And although the recent Modern PTQ Season didn’t really drive prices higher this time around, the MTG Finance community looked forward to subsequent seasons where concentrated interest in the Modern format would drive up prices.
Now the continuity is shattered and this format concentration is no more. Sure, there will still be a regional Modern PTQ Season but it just isn’t the same. The amount of players who will need to master Modern for regional PTQ’s will be much lower than those who are enjoying the competitive atmosphere of Modern currently.
This past Saturday, Wizards put a final dagger in the heart of Modern Pro Play – they have declared that all four Pro Tours will be Standard/Draft. Bye bye Modern Pro Tour. Bye bye Modern PTQ season. Bye bye seasonal price movement in Modern.
After reviewing my Twitter feed this morning, I’m convinced the broad community's reaction to this news is negative. Wizards of the Coast is rearing its ugly corporate head by citing greater exposure of new cards as their motivation behind this move. To me, this means they want to sell more new cards. They don’t make a penny when I buy Modern and Legacy cards from StarCityGames.com or from “John Doe MTG” on TCGPlayer.com. But when players and dealers crack packs to sell more Goblin Rabblemasters, then WOTC makes more money. The rationale is fairly easy to understand.
If I was a shareholder of Hasbro stock, I’d probably be happier with this change. Selling more packs is a good thing. But as an occasional player of Eternal formats, this change is extremely disappointing.
Next weekend I will be attending the one PTQ a year that meets two personal requirements: 1) it’s close enough for me to get to in under two hours and 2) it’s a format I am confident enough in understanding that it gives me the feeling that I actually have a chance to make the PT – Modern.
It sounds like this could be my last of these PTQ’s and it may finally dash my dreams of making the Pro Tour. Granted, the dream is more and more distant the more I entrench myself in “real life” activities (family, career, etc.). But it’s always been a glimmer of hope in my mind. Now that hope may be extinguished.
I wonder if there are others who will be in the same boat as me. If so, this could bode well for Modern card prices. It’s a good thing Star City Games announced Modern support recently because Wizards is taking a lot of their support away. There will, of course, still be Modern Grand Prix and regional Modern PTQs but it will not be a dedicated “season” to this young, exciting format.
As for impact on card prices, I don’t expect anything positive to come from this. The news will apply more downward pressure on a collection of cards that have already suffered in price. And if we do get more reprints and a Modern Masters II set next year, I can see even greater downward movement in prices. This may be a battle the MTG Finance community cannot win.
In the meantime, I’m going to continue to trim my Modern position. In reality, I have few Modern cards left in my collection as it is, but I certainly won’t be acquiring much more from Modern. It’s far too risky. My plan is to wait for prices to bottom and acquire a few very strategic targets that are not reprinted in future sets. But until we have more information regarding these future sets, I will sit and wait.
I Guess There’s Standard?
While Modern is a far more interesting format for me, I see little use in moving against Wizards of the Coast. If they want Standard to be the most relevant and showcased format, then that’s where the money will be. Therefore, if I seek to make more profits from Magic, then I’ll have to lean more heavily on Standard.
The upcoming format rotation will generate plenty of opportunities. I plan on monitoring how the metagame evolves these next few months and will make purchases accordingly. It seems this is where the excitement will be in the coming months and I would much rather play off upward momentum than try to be the contrarian value investor right now.
There will probably be opportunity to be the contrarian investor and scoop up cheaper Modern staples, but that won’t be my focus. At least not for the rest of 2014. It’ll be a Standard-centric world now, so that’s where I’ll play.
…
Sigbits
- It’s interesting to see Liliana Vess’s price go higher thanks to her re-introduction to Standard. She’s up to $11.99 at retail and Star City Games doesn’t have copies from all sets to offer. I don’t think there’s much upside here because she has been printed a million times (and we already know Garruk vs. Liliana will be reprinted). But the trend is noteworthy.
- Last week, Star City Games had a handful of Chord of Callings from M15 in stock at $9.99. Now they are sold out with an $11.99 price tag. I’m not aware of any Standard decks running this card, so it must be Modern demand driving the recent reprint higher. I can’t help but wonder if the recent Pro Tour changes will drive demand a little lower on this card, relieving its price some.
- It’s not just Sliver Overlord that’s getting some recent love. SCG has exactly one English Sliver Legion in stock right now. They are sold out of NM English copies with a price tag of $39.99. I’m not sure if the casual crowd can support a higher price tag, but the movement is certainly interesting.
Chord of Calling is played in Standard Slivers and Mono-Green (sometimes splashing black) Devotion.
Interesting, thanks for sharing Justin! I didn’t know Chord was actually seeing Standard play. I’m so used to reading about Mono Blue Devotion and UW Control and Mono Black Devotion that Standard has kind of bored me to death. I guess Chord may have a little more upside after all.
I’d have to wonder whether SCG and WOTC aligned their plans. WOTC could have easily been thinking that those who benefit the most from Modern should be organizing the tournament series?
It may leave non-US players in the cold though.
The game has often been US centric, so I wouldn’t be surprised at all if this conspiracy theory had some truth to it.
It makes financial sense though, even without conspiracy. Standard makes WOTC more money so they should support Standard and Modern/Legacy makes SCG plenty of money (maybe not the most) so they should continue to support these eternal formats.
In order to promote modern, they have to artificially stagnate it. People may not agree now, but they’ll be jumping for joy later on. Always have to think big picture. The “Modern” finance movement is over, that’s for sure. Was fun while it lasted. Wizards is putting an end to it.
This is clearly Wizards broadcasting striving to bring prices down for modern, then inject more re-prints into the market with MM2, they profit, the players profit, mtg speculators don’t profit. It’s going to happen, the writing is on the wall. It’s not all doom and gloom, but the game has to change, and a direct result of that is a drastic hit on “mtgfinance”. To fully take advantage of MTGFinance you’ll have to perfect it from now on, or just open a Brick and Mortar store and sell sealed product. The days of people being mtgfinancers and speculators is going to come to a grinding halt for the most part. It won’t be completely dead, but it will be damn hard to get those profit margins like before.
hat’s the only way a paper game will survive by keeping players happy, if not everyone will just go play games like Hearthstone, or Magic will just primarily become online to match it and paper will take a drastic hit.
This could go so many different ways, but there’s some serious clues to Wizards actions and the writing is clearly on the wall for some of what I’m saying to be true.
Chaz,
I cannot disagree with your comment above. Wizards is clearly focusing on their priorities – Standard support to sell new product. I do wonder if MTG Finance is going to look different going forward. I try not to think “the sky is falling” because it’s not productive and things are usually not that extreme. But modifications to strategy are certainly merited…starting with heavier focus on Standard.
Thanks for commenting!
you switched good and bad news.
Buyouts are bad news. It’s artificial. Check mcm.eu next time, not a move at all. The goblin was more popular, but changes are more stable. My conclusion that this is a more realistic market to watch if you want to jump conclusions.
And PTQ change, you misinterpret this. The new system gives more hope.A PTQ now is a whole day activity in a room packed full of stinking fat guys eating pizza and drinking soda whole day to survive. I also need to travel to other countries because our country has only one or two PTQ’s each season.
Now I can play at the local store, less packed, less travelling, and faster back home. And if I’m really worthy to compete on a higher level, I will qualify. I only need to make one trip to a PTQ, and only if I have the skills and the confidence to do it. With some luck, the store offered travel compensations as first prize in the local tournament.
Result, more hope for more players, local FNM player are not afraid of PTQ anymore.
As a trader, I can see a higher demand in tournament magic cards.
also, modern is not dead. look at legacy…
Buyouts are artificial, but they indicate interest in MTG Finance. I’m not saying they’re healthy on an individual basis. There’s no way that Goblin Rabblemaster keeps a $5 price tag. But the fact that many speculators were watching coverage and social channels and were willing to throw money at a bet is a good sign. For one, it drives interest and excitement in MTG Finance, which again increases prices.
You are describing some of the logistical benefits of the new PTQ system. But unless your LGS has a HUGE Modern following, you better make sure you are brushed up on your Standard and Sealed. I, for one, don’t enjoy Standard. So unless my LGS runs Modern I’m kind of hosed. I suspect many will be in a similar boat.
Finally, I agree Modern is not dead. But Modern is also not Legacy. Legacy is far superior and has a very loyal following. Except with Duals and the like we know we are safe from reprints. Now with Modern demand will be lower AND there will continue to be reprints to bolster supply. The format itself will be fine, but the financial side will be less sunny going forward.
I disagree. I see this as a way to push modern harder. This news will drop modern staples until fetches and mm2 are reprinted, but that is what we want as speculators, correct? If the standard base continues to grow, the same thing will happen to those players as to all of us. They will get bored with the format and then look at modern/legacy. Modern will be far more attractive if they already hold some relevant cards from standard and fetches become affordable. A new age of modern is coming.
Greg, I sure hope you are right. If there’s a chance this is a two steps forward, one step back type of change then I’m all for it. I’m tepid on this prediction, however, and I’m not sure everyone agrees with this prediction.
Did you read the mtgsalvation forum where someone posted his conversation with Aaron F from WOTC? Great insight on modern
Link?