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Introducing a New Article Series
If you've followed and loved the "100 Tix, 1 Year" project or you've been enjoying the MTGO Market Reports, then you'll probably love the new article series I'm starting today. "High Stakes Bankroll Management on MTGO" aims to be the perfect mix of the two series mentioned above--following realtime trades, bankroll management and perspectives on MTGO speculations.
If you followed the "100 Tix, 1 Year" project, you may have thought that 100 tix was a little too small of a bankroll for your consideration. You may have been right as a fair share of the speculations made within this project were tailored for small bankrolls. Here I'm raising the bar a little bit, about 200 times...
The bankroll I'll be dealing with for this new series is over 20,000 tix and counting. Similarly to the "100 Tix, 1 Year" series, all my trades, buys and sales will be recorded, posted and available in realtime, but this time only for QS Insiders. I set up a google spreadsheet that recapitulates the current state of my portfolio and all the most recent trades to make it easier for viewers to follow the action.
The Spreadsheet
I'll update this spreadsheet within minutes to a few hours after completing any trades. The spreadsheet is available to Insiders only. On Fridays we will be posting a snapshot of the bankroll and of the transactions as of the previous Monday. Here is the current state of the bankroll.
The way I organize my specs is pretty standard---name of cards, number of copies, total and per-unit prices, Modern, Standard and Other sections. I also include a percentage and tix gained/lost columns.
The recent trades are at the very top of the spreadsheet. Within each subsequent section the closed transactions are at the top followed by open transactions. From time to time I sort all of it in alphabetical order to review my specs more easily.
A Weekly Summary of My Transactions
In these weekly articles I will discuss my motivations to buy or sell any given positions during that week. I'll give a little bit of context and share my expectations on newly acquired positions.
Buys This Week
As it will be the case over the next few months, this week I was buying cards from Modern flashback drafted sets---Mirrodin, Darksteel and Fifth Dawn.
I didn't buy into the hype after the announcement of the new B&R list, partially because I was already holding several of the cards that spiked and partially because I was not really available on MTGO to grab the best cards at the best prices. Rather, I bought into cards that were directly affected by the ban of Summer Bloom but that, against all odds, present good speculative opportunities in my opinion.
As anticipated these three Mirrodin rares took a hit with the Mirrodin block flashback drafts. They are not heavily played in Modern, or in Legacy in the case of Chrome Mox, but I'm simply trying to ride the trend here.
Prices are unlikely to spike in the short term but they can't really go lower, and that's the point. These positions are better than free tix on my account and they always have the potential to spike sometime in the future.
These two are my current picks in Darksteel as of Saturday. I'm chasing more copies of both of them but I really want to keep my buying prices around 4.5 tix for Serum Powder and 4 tix for Sundering Titan. If prices keeping dropping I'll buy more for sure.
The Titan is almost unseen in Modern at the moment but has a record high above 15 tix. At an almost three-year low, it seems a good bet to me especially with a Modern format about to mutate.
With a current price half of its record high, Serum Powder only sees play in Vintage Dredge. Not great speculative stats here but I'm okay with that. After all Vintage got invigorated by the Power Nine Challenges and if Serum Powder integrated into a competitive Modern deck I would hit the jackpot.
Serum Visions is still the best filtering engine available in Modern. The ban of Splinter Twin and the scheduled flashback drafts of Fifth Dawn are only delaying a large rebound this card should see very soon.
Among others, Storm decks might be returning consumers of the blue sorcery in place of Twin decks. This card is very unlikely to be reprinted in Standard and was not reprinted in Modern Masters 2015. My max buying price is currently 2 tix but I might accumulate more copies in the following days anyway at higher prices if needed.
I had bought some Amulet of Vigor prior to the announcement of the new B&R list. The bet didn't pay off but it doesn't mean I'm done with this spec.
Summer Bloom has been banned, not Amulet. There's always a chance a similar deck, slower and less explosive most likely, could be viable in Modern---if so, Amulet of Vigor would be a centerpiece. The price has almost doubled since its rebound and I'll buy more copies if the price goes down again.
The idea is the same with Primeval Titan. The green titan got affected by the ban of Summer Bloom but can clearly find a home in other decks. Falling as low as 4.5 tix last week, the lowest it's been in Modern, I think the price drop is undeserved. I'm simply stocking up to be ready for Amulet 2.0 or any other decks using Primeval Titan.
Not sure if the price drop of Misty Rainforest is due to the B&R list changes but it seemed like a good buying opportunity to me. I wanted to buy between 18 and 20 Tix which is why I only grabbed 8 copies. I would have been okay with 4 to 6 more copies at a cheaper price.
The goal with this spec is to see a comeback to the 30ish tix range. I was also lurking after Scalding Tarn but was too slow to pull the trigger and prices got too high for me.
Cloud of Faeries has been banned in Pauper. Not Snap. A plunge from 6 tix to 2 tix seems totally disproportionate to me. I bought some copies a little bit later than I wanted to but I'm fine at 2.5 tix. I won't be buying very often outside of Standard and Modern, but Snap deserved the extra efforts.
Sales This Week
This past week I continued to sell cards that benefited the most from the recent changes in Modern. These were unexpected profits and they have reached my goals---no reason to be more greedy here. I happily cashed out without having to wait on good or bad news from the Pro Tour.
I'll start with Blood Moon. In between 8th Edition and 9th Edition flashback drafts there will be a small window when the price could theoretically go up. With the banning of the deck that's most sensitive to this card (Amulet Bloom), as well as the deck most likely to play it (Twin), profit margins got too small for me. As the trend looked uncertain I sold now.
These were among the top gainers this past week, going beyond the expectations I had for these cards. A lot of cards spiked after January 17th and, as usual, not all of them will sustain such heights. I'm taking my profits now that I know what I get and will reinvest these tix somewhere else.
Of note, the unexpected extra tix made with these five cards totally made up for the losses I incurred with Splinter Twin, Summoner's Pact and my pre-ban gamble with Amulet of Vigor. As you can see I'm also holding a lot of other Modern staples that may shine sooner rather than later benefiting from these changes in the Modern metagame.
On My Radar
Besides buying Modern staples discounted by the flashback drafts, my next big investment will be Battle for Zendikar (BFZ) full sets. I intend to take advantage of a small dip that should occur during Oath of the Gatewatch (OGW) release events to accumulate several dozen BFZ sets.
BFZ sets got as low as 60 tix in December and may not reach that price in the following weeks. I'll be happy to start accumulating the sets around 63-65 tix. BFZ will still be drafted (as one booster per draft) and prices could dip further even after the release of OWG. If so, I might be buying more sets.
I expect BFZ full set value to start rising when Standard rotates in April with the release of Shadows Over Innistrad, when BFZ won't be among the newest sets to be drafted.
Questions & Anwsers
Here is a little section I'll be dedicating to answer questions or comments in more depth in future articles of this series. Feel free to leave a comment/question after this article, on Twitter (@lepongemagique) or on the forums.
Thank you for reading!
Sylvain Lehoux
Excited to see this series unfold.
What are your thoughts on BFZ boosters–down to 3.25-3.30 during Oath pre-release weekend?
I’m actually pondering whether or not I should buy some.
They probably are a safe bet at ~3.2 Tix. However in my case, and unless I have a decent amount of spare Tix, they do not really have a great profit margin, 20-25% at most (if purchased ~3.2 Tix).
Now, the big upside with BFZ boosters is that it’s virtually a risk-free investment.
One of your challenges with this project is to find good returns at a large volume. It’s hard to get a large quantity of many of the top specs bc the market dries out at attractive prices. Boosters offer a nice thick market with lots of buyers and seller. I have been assuming they will need to be part of your portfolio with a bankroll this large. Excited to see if your strategies can be executed at scale!
You’re right. With such a large bankroll I’m aiming at 100% profit per year, with ~60-70% being a decent goal.
I guess I replaced boosters with full sets. The returns are about the same (I average +40% with half a dozen of full sets specs in the past) and I can investe 2000 Tix in no time, which is the good side of full set sepcs.