Hello readers and welcome back!

Chaz here again, It’s a busy time here in my life so I didn’t get a chance to wish all my readers' mothers a Happy Mothers Day! My final semester of my final degree is finally here. That’s a lot of finality! I’ve been ecstatic that it’s all coming to an end, but at the same time, really stressed out. I’m here to help all you Insiders, so let’s go ahead and get to the giant elephant in the room (or should we say Eldrazi)?

Well, at long last we finally have the entire Modern Masters 2015 spoiler. I could sit here and devote this entire article on what’s actually in the set, or if the set is a huge let down, or if the set is a huge success. That’s not my goal--I’m actually here to look past the spoilers, and go over what I think are some prime (and glaring) omissions from the set.

Before we go into these, I want to reiterate what I’ve said in previous articles; some cards that are omitted usually turn up soon thereafter. So, here’s everything I have come up with that has been omitted right up to the point of the new Serum Visions FNM promo that was announced by Wizards:

The full list would have been too long to post here in the article, so I transferred it over to Trader Tools for everyone’s convenience. You can find it here. (Note that some promo printings were not able to be added.)

Not all of these have immediate Constructed viability and relevance, and some have multiple printings which could hinder possible growth. On the other hand, some of these cards are still only on one printing, and it’s uncertain when they might make a return. Some cards get reprinted sooner than others, and I have a feeling a card like Goblin Guide will be seeing another print run before a card like Chandra Ablaze.

I took the time to add all the available printings of each of the cards on that list, just so you all are able to have them for your records. It’s also interesting to see them, because there could be some attractive spread percentages to monitor as time goes on.

It’s just hard to fit some of these cards back into a regular expansion set, but they could show up in some supplemental product. It has become a tricky game in MTGFinance trying to determine when these cards are likely to be included. If I had to make an educated guess I would try to avoid the following cards for a long-term hold:

I’m on the fence about any of the lands that dodged the reprint, so I would feel better about eyeing them after the Magic Origins release. It just feels like a good place to put some lands that provide color fixing, because that’s what usually happens in core sets.

If none of these cycles of lands end up in that set, then it’s basically open season, and there will likely be some gains over the summer. Battle for Zendikar will likely not include lands like Razorverge Thicket and other “fast lands” because their names are really plane-specific.

That’s not to say none of them could steadily increase until a reprint, but I just wanted to highlight again that one should short-sell them, and not continue to hold on to these. Goblin Guide especially. The cards I highlight on my list would be short-term sells, unless the specific lands don’t see a reprint.

Now to go into a few cards I wanted to highlight from the large list as potential cards to profit from. Originally I was going to include some uncommons, but luckily fellow QS writer Brian DeMars wrote about some of those already. If you haven’t read his article, check it out here. He touches on some really attractive commons/uncommons.

There is one uncommon I’d like to mention:

I understand there are a few of versions of this card. It also seems to have a knack for showing up as reprints in various products, so it may not be as lucrative as it looks on paper. But this is one uncommon that just keeps retaining value regardless. With it’s new life in Modern, alongside the popularity of Collected Company, it has quickly rose up the ranks in the “most played” lists.

With the printing of Den Protector in Standard, I don’t think there's an immediate place for this to be printed. Our likely spot is the new round of Commander decks, which is still a little ways off. This could be the uncommon to watch out for in the coming months. The spread percentage is already very attractive. If one would stock up on these, shipping them to buylists would mitigate a lot of the risk involved in investment.

If you've been checking the recent MODO Dailies, you’ll notice all sorts of Collected Company variants are starting to show up like wildfire. Whichever version it is, Eternal Witness is showing up 100% of the time.

I also provided the buylist stock chart--it seems vendors are changing the buylist on these all the time. Though they’re offering more than market value sometimes, with the buylist moving up over 2$ some days. I highlighted the Fifth Dawn version, but there was a similar trend on buylist fluctuations on each version of the card.

With Affinity consistently played in Modern, I think not showing up in MM2015 really makes this a safe bet going forward. According to deck stats, this card is almost always a three-of in Affinity decks. It’s a plane-specific card from Mirrodin, and unless this shows up for some reason in Origins, its inclusion into a product is up in the air. Showing a very attractive 20% spread, this could start trending upward like most cards do when they’re not reprinted. Infect is an inexpensive deck to play in Modern, but so is Affinity.

The reprint of Mox Opal may drive down the price of that particular card, but that may lead to Glimmervoid picking up the lost value. If one can snag copies of this at 9$, buylists are already paying 8$ cash.

The buylist chart also indicates some positive movements from vendors. In this month alone, the buylist keeps fluctuating in an upward trend, and has leveled off around 8/7.75$. Should MM2015 generate more Modern players, it looks like vendors are putting faith into the card by offering a very attractive buylist right now. Affinity, like I mentioned previously, will be a go-to option as a budget-friendly deck that’s also viable.

So that’s my look at the MM2015 spoiler. Hopefully we can all benefit from this list of cards to evaluate as potential investments as time goes on. Should the Modern Masters sets continue to be a bi-yearly release, I think there are some other very interesting cards on the list I created, and that list will continue to grow as more cards become relevant.

One last card before I go; should Living End become as relevant as it once was, I think it’s worth investing in. It’s still a very affordable deck, and with Fulminator Mage making an appearance in Modern Masters 2015, that perception may drive new interest in the archetype. Apparently the archetype is versatile enough even to incorporate Splinter Twin as another combo win-condition.

Living End the card has been trending down from its long standing high points, and it could easily rebound to those prices again, with no readily accessible reprint outlet for the card.

That’s all for this time, everyone. A note on the Trader Tools list--I would greatly appreciate everyone's comments in case I missed anything relevant. My methodology is to try to keep it as close to “Modern staples” as possible, with some casual hits sprinkled in there, the ones off the top of my head anyway. I may have missed some important ones, but perhaps they’re just a little more obscure to me.

Should something be added, comment, and I’ll add it to the list. I think this is a great starting point for everyone, to have these tools documented and readily available for us all.

Soon enough, you’ll all have access to the new and improved version of Trader Tools! With it, you’ll be able to more easily track buylist changes, which will be invaluable information, since some of these cards have been showing up on those lists, and it shows stores have faith in some of the cards that were left out of this reprint set.

Until next time!

Chaz