They are only better to target, which is just common sense as more play equals better target regardless of format. Our point is that Sol Ring skews the numbers because few if any cards get played more, as such it only gives you a data point for (almost) non-existent comparable cards.

Btw, that’s not an argument, it’s an hypothesis.

I don’t have to show a colored card because that is handicapping my argument. My argument is that cards that see a ton of play in Commander are best to target for Masterpieces. That usually mean the most versatile cards, being artifact cards can go in any deck. In fact we have invocation Legacy cards that aren’t popping like many EDH Masterpiece staples.

Granted, the artwork and card frame differences have much to do with this.

Exactly what David said. Show me the same for a colored card and we can discuss.

Sol Ring may be an outlier though…it is one of (if not THE) most commonly played cards in every commander deck, so using it as justification may skew your data…similar to if we had a Brainstorm Invocation and we wanted to argue that Legacy staples were in super high demand (I know we have FoW, but it’s a valuable card already..whereas regular BS’s are in a similar price range as Sol Ring).

My counter to your comment, pi, is that Sol Ring has been one of the few Masterpieces that spiked and solidly held its price. Many others spike then pull back shortly thereafter. We all know the % decks that run Sol Ring in EDH….it’s not Vintage players driving demand for that one!

Thanks Pi…I definitely admit that I was hoping the data might point out some really obvious picks, but in the end it is what it is. I haven’t bought any Masterpieces yet simply because I don’t have a desire to foil any decks out (as I am more prone to change/alter/or take apart decks more often than keep them in tact for extensive periods of time), however, I’ve seen a lot of people talking about them and stores seem to be hoarding them..when I see them pop up on Facebook sell groups they usually get a lot of attention and purchases.

I’m with Sig, the research on this is impressive. I don’t mind there being no definite recommendation, looking at the data I don’t really have one either. Where I strongly disagree with him is on what is being overweighed, if anything I would weigh Commander even less.

Yes, there are Commander players who pimp. There are far more Commander players who just play with what they own. If they do pick up extra cards that one $20 Masterpiece represents twenty $1 cards they could also buy, that’s 1/5th of a deck! They may not literally think that, but for most the extra expenditure is not going to look worthwhile.

Add to this that you need 4x as many Commander decks for the card to be played in to get the same kind of rise as for a tournament playable card, while Commander players don’t suddenly all jump on a card like tournament players do. They’ll find they need a certain card one at a time and copies slowly disappear from the market as a result.

Cards that entice both the competitive and casual crowd certainly make the most interesting targets, but I would certainly value competitive interest much higher for these.

Thanks Sigmund. I wouldn’t fault you if you wanted to invest more in the commander choices above (for the record I like Mind’s Eye and Gauntlet of Power, simply because the masterpieces are only around 1.5x-2x the price of the regular version, though I’m not sure about the artwork for Mind’s Eye).

Now my question: you crunch all these numbers and generate all this data, but I don’t see your final recommendations. You have asterisks next to a few, but which one or two would you recommend buying right now? If it were me, I’d look at your favorite choices in that final list and investigate which ones have the lowest stock on TCG Player…that would probably be my ultimate factor.

Lastly, I think you may be overweighing Eternal play relative to Commander play. i.e. I believe Commander play is a more significant factor. Perhaps the one exception would be Modern Affinity cards, since about half that deck can be built with all Masterpieces now!