Welcome back to another week of High Stakes MTGO!

Following two busy weeks, this past week saw less action especially in the sale department. Both Modern and Standard are in a sort of standby mode. Modern is patiently waiting for a another reset of the format when new ban(s) should put down the Eldrazi decks and Standard is about to experience its first Spring rotation.

Let's review what happened this past week. The snapshot of my portfolio can be found here.

Buys This Week

Battle for Zendikar (BFZ) full sets lost a little bit more ground and are currently priced around 60 tix. I bought one more playset and with this new price trend I'm now waiting to see how low they can go before purchasing one final round of these full sets. The absolute bottom might well occur during the release events of Shadow over Innistrad (SOI).

Despite being pushed to the sideline at the moment, Snapcaster Mage still remains a powerhouse in Modern. With the end of the Eldrazis all but guaranteed, and provided the Mage dodges a reprint in Eternal Masters (EMA), Snapcaster Mage should undoubtedly be priced around 25 tix sometime later this year.

In case of a reprint in EMA I'm assuming I'll have a small profitable selling window in April. Either way, and even with only moderate profits in the short term I think this is still a solid spec---hence my new purchase of two playsets.

Past in Flames has a very unique effect and has seen play in Storm decks in Modern and Legacy, with only a minimal appearance in Modern considering the format's current situation. With the exception of a price dip last September during Innistrad flashback drafts, the floor of Past in Flames has been around 10 tix for about the last two years.

I see only upside in investing in this mythic at its floor price. As for many other of my Modern positions I expect a potential price spike during the next B&R list announcement.

The reasoning for Mutavault is about the same as for Past in Flames. I bought this manland at its long-term price floor, waiting for the next spike.

This may not turn out as a spectacular spec but with only moderate play in competitive constructed decks Master of Waves reached 14 tix in January. The recent big drop is most likely solely attributed to the end of redemption for Theros.

After the big fall a floor seemed to have been found around 8 tix, which is therefore only a reflection of the online demand. I'm taking my chances here; let's see how high this merfolk can go now.

Another "Year of Modern flashback drafts" target; I could have bought it earlier though. I'm only expecting moderate profit here since I'm afraid the spread is always going to be big on this type of card. Anyway, I thought there was a chance at a little profit.

Probably the biggest swinger of these past two months. Stony Silence went from ~3 tix to ~8 tix three times since January. It's back to 3 tix this past week and I couldn't resist on another round of roller coaster. Affinity will most likely remain untouched after the next B&R list changes and will still be a strong player in any Modern metagame. No reason for the demand for Stony Silence to fade away.

Sales This Week

My weekly sales of Magic Origins painlands, my first sales of Yavimaya Coast. I'm not rushing my sales with the painlands, even with the profitable ones, but every time the buying prices are high enough I liquidate a few playsets. It's going to take some time to sell them all. I still think the demand will dramatically increase after the rotation of Khans of Tarkir.

The price was stabilizing around 15 tix for three weeks. At that point I realized that the spread was indeed fairly big, almost 20%. This means that if the price of Cascade Bluffs had started to tank a bit I would have been left with pretty much zero profit even with my buying price of 10 tix. I decided to cash out my modest profit and moved on.

Even after a solid spike the spread is still a major concern with Legacy positions. We are mid-March and prices don't seem to really push higher, at least for now. I didn't want to gamble with these guys even with all the noise around Legacy, Vintage and the release of EMA.

Before the Legacy leagues and the Legacy Challenge were announced Legacy specs were not on my radar so I happily take the extra cash coming from my few Legacy investments. Force of Will is the only card left I have from that mini wave of Legacy specs.

On My Radar

What's on my radar for the next few weeks until the release of SOI is to try to time the best I can the optimal window to buy BFZ and Oath of the Gatewatch (OGW) singles. Being a small set and now drafted as a two-of, OGW boosters are cracked very often, putting strong pressure on OGW single prices. I expect OGW prices to keep falling until April.

BFZ is more puzzling to me. Since the beginning of March the general trend has been on the decline for BFZ full sets. However a few singles I'm considering buying, including Drana, Liberator of Malakir, Shambling Vent, Prairie Stream and Cinder Glade, haven't really followed the full set trend and are actually up.

Did I miss the absolute bottom on these singles? Or is it only temporary? I'm inclined to believe that with the global trend being down these singles will eventually catch up to the declining trend, with a bottom to be found around the release events of SOI.

Thank you for reading,

Sylvain Lehoux