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Today I’ll share my analysis of market and metagame trends over the past week, and incorporate tournament results from this past weekend to predict price movements into the near future.
Over the course of the week, the MTGO price of Dragonlord Ojutai has grown from 24 tickets last Monday to 31 tickets today. It’s clear that the Esper Dragons deck from PT: KTK was not only the best performing deck of that tournament, but it’s also the best deck in Standard. This past weekend the archetype dominated GP Krakow, putting five copies into the Top 8 and ultimately hoisting the crown.
Dragonlord Ojutai plays a key role in the archetype, which is sure to gain scores of followers this week. Dragonlord Ojutai is seeing play in another competitive archetype, Craig Wescoe’s Ojutai Bant, which Sam Pardee played to the Top 8 of the GP. In the future, deckbuilders will incorporate the legend into other archetypes. While the MTGO price is likely peaked, it is sustainable given its ubiquity and strength in the metagame.
The paper price of Dragonlord Ojutai has ticked up $2 over the week, from 18 to 20. I wouldn’t be surprised if the price continued to grow a few dollars over the week, based on increased demand from the Grand Prix win last weekend.
The paper price of Dragonlord Atarka remained stable over the week, at $19, and it will likely dip a few dollars towards $15 now that the hype has began to die down.
Online, where metagame and market reactions to information comes more quickly, the price is already in decline. It peaked at 13.5 tix the Saturday before last, then fell to 8.5 on Monday and remained relatively stable over the week, sitting at 8.5 at last Friday, before falling down to 7.3 on Sunday night.
It’s time to sell any paper copies of Dragonlord Silumgar. The paper price remained stagnant over the past week, at $14, and there is nowhere to go but down. Esper Dragons is the clear best Dragon deck going foward, where two copies sit in the sideboard. Shota’s U/B version, which played two copies maindeck, was a one-tournament deck.
One copy of U/B Dragons did in fact make the Top 8 of Krakow, but played zero copies in the 75. Much like Dragonlord Atarka, the price is already in decline, down to 16.2 tickets Monday from a high of 18.3 on Friday.
Eidolon of the Great Revel continues its steady gain, up half a dollar over the week to $8.5, while the online price spiked over the week, from 15 tix last Monday to over 18 today. This price gain comes primarily from the strength of Mono-Red in Standard, but demand is also derived from Modern, especially in preparation of the coming Modern Masters 2015 release.
This is the sort of card that holds value after it leaves Standard, so the paper price will easily top $10 this summer, and continue to grow from there. I’m not optimistic that the online price can sustain any more growth, and the price will level off if not pull back slightly.
In the sea of UBx decks at GP Krakow, Den Protector and Deathmist Raptor scored a small victory with a Top 8 berth. These cards are the real deal and will form the core of many a successful green-based deck going forward.
Den Protector is a premium green creature moving forward and should be respected as such. Therefore, I’m optimistic about the strength of the price. The paper price of Den Protector sits stable at $4.5, and there’s no reason to think it will fall below $4, but rather, a weekend of strong performance could see the price moving upwards 20%. Online, Den Protector sat at just 2 tix last Monday, but it sits at 4.5 tix today. It’s unlikely to sustain much growth beyond 5 tix, but again, like the paper price, it’s not at risk of crashing.
On MTGO, Deathmist Raptor has doubled in price over the course of the week, from a price bottom of under 10 tix last Sunday, to a high of nearly 20 tix today. I expect the market can’t sustain the price going any higher, so the price will level before slowly sliding down to the high teens over the next couple of weeks, perhaps mirroring the paper price, which now sits under $18 and will likely remain stable over the coming week.
Atarka's Command is the most notable paper gainer from last week. Upward price momentum began the weekend before last, where it started moving upwards from $5 to $6 by Monday and $7 by Tuesday. It now sits at just under $8. The price seems high, but it’s still under the $9.5 commanded by Dromoka's Command, so it’s very possible that Atarka's Command continues its growth to meet or even exceed that price.
After all, Atarka's Command is a four-of maindeck in its respective archetype, while Dromoka's Command is often played as a two- or three-of. Currently Mono-Red splash green is just slightly less popular than Abzan Aggro, but Dromoka's Command's greater flexibility and applicability in other archetypes, like Ojutai Bant, may be behind its higher price.
Online, Atarka's Command actually fell nearly 50% over the week, from just under 4 tix last Monday to just over 2 tix today. Consider that the price was 2.4 before spiking after the Pro Tour, so I consider the fall this week a price correction after an initial spike from hype and demand from the Pro Tour.
Given Dromoka's Command price of over 6 tix, I have every reason to believe that Atarka's Command can sustain a higher price, and will likely rise slowly going forward. On the other hand, this might also be evidence that the price of Dromoka's Command is inflated, and will likely slowly fall in the near term.
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-Adam
I really like this approach Adam. Thanks to the speed of transactions on MTGO, market reactions/corrections/etc can occur so much faster so using MTGO as a tool to form predictions for paper MTG seems like a no-brainer.
I second what David said. This method/approach is nice to see and something I have yet to encounter within the MTG finance community although I am new to the community.
If I may ask an off-topic question to Adam, do you test/play Modern and/or Legacy at all? If so, are you interested in sharing deck ideas, etc? Please let me know and thanks. Meant to send this as a PM but couldn’t find that option.