Now that the full spoiler is up, we can fully digest everything that will be in Chronicles Two: Take the Money! Okay, okay, Conspiracy is a far cry from Chronicles, but if you're looking for investment opportunities it's one of the closer comparisons that you'll find in Magic's history. There are some new cards that are exciting for Cube, Commander and Legacy, though considering the size of the print run the only great opportunity singles opportunity in the short-term would be in fulfilling pre-orders or some very fast sales after the release date. Expect downward trends across the board, and not just with regard to reprints.

Don't get me wrong, these aggressive reprints are great for players. Inquisition of Kozilek's price was, frankly, stupid. Everybody who was waiting to pull the trigger on their set of Show and Tells should be ecstatic, and rightfully so. From the perspective of making sound financial decisions to build a portfolio to pro-actively making the game more accessible, however, the set doesn't offer much. Not every set needs to offer this, and this is far from a terrible problem to have, but it doesn't leave me with much to focus on with regard to the set. There are a few cards in the set worth paying attention to, though mostly this is a "buy your set of what you need in a few months" kind of set. At any rate, there are a few talking points worth discussing.

Reprints

You'll find no shortage of discussion of reprints in Conspiracy here on the Insider side, and there's no reason for me to go too deep into things. Basically, most of you already know what you need to know, so I'll just reiterate the basics. If you want a Berserk, wait a couple months and you'll get a really good price. Given the size of the print run of this set, it's pretty clear that the set will be aggressively farmed until the expected value of a box is no longer consistently profitable, and as such your best play is just to wait. The cards receiving reprints have already taken a hit, though you'll get a significantly better deal by exercising a little patience.

Mythics and New Legacy Staples

Selvala, Heir of the Wilds is a solid Commander card, but as you can see it's already only a few dollars, and you shouldn't really expect positive price trajectories for anything in the set. Foils are intriguing, but we'll get to that later.

Next on the docket is Recruiter of the Guard. This card will definitely have a good amount of demand, but $20+ is completely unpalatable for a regular rare from this set. This card looks great for Legacy, Cube, and Commander, though not being legal in Modern or Standard and coming from a set that is likely to be opened as much as Conspiracy: Take the Crown is killer. I wouldn't even think about buying until the card drops to $10, and I expect it will settle even lower in the coming months.

The other major Legacy player from Conspiracy is Sanctum Prelate, and like the other potential Death and Taxes inclusion is is pre-ordering for $20+. This card is my pick for the card most likely to soak up value from the set as values decline. It's the only Legacy playable mythic that you have to go to Conspiracy: Take the Crown to find, and I fully expect this card to have a game-breaking impact in Legacy games. Even still, the price will decline in the short term, though I expect the floor here to be slower coming than the rest of the set.

Some might have taken the praise of Prelate as the only new Legacy playable mythic as shade at Daretti, Ingenius Iconoclast, and they'd be right. This is my pick for the most over-priced pre-order from the set. Comparisons to Dack Fayden are absurd given Dack's Vintage playability and impact on foil price in addition to the fact that Dack is a much better Cube card. Daretti is the sort of card that I would expect to be under-valued as a spoiler for Standard play and over-hyped as a potential Eternal player. The ultimate is great, though he's only playable in the sorts of formats where you really need the first two abilities to matter, and they just don't. You can spend two turns to deal with an artifact or creature or sacrifice your Mox to deal with their Mox. Neat. This is the closet planeswalker to Tibalt, the Fiend Blooded to date when it comes to older formats.

The last card in this category that I believe to be worth discussing is Kaya, Ghost Assassin. This card is really cool, and another card that I think would be an interesting consideration for Standard. In the universe in which we inhabit, this is really just a Cube and casual card. I like this card a lot but I don't expect it to maintain much value as time passes.

Foils

And finally, on to the place where I think investment opportunities will arise. As Conspiracy: Take the Crown is farmed, the ev of the set will decline and it will no longer be profitable to farm the set after a point. At this point in time, I believe it will be wise to start looking at foils, as there are a few choice picks for the set, and their prices will be more resistant to pack-cracking than their non-foil counterparts. The reprinted cards will generally be duds for this purpose, but some of the new cards will be worth investing in. Keep an ear to the ground with regard to the most sought after goofy draft cards and conspiracies, as these are the more expensive foils from the first Conspiracy set. If the "Hearthstone-like" Conspiracies end up being popular then expect positive price trajectories for the foils.

The specific foil prices that I would watch for the floor of are Santcum Prelate, Recruiter of the Guard, and Kaya, Ghost Assassin. The first two for their Legacy playability, and Kaya for the fact that the foil has unique art. For some specific cards not mentioned above, Leovald, Emissary of Trest is likely to be a good foil target down the road, and assuming that Expropriate stays legal in Commander I like foils of that one as well.

~

Conspiracy: Take the Crown looks to be a neat set to draft with some awesome casual goodies and helpful reprints. Cracking boxes might be a smart play in the short term, though most of the value from investing in the set looks to be in watching for the floor of foils. I'm curious to see just how good the new white cards actually are in Legacy and to see if anybody proves me wrong on Daretti, though for now I'm confident in these positions.

Thanks for reading.

-Ryan Overturf
@RyanOverdrive on Twitter