Kelly Reid
6/13/2012 10:00:00 AM
A few months ago, I talked about how I believed Avacyn Restored was shaping up to be one of the best sets in recent memory. I recalled the success of Rise of the Eldrazi, the first “Big Finish” set. Avacyn Restored brought back the 249-card block-ending set and seems to have upped the ante with crazy powerful mythic rares that have implications across the game. The prices of AVR cards reflect the power and demand of these cards, remaining strong even as the market as a whole contracts.


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The market contracts every summer, beginning in late May. Core set prices drop as cards are either reprinted - in which case the demand remains flat but supply increases dramatically, or they are not reprinted, and thus demand drops. Core set rares are about the most toxic asset a trader can own on May 1st. Nothing in the core set is safe from the massive devaluation of the summer rotation.


AVR

Bonfire of the Damned ($25) is the most prominent big-money AVR card, having risen fivefold from its presale price. It can be a dominating force in multiple formats and does some very broken things for very little net mana. Every set needs a chase mythic, but Bonfire of the Damned is far from the only mythic rare in demand.

Griselbrand ($14) has been finding a home in Legacy decks, allowing a Sneak Attack or Show and Tell player to draw 14+ cards and hit for some damage. We'll have to wait and see until GP Atlanta to know if this strategy is actually capable of winning major events. I'm definitely long on Griselbrand, since he'll be among the best reanimation/cheatyface targets available (much like Emrakul, The Aeons Torn). Emrakul still holds value, so Griselbrand will too.

Avacyn, Angel of Hope ($12) has seen zero constructed play, yet has also sustained a consistently high selling price. This makes it apparent that noncompetitive appeal is a strong driver of singles sales at this point, since no tournament player needs to own an Avacyn. Players genuinely like strong, powerful and iconic cards and seem to have a natural inclination towards owning cards like these. I don't see as much upside or stability as Griselbrand, which is why I usually trade through them for margin.

Gisela, Blade of Goldnight ($10) has more than doubled in price since pre-orders closed. Popularity in Commander has driven demand through the roof, and casual players of all types love damage-amplifying effects. The card is not without competitive applications and may be the preferred Unburial Rites target for a deck utilizing Lingering Souls. I'm churning these for margin as well, but I'm in no rush to liquidate them. These high-cost Angel cards appeal to all different types of players, so I enjoy having them in stock at all times.

Sigarda, Host of Herons ($10) has bigger constructed applications than any of the other mythic Angels. She's by far the most aggressively-costed and hardest to kill and since so many of the best removal spells in Innistrad block require targeting or sacrificing. As with almost any $10 mythic rare, I will churn these for margin as well, but I am again happy to hold them as I get them. Legendary mythic Angels will rarely be a bad thing to own.

Entreat the Angels ($19) has not seen much play in Standard lately, but it will surely have its day. The current price does not accurately reflect its use in competitive play, but this is once again offset by Commander use, casual appeal, and the “mythic Legendary Angel” effect, which automatically doubles a card's price on the Internet! I don't want to own many of these right now since I believe it's due for a come-down, but in the interim they still trade just fine.

Tamiyo, the Moon Sage ($27) surprises me for a card that sees so little play. Unlike many of the sleeper mythics that blew up into $10-$20 cards, Tamiyo has maintained a price point between 25 and 30 since presales came online. I see no upside - she is not Jace, the Mind Sculptor by any means - and I think that any potential competitive usage is already priced in. Due for a deflation towards 20 in the mid-term. Not eager to own any.

Cavern of Souls ($20) has already come down a bit in price since release, and I think it's got more room to drop. Once the initial hype died down, people realized that not every deck needs four copies. Some do, but the majority of recent successful decks aren't using 4 of these. There's just no basis for this as a $20 card, and I'd guess that the price will contract over the coming months. I'm much happier turning them over quickly, so I have no intentions of fireselling them to drop inventory.


Standard

It seems that AVR has sucked the life out of other Standard-legal sets. Scars of Mirrodin dual lands have dropped remarkably quickly since mid-March. Despite being among the best lands printed in recent times, they have almost fallen back to where they were before everyone realized they were good. Remember when Seachrome Coast was $2? Well, it's not quite that low but it's getting there. Just go look at the charts for Darkslick Shores and see what a beating they've taken.

They've all gotten so low that I have to wonder how much further they can fall before I start wanting to own more. No one's thinking Modern right now and even though they're leaving Standard soon they'll still be played. We may not see $16 Seachrome Coasts but I'm sure they'll reach reasonable levels mid-season. I'm not keen to get them unless they drop further but there's still a chance that can happen.

Geralf's Messenger and Gravecrawler had such promise. 2nd set, short-run staples in a popular and powerful archetype, but then they were immediately reprinted as promos and event decks. This “quantitative easing” is good for the average player, who now has access to some sweet cards for half the price, but many traders took a beating on both of these cards. Without massive reprinting, these could have stayed $6+ but they are now hovering around $4 each, usually less. There was a lot of value lost when the market contracted, which had to have hurt the people who stocked up on them for the long haul.

Despite dominating Standard, Snapcaster Mage ($18) has sunk below 20. The first rare to sustain a $20+ price in the mythic rare era has finally fallen from the top spot, conceding value to Cavern of Souls. AVR really seems to have sucked a lot of the value out of the rest of the market, but seeing Snapcaster Mage - the most dominant card in Standard - lose value slowly makes me wonder exactly what's going on.

High Mid Low

Hallowed Fountain

$29.95

$17.64

$14.32

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M13

My team has been debating the question of Ravnica's Shock Lands in M13, and while there is no consensus as to what we think will happen, I can break down our discussions so you can make your own decisions.

First, we need to ascertain whether the reprinting is a possibility. Considering that we have heard directly from R&D that they named the lands in consideration of a reprint, I'd have to think so. There's a reason it's a Hallowed Fountain, not an Azorius Fountain. If we assume then that a reprint is in the realm of possible outcomes, we'd have to then venture to guess that a reprint would be most likely in a set named Return to Ravnica. If that is the case, we have more questions to answer.

How many, which, and in what order? The original shock lands were printed over 3 sets, with 4 in Ravnica and 3 each in Guildpact and Dissension. The block was ordered around the guilds and the shock lands were printed in-order with them. There seems to be no reason to do that this time, as it would unnecessarily Convolute things and they already did that gimmick once.

Every core set has had a cycle of dual lands, but almost no sets in recent memory have contained a full 10-set. The Autumn set has usually contained some variation of dual land, and the core set always contains a simple on-color set of lands at minimum. For the past 3 years, the core set has had the iconic “ETB Tapped unless...” clause, which I always found cumbersome and slow to build around. When M12 and Scars Block rotate out, Standard will need some new on-color dual lands. That will either happen in Return to Ravnica or M13...or both.

The inclusion of Farseek over Rampant Growth and Arbor Elf over Llanowar Elf tells me that land types will matter again, and soon. The majority of M13 art is Ravnica-based, as is some of the flavor text. It's clear that M13 is a Ravnica set, and since a core set needs dual lands, what better than the most awaited reprint in the last few years? It would surprise me if we get through the Autumn without seeing a reprinted shock lands.

In light of all of this, my prediction is that we will see the on-color shock lands printed in the core set and the off-color printed in Return to Ravnica. It seems like the most elegant way to deploy a full set of new dual lands quickly and effectively, while introducing new players to the Ravnica theme as a teaser to the set's release. This timing will also give R&D tremendous flexibility in the following block, as both on-color and off-color dual lands will be fully represented going into the block.


Shocking Implications

If this were to happen, how would it all go down? Well, a surge in supply is the most obvious place to start. The current supply is fairly limited, especially on the lands from later sets. Hallowed Fountain, the most popular color combination from the rarest set, could stand to lose massive value. If Hallowed Fountains get opened at every FNM draft across the world for a few months, there's no way it can sustain a $20+ price tag. No. Way. The more expensive the card, the more it will drop. If you simply ignore pre-existing supply, each would likely command $8-10 around release. Given the precedent of other core set lands before, and the fetch lands when they were released, these numbers will accurately reflect what I believe would happen.

In light of this, fetch lands start looking very, very good. Each Zendikar fetch land is selling within a few dollars of the $10 point, and if shock lands get hit with some “quantitative easing”, fetch lands will become the hardest-to-find lands in the Modern format. They are still under half the cost of the Onslaught-era fetch lands, making them suitable budget replacements for Legacy and Commander decks. Given ubiquitous access to shock lands, we can expect to see demand on fetch lands steadily increase as the months go on. In a market with many unknowns, my team all agree that fetch lands are about the most stable cardboard asset we can own.

In light of that, the fetch land price point seems very low. The best traders I know have been amassing these for the last 3 years, and there will come a point where long-term collectors, players and businesspeople will simply own a large portion of the supply. I have not met with much resistance trading for fetch lands, at least not compared to what I'm told when asked if Bonfire of the Damned is for trade. If anything, I've been trading AVR staples for fetch lands at fair value all day long. I don't really make much on these trades, if any, but I'm happier divesting myself from potentially unstable AVR cards into solid assets with multi-year upside.

There are not a lot of cards I'm long on right now, outside of high-end stuff like power, alpha/beta stuff and dual lands. A lot of the more commoditized MTG singles have taken big hits to their valuations in the last few months and thankfully, the high end old stuff has retained its value or appreciated. There are great margins to be made on the commodity Standard cards but you need a quick trigger finger since prices change so quickly. Information latency - the time it takes for information to travel - has gotten microscopically low. Maybe I'm an Old Fogey but I remember getting Scrye Magazine each month to check prices. Now I have custom software I wrote for my iPhone. When information latency approaches zero, he who has the best information backed up by the most money wins, so stay on top of your numbers, kids.