Greetings, Exasperators!

Anyone else think a lot of buying activity in MTG finance lately is fueled by delusion?

A Brief Recap

Last week in my alticle I talked about what the limited information we have about Modern Masters 2015 can tell us about mythics reprints. I extrapolated and made a lot of assumptions, but the things I feel very strongly about were based on the clues we've been given.

I have had time to ruminate on that article in the intervening week and I feel very strongly about the following.

• There will be other Eldrazi, even if not at mythic.
• Mox Opal will be in the set.
• We'll see a cycle at mythic like last time.
• Tarmogoyf and Bob will be in the set.

That last one is absolutely not based on any evidence at all, but more a general sense of "Holy @#$% could you imagine if Bob and Goyf weren't in the set?"

I want to spend our time this week talking more generally about Modern Masters 2015 and the Modern format because a lot has occurred to me.

What Is in the Set Matters

But what's not in the set can matter just as much.

Those of you who listen to Money Draught are aware of this (and those of you who don't can scarcely be blamed) but JR is trying as hard as I am to figure out what's in Modern Masters 2015 and I find my opinions lining up with his quite often. He's made a very interesting observation repeatedly, most recently today.

Leyline is awkward. Do you jam a naked Leyline in a set? Do a cycle when there are really only two Leylines worth playing in Modern? Unless there is a strong burn or combo archetype in the set that doesn't require attacking with creatures (Leyline of Sanctity is poor protection from Kiki-Pestermite) the card is useless, and if there is, it's way too good to have at rare.

It just seems like there's no artful way to jam Leyline in the set. If you look at the list of cards in Modern Masters 1, there was nothing glaring or odd. There were some underwhelming choices, but anyone can build a "dream team" set of Magic cards they want to see reprinted--it's quite a bit harder to have one that functions as a set.

I can't rule out Leyline of Sanctity being included in something else, including M16. What we can say is that it's unlikely to be in Modern Masters 2015 and the consequences of its exclusion are pretty dire for its price.

Other "awkward" cards are pretty easy to find. If you don't have an entire "auras" subtheme in the set, it would be very difficult to include Daybreak Coronet, for example.

Over $30 for a non-mythic that needs to be a four-of is rough, but that's the reality of Modern. Wizards isn't in the business of just reprinting cards willy-nilly so that they're not above an imaginary price threshold. Lately they have been finding more unobtrusive ways to reprint cards that people need, but they're just that; unobtrusive.

Some have been flops like the Modern Event deck, which, at $75, failed to capture the market's imagination the way the Standard clash packs did. They have done a better job of controlling the price of Standard staples and have let Modern figure its own prices out.

Still, Modern Masters could be a good way to reprint cards. However, it's not a good way to reprint specialized cards that need other cards to function. You can't have Daybreak Coronet as the only aura in a set or it's useless. $40 is a real possibility at least in the short term if it's not in Modern Masters 2015.

I'm sure it's easy to build a list of "awkward" cards and I'm not going to belabor the point with more examples. Low chance of future reprint is something people take into consideration, but I see significant opportunity for cards to spike by sheer virtue of being excluded from Modern Masters 2015. Leyline and Coronet figure heavily into that calculus. We've seen it happen already.

Selling Based on Conjecture Is Riskier Than Buying

A lot of people thought Noble Hierarch was doomed due to the banning of Birthing Pod, the marquee card in what everyone was calling the "only deck to run it". Without Pod decks, Noble's price was "doomed" and a lot of people sold at banning due to fear of the price plummeting.

It's down from its all-time high that was posted when Khans came out, but it's not likely to continue plummeting and should correct upward soon. The Pro Tour showed two decks that are running Noble and both of them are exciting.

The first is the Infect deck that Tom Ross convinced quite a few people to play.

Noble Hierarch does work in that deck, smoothing out mana and providing a boost to attack power that is much more significant when your opponent has 10 life than when they have 20. Noble deals an extra damage the turn you play it and can help you cast white spells out of the board and a hand full of spells like Might of Old Krosa. It also let you free up your land to attack in a pinch. Your mana curve is low so having a dork is good to help your land-light draws. Noble does work in infect.

The other place it popped up was in Abzan decks like the one piloted by Eric Froelich. Exalted makes your Siege Rhino the best one at the table and having a mana dork that taps for green and white is amazing.

Noble showed up in more lists than anyone anticipated and while there is very little room for growth if the card's all-time high is an accurate projection for its price ceiling, it will be tough to reprint unobtrusively and the promo foil did very little to attenuate its growth. I liked these a lot at $30 and seeing it hit $70, albeit briefly, seemed absurd. They're being played now more than ever and no one who sold hoping to buy in later for cheaper is laughing quite as hard as they predicted.

You're Not LSV

And LSV struggled with lines of play on the the "Samulet" deck that Sam Black and others were playing. The deck is absurdly difficult to pilot.

I take a very dim view of "chasing" this "spike" on Amulet of Vigor specifically.

Just think of all the people who bought in at the first arrow and sold at the second arrow last time. Unfortunately, the community is great at growing greater fools and people who were burned last time didn't buy in this time, but plenty of people did. Lots of orders for $3 amulets got cancelled.

These are tough to move, trust me. I bought in around bulk and sold out around $2 the first time this deck "came out of nowhere." The thing about it is, you only see it played at the Pro Tour. 99% of Magic players aren't good enough to pilot this deck, so there is going to be smaller demand than anticipated on it.

The only thing accomplished by chasing the spiking cards of this deck (which, by the way, is not remotely new) is to basically ruin the price of cards like Azusa, Lost But Seeking for EDH players. Most "loose" copies of Azusa are concentrated in the hands of dealers and they're in no hurry to lower the price because they know EDH demand isn't going away and a non-zero number of people will give up and pay the $50.

They also know that Azusa "spikes" every time there is a Modern PT and all they have to do is wait until there is another Azusa on camera to sell all of their copies.

If a deck is too difficult for the average Magic player to reasonably pilot, demand is going to be attenuated. Ask me how I know.

Followers Gonna Follow

Don't chase price spikes. If you can't use your brain and get ahead of price increases by predicting them, you're going to have a bad time. There were a lot of silly spikes and what this weekend showed was that it's very easy to make a card spike if it fits certain criteria.

• More than 10 years old.
• A modicum of EDH demand that makes it $5+.
• It shows up in a new deck.
• Under 30 copies on TCG Player.

That's a recipe for a $20 card. The problem is, will your orders for $5 copies be honored when you buy after seeing it on camera? If you can't buy out the LGS you're screwed. If you can't find a buyer after the weekend, you're screwed.

The real tragedy? Most of the people who help drive the spike up after the real person who profits initiates it lose money and the card's price never recovers. $5 EDH card become $12-$20 EDH cards forever even if EDH demand doesn't increase and the worst part is, casual and EDH players are not only stuck paying higher prices, their modest demand for the card is used as a justification for a price spike on a card that has no business going up.

It hasn't been two days and already Ghostway is down from its peak of $18. It should settle around $10-ish, which is still silly. EDH demand made this a $5 card and absent demand elsewhere it should still be a $5 card. But MTG finance doesn't work like that. This will never be $5 again even if it never sees play in Modern ever again.

GP Vegas 2015 Will Set Records

The event is capped at 10,000 players, which is an astonishingly optimistic cap and one I don't predict they will hit. They don't want to turn people away, though, and this promises to be the biggest card game event in history. This means a lot of things.

First of all, a huge percentage of the Modern Masters opened anywhere was opened in Vegas last time. I don't predict that will be the case this time around. Even if we double the number of attendees, Modern Masters 2015 is going to be printed more than double the amount MM1 was. It's the only thing that makes sense.

The dealers in the room won't have the opportunity to raise their buy price enough to get every Goyf and Bob opened like they did last time. If Goyf and Bob are in the set, an attenuation of that effect plus this increased print run should offset the higher MSRP on the packs and drive the price of Goyf and Bob down.

The landscape of Modern as a format continues to be shaken up by innovation and bannings/unbannings. When we know more about what's for sure in Modern Masters 2015, check back here and we'll discuss what our next move should be.