By Guo Heng Chin

Blue and I go a long way back. Throughout my competitive Magic life, I was a hardcore blue player. I would never attend a tournament without my arsenal of counterspells and card draw, be it a casual Friday Night Magic or a Pro Tour Qualifier. I still play blue nowadays and card draw spells have yet to cease to excite me but my love affair with blue has been less intense, in no small part due to Wizards pushing Magic’s design paradigm towards more interactivity (read: less counterspells, more creatures). Nevertheless, the majority of my Commander decks still run blue, as the number of design mistakes in blue is too damn high.

Before I begin, yes there was no typo in the title of today’s article. Its Commander Foil: Blue because I only wrote about a single Commander foil today.

My research initially yielded four blue Commander foil to discuss, but the Modern Masters 2015 announcement threw a wrench into my plans. It was no surprise that Helene Bergeot’s announcement before the finals of the World Championship would unveil the next Modern Masters set, however it was beyond my expectation that Modern Masters 2015 would include the blocks from the first Modern Masters( Eighth Edition through Alara Reborn) on top of the new blocks (Zendikar and Scars of Mirrodin).

I made my picks with the assumption that Modern Masters 2015 was going to pick up where Modern Masters left off, and at the very least includes Innistrad with Snapcaster Mage and Liliana of the Veil carrying a hefty price tags today. In retrospect I should have saw the hints: handing out Geist of Saint Traft and Griselbrand as tournament participation promos and Liliana of the Veil as the prize for winning a Preliminary Pro Tour Qualifier were Wizards’ attempts to alleviate the price of expensive Modern staples from Innistrad (someone mentioned this in an article or tweet but I could not seem to retrace it. Drop me a comment if you know who it was and I shall add a reference to that person). While I was happy that my Snapcaster Mages shall retain their value for a little longer, and potentially even experience a bump in price, the Modern Masters 2015 announcement meant that three out of four of my undervalued blue Commander foil picks, which were from the original Mirrodin block, were invalidated due to the increased risk of a foil reprint. Oh well, I guess I can’t have the cake and eat it too.

Nevermind that. The announcement of Modern Masters 2015 gave me plenty of writing fodder. Jared Yost wrote a marvelous overview of the cards that could see a reprint in Modern Masters 2015, so I am not going to discuss that that, read his article if you want an overview. The announcement of Modern Masters 2015 made me reevaluate a whole bunch of my Modern stakes, so after discussing the single remaining blue Commander foil, I am going to delve into an in-depth audit of my Modern holdings.

Stealing Spells in Style

First, put your hands together for the Commander foil of the day:

Gatecrash Foil Price: $1.97

No. of Foil Printings: 1

Gatecrash’s Primordial cycle was blatantly aimed at Commander players, with each Primordial triggering an iconic spell effect in its color upon entering the battlefield. Sylvan Primordial, the green one, was so game-warping that it was banned in Commander. While Diluvian Primordial was not the best Primordial in the cycle, it came pretty close to second. Commander games are full of powerful spells and stealing them and then casting them for free is just plain awesome and makes for many epic moments.

Diluvian Primordial also holds the virtue of being in the same color as the dreaded Deadeye Navigator, because stealing your opponents’ spells just once is not good enough. Foils of Diluvian Primordial are going for under $2 as Gatecrash is relatively fresh in the Magic community’s memory, but I doubt its price would remain the same as Gatecrash fades further away in time. Diluvian Primordial is technically a cheat card and as I have described in my article on the Increasing Savagery Theory, these sort of cards increase in potential as more cards are added to Magic’s card pool.

The risk of Diluvian Primordial getting reprinted in future blocks is relatively low; while the Primordial cycle cards have names and creature types that are generic enough to fit into most planes, I doubt Wizards would be keen on reprinting the whole cycle given that Sylvan Primordial is banned in Commander and the Primordial cycle is pretty much geared at Commander players. If the Primordials were to be reprinted, it would most likely be in a supplementary product like the now-annual Commander releases where Wizards has the liberty of printing each Primordial independent of the cycle. The annual Commander releases would not impact the foil price of cards.

A Personal Modern Audit

The cards in my modern portfolio whose fate I was most excited to hear about in Helene’s announcement were these guys:

I was watching Worlds at my local game store after their Preliminary Pro Tour Qualifier (spoiler: I did not do well with RG Bees) when Helene came on screen. I literally jumped with joy when I heard that Modern Masters 2015 would only cover sets up to and including New Phyrexia.

Those Tiago Chans have been sitting in my folder since Innistrad was legal. Snapcaster Mage’s growth has been slow but steady, sitting at $32 as of writing, slightly less than double my buy-in price. $15 in growth in two years was not a great investment admitedly, but I bought those Snapcasters with the intention to sit on them for a long time, a decision spurred by a thought experiment suggested by @rezaaba which went along the lines of How many Tarmogoyfs would you buy if you can go back in time?

Snapcaster sees more play than Tarmogoyf in Modern, and nearly as much presence as Tarmogoyf in Legacy according to mtgtop8.com. Snapcaster Mage is also played in Vintage. I am not saying that Snapcaster has the potential to reach the hallowed price of Tarmogoyf, and I highly doubt it ever will, but I do expect Snapcaster Mage to see a slow, sustained growth through the years along the lines of Dark Confidant and Vendilion Clique, both cards that saw less play than Snapcaster Mage. Granted those cards came from the pre-mythic era and were from sets with a significantly smaller print run than Innistrad, they were also played much less than Snapcaster Mage.

I am of opinion that Snapcaster Mage would still retain his price even with an eventual reprint, with a multitude of outcomes dependent on a few variables:

Outcome I: Snapcaster is reprinted as a mythic rare in the Modern Masters set after Modern Masters 2015 (lets call it Modern Masters 201X). Assuming the set would still be a limited print run and the boosters retain a premium price tag, Snapcaster Mage’s price would not tank at all. I am hesitant to predict that Snapcaster would follow in the footsteps of Tarmogoyf, Dark Confidant and Vendilion Clique as the third Modern Masters edition is unlikely to spur that many new entrants into Modern as with the first Modern Masters.

Outcome II: Snapcaster is reprinted as a rare in Modern Masters 201X. Refer to Cryptic Command’s price trajectory after Modern Masters. It took a dip for a few months following Modern Masters’ release before clawing its way back up to higher heights, like a phoenix. From an economic point of view, I speculate that it is unlikely for Wizards to reprint Snapcaster Mage as a rare in Modern Masters 201X. By the time Modern Masters 201X comes around, Snapcaster Mage’s price would be much higher than his current price, and Snapcaster would be one of the marquee chase card of the set. Putting your marquee chase card as a rare reduces its exclusivity.

Outcome III: Snapcaster is reprinted as Grand Prix or World Magic Cup Qualifiers promo. These two scenarios would probably tank his price the most. However, I am using most in comparing it to the other outcomes, rather than in general. It is hard to predict how much of a hit Snapcaster’s price will take if he is handed out to every Grand Prix participant. Batterskull and Griselbrand, both eternal staple mythics with a single printing, have yet to recover from the dip caused by their Grand Prix promo, as with Geist of Saint Traft who lost half his value over the summer after being handed out as a WMCQ participation promo.

A note on cards with new art: The Modern Masters version of Dark Confidant and Sword of Fire and Ice demand a higher price tag compared to their older counterparts on average, with a more pronounced difference if you look at individual shops. This could be due to the fact that the Modern Masters version perceived to have a lower number of circulated copies. It is hard to predict the financial implications of a new art Snapcaster Mage. There are too many unknown variables here: how well-received will the new art be and how limited the print run of Modern Masters 201X would be. Regardless, I doubt new art would have an effect on the price of the old art version. It is not as if hordes of players would irrevocably reject the old art Tiago in favor a new face.

I am personally keeping my Snapcaster Mages for a few more years at the very least. Yes, I am taking a risk in which  one out of the three outcomes would result in a drop in price. I am willing to bear the risk because a) Snapcaster could not drop any lower than my buy-in price in 2012 and b) Snapcaster has the potential to be so much higher than he currently is it makes the risk tolerable.

Thankfully those three Batterskulls above are my only copies and they are for personal use. A third copy just in case there comes a day when a tier one deck runs three copies of it. One day. Well, at least I do not need to share Batterskulls between my Duel Commander decks!

Threads of Disloyalty dodged the reprint bullet the first time around, but I doubt it will dodge it again. After a spike early this year, Threads is now sitting at $21, making it one of the more expensive sideboard cards in Modern and a good target for reprint. I am not sure how much would a Modern Masters 2015 reprint would hit its price in the long term. After all, Blood Moon is now twice its pre-Modern Masters price after taking a dip for a few months post Modern Masters.

See Threads of Disloyalty. Wizards be damned if it cost Modern players $81 just to hedge against Burn decks and discard spells (Three is the usual number of Leylines in the sideboard). Leyline of Sanctity is another card that is best bought a few months after Modern Masters 2015 comes out.

As Jared mentioned, Serum Visions is a highly likely candidate for reprinting. Theros had the scry mechanic, but unfortunately the plane does not have serum-producing Blinkmoths and Wizards is edging away from one mana blue cantrips from a design standpoint. Bad Wizards. I too think that there is a high chance we would be opening Serum Visions in Modern Masters 2015, seeing that Wizards chose not to reprint it in any of the supplementary products they could have fit Serum Visions in. I envision my $7 Serum Visions to be worth much less this time next year.

Another card I am glad that I only kept a personal playset.

Wizards is taking their promise to keep Modern accessible seriously and no Modern staples are safe from reprint. I think the era of insane Modern-induced spikes is coming to an end. That key four-of card in that new breakout deck at that GP/PT/SCG is too expensive? Just wait for the next Modern Masters/supplementary product/block set.

Modern staples are still viable investments but now with a lower profit margin and higher risk. If you want to speculate on Modern cards, do not get too greedy, leave the remaining 10% to the other person as per Corbin Hosler’s advice, be acutely aware of any news of upcoming products, and try your best to stay ahead of impending reprints with compulsive research.

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By Guo Heng Chin

Today we will be deviating from our usual Commander foils to take a look at a few undervalued cards in Standard. I know, the price for the majority of Standard cards have already settled and we are at that time of the year again. No, I am not talking about the holiday season, though I very much look forward to it. I am referring to the annual December Standard price trough, when cards from the fall set experience a set-wide drop in price. December is the month when Magic Online redemptions have hit the market for a couple of weeks, and coupled with two months of heavy drafting (well, the fall set was all we had to draft with) creates the first price bottom of the fall set cards.

If you are looking to acquire the Standard pieces you need for your decks and complete your personal playset of Khans of Tarkir cards, now is a good time to do so. However, I would not move in on specs yet as most of the playable rares and mythics still have room to drop. The Khans will rule for another four more months before the Dragons of Tarkir evict them in March 2015.

Well, most of the rares and mythics anyway. Khans of Tarkir Standard proved to be a reasonably diverse metagame. Just as we thought the Abzan and Mardu decks have established their grip on the Standard landscape, a different clan shook the status quo. Sidisi Reanimator, or Whipdisi for those who prefer a more kinky nomenclature, is not a new kid in town. The deck debuted at Pro Tour Khans of Tarkir in the hands of Christian Seibold who missed the cut to top 8 by one win. Seibold then top 8 Grand Prix Stockholm with the same list a few weeks later. The very next week Jund master Willy Edel ravaged through Grand Prix Santiago with Sidisi Reanimator only to have his hot run tragically  ended by manascrew in the top 8. While Sidisi Reanimator possessed a phenomenal matchup against the creature-centric midrange decks, it fell out of favor and was relegated to the depths of tier two, surfacing only occasionally on Magic Online Daily Events.

Hail to the Queen

Sidisi, Brood Tyrant came back with a vengeance last weekend, taking down the Star City Games Open in Atlanta and making top 8 of Grand Prix San Antonio. The deck ripped through a field full of Abzan and Mardu midrange decks and turned Standard into Commander games. Sidisi Reanimator is well positioned in the current meta  due to the fact that most creature decks find it difficult to handle a resolved Hornet Queen, let alone multiple recurrences of Hornet Queens with Whip of Erebos.

You can currently buy the Sultai Khan  at $3.10, which is close to bulk mythic. For a mythic that sees play as a four-of in an archetype that is poised to be a tier one deck, $3 feels like the bottom or close to the bottom for Sidisi, Brood Tyrant.

Another reason to be bullish on Sidisi at $3 is the amount of love she has been getting from Commander players. Milling is perpetually popular with the Commander community and Sidisi is the ultimate self-mill commander, who by the way also churns out zombies (tribal fetish alert). Anyone following the Commander scene would have encountered a sheer number of articles written about Sidisi, Brood Tyrant as a commander since she was released. She is also in scoeri’s list of top fifty most played Commander (for the previous year). Granted, her position in the list could be down to the buzz of having a new Commander to tinker with, nevertheless it showed the amount of enthusiasm the Commander community have for Sidisi.

I have hopped on the Sidisi bandwagon myself and built a Sidisi deck. If I am not wrong, Sidisi, Brood Tyrant is the first tricolor self-mill commander, and the addition of green to a traditionally blue and black domain opened up a lot of intricate and awesome interactions the deck have access to. The design space for a Sidisi, Brood Tyrant deck is extremely deep, with a plethora of approach to building it (do you want go down the dredge path, or do you want to do a zombie tribal, or a mix of them both, or a Jund-like midrange deck).  Every Sidisi, Brood Tyrant deck exudes its own flavor and I can personally attest that Sidisi, Brood Tyrant is a commander that is both a fun exercise in deck construction and is enjoyable to pilot.

Which brings us back to our original point: Sidisi, Brood Tyrant, a mythic rare that is the engine of a potentially tier one archetype and also a really fun commander to build around, is only $3. I would not go in super deep, but I like the idea of having a few playsets of Sidisi as she is about as low as playable mythics go. If Sidisi Reanimator keeps on posting results, her price would spike. Worse case scenario, if Sidisi Reanimator does not gain widespread adoption (an unlikely outcome in my opinion, seeing how well the deck is positioned against the creature-centric midrange meta Wizards has been not-so-subtly encouraging), Commander demand would drive her price higher than it is now once Khans of Tarkir stops being drafted.

While I am bullish on non-foil copies of Sidisi, I am less so  for foil copies of the Sultai Khan, at least right now. I am confident that foil Sidisi will slowly inch up as with foils of popular commanders, but at $10 she still have room to drop. I would trade for foil copies of Sidisi over the next few months rather than buy them outright. Foil Sidisi is a long-term spec target with the aim of doubling or tripling up within a few years of Khans rotating out.

I have seen a lot of questions regarding the next two cards on the MTGFinance subreddit’s Weekly Ask MTGFinance Anything thread. While they are Standard-legal cards, the driver for their price stems from Modern and/or Legacy.

Laying Siege

The first card is Siege Rhino. What is the financial potential of non-foil and foil Siege Rhinos right now? Non-foil Siege Rhinos are on their way down as with most Khans of Tarkir cards due to the December price trough. I would not spec on them right now and I would only acquire them for my own use if I need them right now (Hey, I can finally afford to play Abzan). Siege Rhino still have some leeway to drop and it is okay to wait a month or two before moving in. Siege Rhino might also be reprinted in upcoming Clash Packs or Event Decks, ala Courser of Kruphix. Wizards has proven over and over again that they will reprint expensive Standard rares to make them more accessible.

The future of foil Siege Rhino is contentious. Foil Siege Rhino demands a hefty price tag due to the amount of play the card sees in Modern. While everyone was clamoring over the perceived warping power Treasure Cruise asserted on Modern, the first post-Khans Modern Grand Prix in Madrid featured more Siege Rhinos in the top 8 than Treasure Cruises. So did the subsequent Star City Games Premier Invitational Qualifier (but not last weekend’s though).

Siege Rhino is the best arsenal Abzan-based decks have against UR Delver and I suspect that played a role in the widespread adoption of Siege Rhino in Modern. If UR Delver were to drop from its current level of dominance, would Abzan and Pod decks still retain their Rhinos? Would Abzan still prefer Siege Rhinos over Dark Confidants in a meta with less Forked Bolt and Lightning Bolt?

Personally, I think those decks would still run a non-zero amount of Siege Rhino. Siege Rhino is the epitome of a value card: it is a Lightning Helix on an undercosted, trampling ⅘ body, exactly the kind of card Abzan and Pod decks love to play.There are not many cards in Modern that trades with Siege Rhino on parity. Regardless of the Delver threat, Siege Rhino is good enough to be included in Modern, I am just not sure if it would still be a four-of in a meta with a different bogeyman.

At $13, foil Siege Rhino has room to grow, but I am not keen on getting foil copies right now. I am inclined to wait and see if Treasure Cruise gets the ban come the Modern Pro Tour early next year.

The second card is Eidolon of the Great Revel. Many Redditors asked whether Eidolon’s price right now makes for a good buy-in. Eidolon of the Great Revel is on a downtrend after its double-spike over the summer and can be picked up today for $6.6.

The Other Broken Red Two Drop

Lets see, Eidolon of the Great Revel is a four-of auto-include in Modern and Legacy Burn and it comes from a small spring set (low supply alert). Eidolon has a slim chance of being reprinted anytime soon with its Nyx-ified border and ‘Enchantment Creature’ type unique to Theros. Is Eidolon of the Great Revel a good buy right now? You bet. The card has the hallmark of an eternal card poised for appreciation over the years. It is a good time now to secure your own playset and any extra playsets for investment. Modern Masters II is likely to come out next summer and it would instigate another wave of Modern players. Burn is a budget-friendly entry level deck into Modern and those new players would be looking for their Eidolon of the Great Revels. I am not a fan of waiting until rotation to pick Eidolons up; it seems to be a new trend for Modern staples to not buck in price upon rotation. See Snapcaster Mage and shocklands.

How about foil copies? Eternal players like to foil out their decks don’t they? I am afraid the cruise has left the port a long time ago for foil Eidolon of the Great Revel. If you did not acquire your copies back in June when it was $7 apiece, it is probably best to stay away from speculating on foil Eidolons. I do not think $30 is the ceiling for a foil Modern and Legacy staple from a small spring set, but I have no idea when foil Eidolons would make the next jump and there is a significant opportunity cost at its current buy-in price.

Speaking of Standard cards with Modern application, the last card we will be looking at in this article is another Modern staple with a surprisingly low price right now. I revved up my competitive Magic engine again two weekends ago after a six-month hiatus from competitive Magic, in anticipation for the upcoming PPTQ season. I decided to start out with Caleb Durward’s GR Bees which seemed well positioned against a creature-heavy, midrange-fest of a metagame. And also because I already own most of the cards and I would not have to spend a fortune on getting the cards in real life (for practice) and online (for more practice). When I was purchasing the missing components, I could not believe the price Chord of Calling was going at. I thought the shopkeeper must have got the price for the wrong card!

What Calls?

When I took a hiatus from competitive Magic back in June, Chord of Calling was a $40 Modern staple. Now Chord of Calling is just a $4 rare. While Chord of Calling is not as ubiquitous like Eidolon of the Great Revel, it remains an integral piece in Birthing Pod. Chord of Calling may be out of vogue in current Pod lists, but it was not too long ago in Pro Tour Born of the Gods where Jacob Wilson and co.’s Pod list ran three Chord of Calling.

It is a great time to buy into Chord of Calling now. It does not see much Standard play and has fallen out of favor in the current Modern meta, being a bit slow against Delver. Modern’s metagame is constantly in flux and Chord of Calling could easily be a $10 card (and that me being conservative with my prediction) before the end of next year, with a much higher long-term value.

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By Guo Heng Chin

In Magic finance, you win some and you lose some, as with playing the game of Magic itself. Today, instead of foraging for undervalued cards, I am casting a retrospective glance over my three years of dabbling in Magic finance and dig through my speculation history for my hits and misses and the lessons I have learned from them.

Liquidity Matters

My first successful spec was Blazing Shoal during Pro Tour Philadelphia 2011, where Modern made its debut as a Pro Tour format. Blazing Shoal Infect was the breakout deck amid a field of turn three Storm decks; it was able to consistently win on turn two and was far more resilient than Storm. Blazing Shoal put Sam Black on the top 8 of that Pro Tour and if I recall correctly, he executed a turn two kill on camera, not something Wizards was particularly impressed with for a format they were trying to nurture.

I snagged a few playsets of Blazing Shoal online at near bulk before they ran out. I was ecstatic when they spiked 300% over the Pro Tour weekend. The cards arrived the week after and I started listing them on eBay.

It was my first time selling specs on eBay. I initially listed all of them under one listing with a set Buy It Now price. They did not sell well. I thought that due to the sheer number of available copies I listed, there were no urgency for viewers to buy them. So I took the listing down, and started listing my Burning Shoals as playsets with a seven-day auction. People prefer auctions don’t they? Then it dawned upon me that listing multiple playsets of the same card made me my own competitor and thinned out the list of potential bidders for each listing.

In the end I decided to list one playset per week. I did not get to my second playset when the banhammer fell upon Blazing Shoal.

Understanding your avenues for liquidity is as important as knowing when to move into a spec as it is the other half of the alchemic equation to transmute your specs into cash.  It is imperative to ensure that the the quantity of your specs correspond to your ability to move them.

Back then in London, there were not many local shops to buylist my cards and I was not aware of peer-to-peer outlets like MagicCardMarket.eu. The idea of sending my cards to major retailers in the United States did not occurred to me as well, the Magic finance noob I was back then. So I defaulted to eBay, which was probably not the wisest choice to move a large amount of cards fast.

What Jace Thought Me

Jace, Architect of Thought holds a sweet spot in my memory of Magic specs. Up till today, he was the only spec that made me money not once, but twice.

The first time Jace made me cash was down to some not insignificant amount of luck. I recall discussing Jace in my local Magic Facebook group when he was first spoiled. I was pretty bullish on him, my argument being that he is a mini Fact or Fiction on a stick and he protects himself. Others were not so enthusiastic, some even relegated him to the financial wasteland of being only playable in Commander (that was back before Commander were a driving force of card price). After all, his plus one ability gets better with more opponents, no?

I kept Jace on my eBay watchlist for a few days before pulling the trigger on a presale playset at $25 each, afraid that if I waited any longer, he will be start to spike, as with most presale cards. But four days later, Jace, who is now an architect rather than a sculptor, not only not see an increase in presale price, but is now available at $21.99. I bought another playset.

Less than a month later, when Return to Ravnica was barely legal for a week, Todd Anderson took down an StarCityGames Standard Open with UWR Miracles running a full four copies of Jace, Architect of Thought. The deck was a one-shot pony, but I am sure most of you recall the resulting spike where Jace shot up to $50 for a brief period of time. The nature of Magic price spikes is that it happens fast, but it takes a while to tank. It was not until mid-December before Jace fell below twenty. I cashed out my extra playset of Architect of Thought for $40 apiece, covering most of the cost of my own playset.

That was mostly luck; buying in at $25 hoping to make a profit will only work if the card spikes to $40 – 50, and I suspect Jace was only able to do that on the virtue of being a new card on top of being played as a four-of in the winning deck of the first major Standard tournament after the set rotated in. The more financially savvy me in 2014 would not advocate buying a presale Planeswalker at $25 as a spec (though Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker is wagging his dragon tail at my face for not investing in a few of him at presale price. A point of consideration: it might be worth acquiring marquee Planeswalkers at presale price for your own personal use. You would have saved quite a lot buying your personal playset of Elspeth, Sun’s Champion and Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker at their presale prices).

While the first time Jace made me some bucks could be attributed to a decent amount of luck, the second time Jace turned me a hefty profit was not.

About a month into Return to Ravnica Standard, a Japanese tech surfaced: UWR tempo running Thundermaw Hellkite alongside Geist of Saint Traft and Restoration Angel. Thundermaw Hellkite worked marvelously in tandem with Geist of Saint Traft: nine unstoppable damage in the air out of nowhere. Geist on turn three, Restoration Angel on turn four and Thundermaw for the lethal alpha strike on turn five happened quite a lot.

Shortly after that, in mid-November 2012, Jon Bolding and Tyler Lytle took down two Standard Grand Prix one week after another, both running BR Big Zombies featuring three Thundermaw Hellkites. The dragon has awaken.

Jace did not do well in a meta where Thundermaw Hellkite was the king of the skies. It got worse when Tom Martell took down Pro Tour Gatecrash with The Aristocrats and the deck became a tier one mainstay for the rest of Return to Ravnica Standard. Turn four Jace, Architect of Thought was not impressive when your opponent followed up with a Falkenrath Aristocrat and/or Thundermaw Hellkite.

So Jace’s price tanked and tanked further. By April 2013, Jace hit rock bottom at $10. During the following months, I bought and traded for Jaces at $10 – $12 apiece. He was too good to warrant a price tag that low. Furthermore, Jace was the most played card in the top 8 of the Block Constructed Pro Tour Dragon’s Maze. That is some convincing data.

True enough, in October 2013 when the Hellkites and Aristocrats rotated out and Theros rotated in, Jace spiked. UW Control with four Jaces piloted by Max Tietze took second place at the first major Standard tournament. Pro Tour Theros that followed saw 16 Jaces in the top 8 decks.

Jace significantly subsidised my entry into Theros Standard. Trading Jaces for Stormbreath Dragons and Elspeth, Sun’s Champions allowed me to play most tier one decks during a period when I was unemployed.

The biggest take home message I got from my affair with Jace was to trust my own analysis of a card, even though it goes against the market sentiment, as long as my conclusions are derived from solid reasoning (as opposed to a hunch) and preferably, data. I know, it sounds like a protip, but it is not easy to pull the trigger on a card you know has potential to be worth more than it currently is when the market thinks otherwise.

My reasoning for Jace, Architect of Thought were as follows: He is competitively costed and protects himself. Sounds good. He is a versatile card with abilities you would like to have in both aggro and midrange/control matchups and are useful to catch up or to seal the deal when you are ahead. That makes Jace a candidate for multiple copies in decks that run him. I am getting convinced.

He is a mini Fact or Fiction on a stick.

Sometimes the market undervalues a card because the metagame is unfavorable to the card. Thundermaw Hellkite pushed the boundary for the acceptable power level of creatures (back in my days, you had to sacrifice two mountains for an undercosted dragon and you don’t even get Haste) but yet dropped to $10 in the first six months of its Standard legal life. No one wanted to tap five for a creature in a field of Vapor Snag and Snapcaster Mage for more Vapor Snag. Once Vapor Snag rotated out, it was only a matter of time before someone figured out that jamming multiple Thundermaw Hellkites in a deck was the way to go.

Another factor to keep in mind is that it takes a while for the Magic community to appreciate the power of new cards. Courser of Kruphix started out as a $5 rare even though it is a value engine in a single card at three casting cost. It took a month for Courser to hit $10 and three to hit $20.

I was a little late to the party, having bought my Coursers at $7. My arguments were that Courser has three useful abilities and is in a set that is not going to be opened a lot. Courser also had potential in Modern with its four toughness and synergy with fetchlands, Tarmogoyf and Dark Confidant. So while people were still trying out Courser in both Standard and Modern, I was busy buying Coursers.

Eidolon of the Great Revel went through the same journey into profitabilty. It has a fairly unique ability, which made it hard to evaluate. I totally misunderstood the ability the first time I read it, before I realised the card has the potential to be absolutely devastating in Modern and Legacy where most cards cost three or less mana. But Eidolon of the Great Revel was not seeing any play at all. At least in the first few months of its existence.

The turning point for me to buy in was hearing Zac Hill discuss Eidolon of the Great Revel in a Brainstorm Brewery set review episode where he mentioned something along the lines of Eidolon of the Great Revel having a unique design and he has no idea how to price it. At that time, Eidolon was around $2. That is certainly not the price for as cross-format playable card with a unique design. I bought a few playsets at $2 and threw into the card three foil copies at $7 each.

In retrospect I should have bought a playset of foils instead of just three. Foils of Modern and Legacy staples are worth a lot I hear.

Wide Applications

Sometimes even though my analysis and playtesting showed that a card is more powerful than its market price indicted, there are still factors that could limit the growth of the card. Duskmantle Seer proved to be a beast during playtesting using the Sultai shell which briefly made waves when it was featured on the mothership after taking down a Brazilian WMCQ. Duskmantle Seer’s symmetrical effect was mitigated by the fact that you get to use the extra card first, and you could design your deck to have a lower curve to reduce the damage you take. His 4/4 flying body and ability to force your opponent to take damage off his Dark Confidant clause provided a good clock.

But Duskmantle Seer did not take off.

In retrospect, it seemed obvious why Duskmantle Seer had a narrow chance of spiking. His blue and black mana requirement greatly reduced the range of decks that could run him. I do not think that being multicolored made it a bad spec; Sphinx’s Revelation had an explosive growth. I think the death knell for Duskmantle was the fact that he was only optimal in decks designed to mitigate his Dark Confidant clause, thus further limiting the range of decks that runs him.

After all, a card’s price is a function of its playability.

Future Sight

While it’s painful to get burned on a spec, they provide valuable data we could use to fine tune our approach to reduce our failure rate in future specs. Of course, no one could predict for certain what card will spike next. The best we could do is position ourselves to have the best chance of striking it, very much like playing competitive Magic.

And maybe hope a little.