I previously wrote about the real costs of entering Standard, and today I'm going to do a similar thing with Modern. However, I'm going to go a little bit more in depth today, giving some tips on using Trader Tools to quickly and accurately track your deck contents, prices, and spread.

The Process

First, let's take a look at MTG Goldfish's Modern metagame page.

Here we can see the nine most played Modern decks on MTGO. The price listings are for online prices, and we're going to be using Trader Tools anyway, so ignore those for now. Being that I'm a sucker for flying nacatls and unrestricted Ancestral Recalls, let's start with U/R Delver today.

This will be our representative decklist for the archetype (we won't worry about a sideboard for now). It plays a very high number of fetch lands, and if you're looking to play the deck on a budget, that may be something you can shave. However, each fetch land essentially counts as two mana for Treasure Cruise, so if you're looking for every advantage, you'll want to run as many as you can afford.

To figure out the real cost of this deck, go to Trader Tools at www.mtg.gg. You'll be greeted with this page:

Go ahead and click the "Add New List" button, which will take you here:

Fill in the information you want, then click "Create List." Your new list is now active.

Although you can import spreadsheets into Trader Tools, I find it pretty quick to search for each card in a deck individually. When it comes up, just put the number in the box next to the card, then click somewhere else on the screen to see the box turn a very satisfying shade of green.

Do this for every card, and then you can click the name of the list at the top of the page. This will take you to the image view, but I prefer the spreadsheet view, which you can tab over to on the top of the page. Scroll down to the bottom and you will see the buylist price of the entire list (in green) compared with the TCGplayer mid price (in red).

So in order to play U/R Delver in Modern, you would need to shell out $514.90 on TCGplayer. However, because your cards have a sell value of $351.79, your virtual cost (assuming you are willing to pull the trigger on selling your deck) is only $163.11.

Not bad to to be able to play a non-budget version of the best deck in the format! If you'd like to see the public Trader Tools list I created, you can visit it here.

Card Devaluation

With the Standard version of this article, we had to account for the dip in card value we often see in Standard cards. Although there are a few Standard-legal cards in this list, for the most part, Modern doesn't have the problem of cards losing tons of value within a year. Although your buylist price will likely be lower during the summer doldrums, in general you can expect your cards to maintain the same basic value.

We could try to account for the drop in price expected for the Khans of Tarkir fetch lands, but the fact is that they won't likely move much at rotation, just like the shock lands didn't. Frankly, I'm not worried about it. I wouldn't even be surprised to see this decklist buylisting next year for more than it is currently. Especially if Treasure Cruise isn't banned.

The Other Decks

Scapeshift's list can be found here. Prices are:

Melira Pod's (although with the recent trend of cutting Melira herself, this may be a misnomer) list can be found here. Prices are:

Bogles's list can be found here. Prices are:

Affinity's list can be found here. Prices are:

Splinter Twin's list can be found here. Prices are:

Burn's list can be found here. Prices are:

The Takeaway

• Modern has been overrun with delve cards, specifically Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time. These make fetch lands even more important than they already were, and they were already pretty damn important. If you want to play Modern, make sure you have your fetch lands.
• Modern decks require a good amount of money to buy straight up, but their buylist prices are so much better than Standard decks that they only end up costing $100 to $300 once you've sold your cards back (assuming that's your plan, of course).
• Splinter Twin is now the most expensive deck in the format, kind of by a lot. The funny thing is that this was once a relatively budget-friendly deck. Don't be surprised if your budget deck one day becomes a non-budget deck.
• If U/R Delver really is the best deck in the format, it's due for a price increase. The deck is made up of a lot of commons and uncommons, however, so don't be surprised to see cards like Young Pyromancer go higher than they otherwise might.
• Burn is really a pretty affordable deck if you're looking to get into the format on the cheap. You still need those fetch lands, though!
• Modern is a diverse format. Even though it's being dominated by a couple blue cards right now, several of the top archetypes play neither. You don't have to play Treasure Cruise or Dig Through Time—but seriously, why wouldn't you?