There are a lot of different strategies and tactics one can use to grow the value of their Magic collection.  In today’s article I will discuss my favorite go-to strategy which I call “going long.” Basically, I am almost always looking to trade for or to acquire cards that I believe will be solid earners at some point in the future.

The easiest way to consistently make your Magic investments pay off is to be smart and make acquisitions that are likely to succeed. Obviously, right? The real question is: how can I consistently pick winners?

Quick Flips

There is certainly a time and a place to speculate on cards likely to spike in the short term that can be quickly flipped for a nice profit. For me, nine out of ten times “quick flips” are cards that I target right out of the gate from a new set that I feel are likely to be big gainers in the Standard market. For instance, anybody who identified that Dragonlord Ojutai was a great card ahead of the curve and traded for copies when they were between $8-$12 is getting a very nice payday now that it has rocketed up above $30.

Quick metagame spikes are always awesome when you are on the good side of them but there is always an expiration date. Dragonlord Ojutai is the kind of card that will likely track up for a while, but if history has told us anything, it's that this kind of card always slides back down to the price range where it belongs.

The Dragonlord reminds me a lot of Baneslayer Angel in that respect. Five-drop angels and dragons are for newbs or are they actually format defining? There is a huge spike as tournament players clamor desperately to find copies and then things level off. The Dragonlord has way more similarities in my opinion to Baneslayer Angel than Jace, the Mind Sculptor. The dragon will clearly be a cornerstone of Standard for a while to come, whereas Jace was basically the entire metagame!

“Quick flips” are a game of information where you are able to predict and identify underrated cards and get them before the information cascade breaks. Just like Baneslayer Angel, all quick flip gainers need to be gotten rid of at the right point. I would certainly predict that Dragonlord Ojutai will hit his peak at some point this month.

Stay the Course for Long-Term Gains

The way that I approach long-term specs is functionally the same: identify cards that are undervalued or underrated, acquire them, and then wait for the rest of the world to catch up. The biggest difference between long- and short-term specs is that the value gain occurs without any direct influence from dynamic metagame shifts.

Genrally speaking, my goal with speculation targets is to try and figure out which cards are at low points and will steadily rise in price. One thing to keep in mind is that casual cards tend to be really, really nice long-term gainer cards. Typically, it takes a couple of years removed from being in Standard and players cracking cards out of packs for them to reach maturity.

My collection is basically organized into three parts.

1. The cards that I play with. I never trade these cards as long as I think there is a chance that I am likely to play with them in the future.

2. Cards that I pick up that I think are my long-term gainers. I have a separate box for cards that fall into this category and I don't ever trade these cards away. I'm anticipating that these are cards that will rise significantly in value in the future so why would I want to trade them away when they are poised to grow?

3. Everything else. Every single card that I own that isn't in the first two groups of cards is for trade and my entire goal is to turn all of those cards into either cash or cards to put into my long-term gainers box.

Let's talk about some of the things that are in my "long-term gainers" box and why I put them there.

Dual Lands, Shocklands, and Khans Fetchlands

Lands are the absolute cornerstone of Magic. It doesn't matter if you are flipping cards around a kitchen table or playing in the finals of a Pro Tour--everybody needs, wants, and requires lands.

All three of these land cycles are extremely popular in basically every format where they can be played as well as with casual players (never underestimate the casual market!) and it is my opinion that they literally have nowhere to go but up in price in the future.

Notice that I didn't put Zendikar fetchlands on my list. I currently only own four of each in my "cards I play with" stash. There is a very high probability that they get reprinted at some point in the next few years and we all saw what happened to Onslaught fetch prices once that happened.

It is important to be buying in at the right time when things are low. I was definately on board with picking up Zendikar fetches when they were $10-$15 because once again at those prices they have nowhere to go but up. However, when they got really, really prohibitively expensive I cashed them out because it just felt like Wizards would have to do something via reprinting to keep their cost from oppressing the Modern format. Lo-and-behold, Khans of Tarkir fetches.

There has been so much written about why lands are good to hold onto so I'm not going to beat a dead horse, but I feel like I have to at least mention it as a preface to some of the other stuff that I'm going to talk about.

Speculating on Casual Winners

Let’s take a look at some specific cards that I think are at that critical point where they have nowhere to go but up over time.

O.K., so maybe I’m a little bit biased toward this card because it was in my draft deck in Top 8 of the M13 Limited GP…Nonetheless, it is significant that Krenko is a one-time rare from a core set, which tends to get opened less than block expansions.

One advantage I’ve always had in picking spec targets is my experience managing Magic inventory at a game store, where I see which cards casual players buy a lot of.

No joke--casual players buy a lot of Krenkos...

It makes a lot of sense because the card is actually pretty intrinsically powerful. I mean, it is good enough to have seen play in Legacy Goblin decks. The card is quite powerful. It also has a couple of nice niche things going for it. First of all, Krenko is legendary which makes him a solid candidate as one of the best Mono-Red deck commanders.

Sometimes with casual spec cards you have to think about Magic through the eyes of a casual player. It is also interesting that the card gets exponentially more degenerate with each activation. There are not many cards that you can simply tap to put 10 goblin tokens onto the battlefield. He’s the kind of card that you can really go deep with if you are trying to build a deck that “goes big.”

I mean, can you even imagine making a Dragon Fodder, Hordeling Outburst, Krenko deck that is powered up by Jeskai Ascendancy… Um, tap Krenko make a Goblin, cast Hordeling Outburst untap Krenko make five more goblins.

Admit it, some part of you kind of wants to build that deck...

Here is another casual powerhouse:

Parallel Lives has already grown a little bit in the past few months but I think it still has a lot of room to increase in value. It is a Commander card but also just a really fun casual card. It is a bad Doubling Season for people who don’t want to spend $20. A bad version of a $20 card is still a really desirable commodity for casual players.

From the perspective of card store inventory, Parallel Lives has been consistently one of the hardest cards to keep in stock over the past year. Literally every single copy of the card that I buy or trade for gets sold within a day or two of me putting it into the showcase.

Keeping a mental inventory of which cards seem to be constantly sold out at your local game store is a great way to figure out which cards have an extremely high demand.

Parallel Lives is only a few years removed from being in Standard which means the supply was quite high, but look for that to change in the near future. It is only going to get harder to find copies of this card and it is extremely popular with all sorts of casual players.

Also, note that like Krenko, Mob Boss, Parallel Lives has the same “scaling combo” quality to it where it lets the caster do really absurdly big things. “Going big” is really important with casual spec targets.

Remember the player archetypes? Timmy, Johnny, and Spike. The cards that Johnny Combo players at kitchen tables all over the world love my all-time favorite cards to pick up and hold onto.

Rings of Brighthearth is the perfect example of "casual cards gone wild." It followed the exact trajectory that I hope my other casual picks will take down the road. UP! UP! AND AWAY!

It was always sold out everywhere and basically every copy in existence is in either the hands of speculators or in an EDH or casual deck.

Return to Ravnica Block in the Long Term

Right now Return to Ravnica block is a great place to look for cards with a low value and lots of room to grow.

How is this a $3 card? First of all, it is a “Jace.” Casual players love Jace. He’s like the Boba Fett of MTG.

He is part of a commander infinite combo that includes Doubling Season and Wheel of Sun and Moon enchanting yourself. You play J.A.O.T. with those two other cards in play and he comes into play with double loyalty which is enough to immediately ultimate him. The ultimate reduces his loyalty to 0 but instead of dying the Wheel of Sun and Moon shuffles him back into your library. Then his ultimate resolves…

You search your library for a card and each of your opponent’s libraries for a card. When you search your library you find, surprise, the same Jace and can repeat the process endlessly which allows the caster to essentially play every single spell in every single one of his or her opponent’s deck.

Aside from solid “brand recogniton” among casual players, I think that Jace, Architect of Thought is actually a pretty reasonable Modern-playable card. Gerard Fabiano had one in his SCG Open winning decklist and I’ve played with and against the card several times. It’s quite good.

Is Jace ever going to be a staple four of? No. Yet, a mythic planeswalker that is Modern-playable seems like it will settle well north of three bucks.

Verdict is another card that has nowhere to go but up. It is one of the best versions of this effect in existence and sees play all the way into Legacy. Cards that are "the best at what they do" always rise to the top and Verdict will likely be the best sweeper they print for some time to come.

I think Terminus is another great card to pick up because it too is a unique, Legacy-playable staple that's at home in any Commander deck. I don't even care that they amended the "tuck" rule because bottoming every creature in play for one mana is insane no matter how you slice it!

I've been pretty actively trying to trade for lots of cards from RTR block the past few months and I've already been rewarded with many of the casual mythics. Progenitor Mimic and Hellkite Tyrant have already made some pretty nice gains out of the bargain bin.

Long-term speculating isn't the sexiest or flashiest thing in the world but it is the most solid way to consistently make dividends when building your Magic collection. The downside is that it will often take a a couple of years for your fruits to come to fruition if you are starting to do it now. The cool thing is that when you stick with it year, after year, after year, your cards are constantly blooming all the time.

If you stick with this strategy year in and year out you'll be consistently rewarded. Cards don't typically go from $1.50 straight to $10. However, cards certainly do start at that price and grow to even greater heights. The key is to always be on the lookout for any card, whether a format staple like fetchlands or a casual kitchen table gem like Parallel Lives, that has nowhere to go but up, and picking up lots of copies when they're are at their lowest.