plfeudo

I’m unsure how to feel about Temporal Mastery now, I liked it as a quick riser with the continued success of RUG Ramp and although that deck did alright in the WMC it got zero publicity. It’s come back down to earth on MTGO and is around 11 tix again from the bots. I still think the card’s floor is around 10 retail in paper, so if you get in below that in trade I don’t think you can lose money, though perhaps you might not make much either. Still, if the deck continues to do well on the scg circuit perhaps there’s still hope for me to be right, though I don’t know if that would count after this post.
If something insane happens and they unban jace 2.0 in modern or the 2 mana Jace from the Salvation spoilers turns out to be real, obviously act accordingly and pick up all the masteries you can. I suppose that’s makes keeping what you’ve acquired a decent hedge because as I said I don’t think they can really drop down any lower.

I bought 32 parallel lives on MTGO today for a little less than 70 cents. I’m not sure I like the play in paper as much because the rate of return is much lower, though I still think there’s room for profit. This is continuing my trend of betting on the Selesnya token mechanic ‘populate’ and token cards in general to be either good, popular or both come October and November. I think parallel lives is a great bet on mtgo because it seems so very easy for that card to become 1-2 dollars if the upcoming token cards are a hit and the risk involved is nearly non-existent.
On paper the intial cost much much higher, and the rate of return much smaller, say 2-3x rather than 20-40, but cards like this in paper tend to maintain their value long term even if they never work out competitively. So while on mtgo the risk is next to nothing because you’re literally risking a few dollars to make a play, in paper I believe that the card will be going up long term regardless of whether this short term play works out. (Its 1.99 on SCG right now but I would be surprised if it wasn’t easy to trade for them at a dollar and buy in for that or less, especially from locals.)

Havengul Lich is 2.99 on SCG. It’s a mythic from a short print set, and while Dimir is all the way in Gatecrash, I feel like this guy is too unique and well liked to stay down. I took a walk in the middle of the night and spent some time trying to sort out my thoughts about why I felt this card was a great pick up and the only thing I could come up with was ‘This card is SWEET, Mythic, A popular color combo, and in the short print set.” I wish I could find a way to articulate my thoughts more effectively than SWEET, but that’s all I got.

My holds at the moment and expected flip times.

Thunderous Wrath – Long term, casual boner etc.

Favorable Winds – Long term, see boner, casual, and possible tokens shenanigans.

Lingering Souls – Gatecrash, card is too good to stay down.

Clifftop Retreat, Hinterland Harbor, Isolated Chapel – Gatecrash.

Intangible Virtue – RTR Standard, Selesnya guild has a token mechanic.

Stromkirk Noble – RTR Standard, very undervalued at 2 or 2.5, if everyone is at 16 from shocklands etc, RDW should be good. If there’s a real vampire deck this should also spike.

Sulfur falls, Woodland Cemetery – RTR standard, Izzet and Golgari guilds are in RTR.

Champion of the Parish – RTR Standard, it’s still 6 on SCG I wouldn’t go very deep but its too good to not see play.

Sigarda – RTR Standard, G/W in RTR, the two good clones are rotating.

Gravecrawler – RTR Standard, half the deck is dogshit, but everyone’s deck will be worse come RTR, so if zombie gets any help it should be insane.

Geralf’s Messenger – RTR Standard, see above.

Entreat the Angels – Feels very undervalued at 13 on SCG, when the format gets worse boom booms like this should see more play, probably RTR standard.

Falkenrath Aristocrat – No idea, SCG is sold out, seems good in the long term, but if the price goes to 12 or higher on SCG in the next month seems like a reasonable dump.

Kokusho, champions foil – If it’s unbanned in EDH this will spike hard, you get to sell into the hype etc.

I said this quietly to friends a couple of weeks ago, but AVR mythics are going to be scary. May actually hit +EV to draft the set post-rota

There are SO many good cards in there and it was a very poorly drafted set. Creating a perfect Jace storm. ISD heavily downpowered after SOM

M13 power level also seems a bit down, but AVR sticks out. We’ll see what comes in RTR, but AVR staples could dominate STD for a year

Ted Knutson is much smarter than I am.

Did you know Tamiyo is 18 on CFB?

Entreat the Angels is 15.

Sigarda is 6.

Temporal Mastery is 10 see my last week of posts.

Wild Defiance is 1.5 (It’s 3 on SCG, seems like a decent opportunity.)

Desolate Lighthouse is .5.

On an entirely different note, did you know Blood Artist is a 2.00 card?

Just some things to think about.

For reference:

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/deckshow.php?&start_date=2012-08-12&end_date=2012-08-12&start=1&finish=16&event_ID=19&start_num=25&start_num=1&limit=25

Basic thoughts:

Temporal Mastery strikes again, get these on the cheap from people who haven’t heard about wolf run blue and flip them in a week or two when it hits 20. Or just play the deck, as I already mentioned it looks like a blast.

Wild defiance has already started creeping up in price, a win on sunday could put them at 5 retail. Did you know they were 3 on SCG already?

I like Geralf’s Messenger and Gravecrawler as specs for RTR but the window maybe closing on getting them at a price where there’s any money left, given the recent success of B/R zombies as well as Brad Nelson’s new girlfriend zombie pod getting into the top 8 today.

There was a singular Thundermaw Hellkite in the r/g aggro deck, if somehow you haven’t got out now, this is the time. You’ll have plenty of opportunity to buy back in later.

****Edit: Disregard this —>Trading post got 10th, I have no idea what to do with this information as everyone already loves and overvalues that card. Probably a good time to dump.

****Edit: Post is sold out at 3 at scg, card will probably hit 5 pick them up for a quick flip if deck is real, if not then no real risk as the card was 3 with almost no results and shouldn’t go below that.

Temporal mastery is starting to come back down to earth on mtgo. Bonfire is at 45.00 on CFB, unsure whether that says anything about RUG Ramp. This weekend is very important for consumer confidence in the deck, and will do a lot to solidify the recent increased demand for mastery and bonfire. Pay attention to the SCG and TCG events coming up in a few days and act accordingly. I don’t think paper masteries have realized a price change yet, so it should be pretty easy to pick some up at fnm with little to no risk at the same price they were a few weeks ago.

See title, also, that ability is pretty dirty with geralf’s messenger and or thragtusk.

(*CFB dropped bonfire back to 45 on 8/9 apparently >.>. I don’t think my opinions have changed, will reflect later.)

Bonfire got bumped to 50$ at my lgs today (they mirror channelfireball’s pricing so this is a bigger deal than it might be otherwise), and I promptly traded one for a Jace the Mind Sculptor when I sat down with my binder. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Read that again. What has the world come to? I had started to do some research on price trajectory comparing Bonfire to Baneslayer Angel during its first year in standard, arguing against Bonfire being on a bubble at 40$, but that point seems to be moot now due to the price increase.

Is Bonfire’s price tag sustainable? 

SCG being sold out of a standard card is very telling, especially a standard card which should theoretically be easy to keep in stock, and especially when they’re charging 40.00 a pop. Where did this increased demand come from? It seems like all the pod players would have gotten theirs by the time the card hit 35 when thragtusk came out. It took me a little while to figure it out, but when I saw that Temporal Mastery hit 20 on mtgo today it all kind of clicked.

Wolf Run Blue
A Standard Magic deck, by Reid Duke
1st place at a StarCityGames.com Standard Open tournament in Washington DC, District of Columbia, United States on 2012-08-05

Artifact Creatures
3 Solemn Simulacrum

Creatures
2 Frost Titan
2 Phantasmal Image
4 Primeval Titan
1 Snapcaster Mage
2 Thragtusk

Sorceries
1 Blasphemous Act
3 Bonfire of the Damned
4 Farseek
4 Ponder
4 Rampant Growth
4 Temporal Mastery

Basic Lands
5 Forest
4 Island
1 Mountain

Lands
2 Cavern of Souls
4 Copperline Gorge
4 Glimmerpost
4 Hinterland Harbor
1 Inkmoth Nexus
1 Kessig Wolf Run

Sideboard:
2 Thragtusk
2 Beast Within
3 Crushing Vines
2 Negate
1 Karn Liberated
1 Blasphemous Act
2 Whipflare
2 Cavern of Souls

Why would you not play this deck? It has freaking time walk in it. You also get to go turn 4 titan turn 5 hard cast mastery  and give your opponent the ‘Why are you so dead?’ face.

The ramp this deck has lets you cast bonfire for 2/3 early in the game while not being blow out by the opponent’s miracled plague winds, a vulnerability naya players have become very familiar with. This list is the best way I’ve found to explain the increased demand that bought SCG out at 40 and prompted CFB to raise their price so high.

There has only been one standard card to sustain a retail price of more 50$ in the mythic era, and Bonfire is no Jace TMS, but as I alluded to earlier it might be Baneslayer Angel. Obviously there is no angel tax in play with a red sorcery, but it’s also easier to incorporate in a variety of decks whether it belongs there or not due to the single red in its casting cost. I do not think Bonfire will go above 50. Now is the time to sell, but then again I thought that at 40 and 35. I don’t think the card will go below 40 while its in standard so I suppose the answer to my question is ‘probably not’ in the long term (approx 1 year/ it’s life in standard).  However  it’s too powerful to go down very far if it does, and people are going to remember Bonfire hitting and being 50 even if its usage starts to wain somewhat. Price memory is a powerful thing and if you choose to keep copies to play with it should be easy enough to move them down the line.

Recommended Specs:

I need a place to ramble about MTG Finance, hopefully I’ll be able to spout off things that make you money.