Hammie’s The State of the Program for October 21st
This series is an ongoing tribute to Erik “Hamtastic” Friborg.
News and Discussion Items:
Innistrad Release Events: The online Release Events continue through November 2, 2011. Details
here. The usual events will be held – drafts, sealed queues and 64 player draft events. Prizes include two new avatars and Ludevic’s Test Subject cards for players making it to the Innistrad Championship.
New Teaching Format Arrives: The new Mentor format, with the special Jace avatar, lets you teach new players the game. It lets you see the opponent's hand, and kind of allows backups. It also provides untaps at will, and lets you tutor for free. (The Jace avatar can also let you do stupid broken things, if you want to abuse it, and just might be useful for playtesting. Check it out.) Details are
here
MTGO Product Line Update: Details
here. Innistrad is out, and Zendikar block is no longer in the store. From the Vault: Legends goes off sale November 7
th. Wizards will not sell Event decks online. That makes sense, since the price of the singles online are low enough that buying from BOTs – pretty much any BOT – is a lot cheaper.
Redemption Coming to a Close in early November for Shards Block and M10: The redemption window closes November 7th for Magic 2010, and for Shards of Alara, Conflux and Alara Reborn. If you want to convert those digital sets to cardboard, do it before that date.
Mercadian Masques Countdown: Masques block arrives, in its entirety, on December 5
th. Details on the Masques roll-out
here. Countdown to Masques Block: 38days.
Here’s your classic Masques card for the day:
Port was so good it was banned in Masques block constructed. It worked as
Wastelands 5-9 in countless land destruction decks. It was in everything in Standard for two years, and ubiquitous in Extended when Masques was Extended legal. It was played in Legacy from its inception to just a year ago.
Editorial Section: Don’t Buy Innistrad Now, if You Can Avoid It!
Of course, if you are planning on playing constructed now, buy what you need. The winning decks are running Kessig Wolf Run and Snapcaster Mage, and you need those cards to make the decks work. So, if you are going to play the cards now, buy!
However, if you are just looking to get the cards for some future games, or to play casually, wait a week or so. Prices, of anything, are a function of supply and demand. During the Prerelease events, the supply is low – just the cards people have opened. The demand is high – everyone who wants to start grinding constructed needs the chase cards. The price, as a result, is very high. A week or so into the release events, a lot of people have opened a lot of packs, and the supply increases. The first wave of purchases have been made, and the initial demand falls. As a result, prices fall. They fall fast.
For example, I played in a prerelease, and opened
Liliana of the Veil and
Stromkirk Noble. Those are both chase cards, and I sold them both. At the point that I sold them, Lililana was well over 50 TIX, and Stromkirk Noble was around 10. By Monday, the prices had dropped enough that I could have rebought the cards, even having sold at wholesale prices. By Wednesday, when I checked prices for the article, they were down even further. Now – Thursday morning, as I finish this up, they have dropped still further.
MTGOTraders.com is out of stock, but the price they are showing at the moment is low enough that I could now buy two of each card for what I got for the cards on Sunday.
Prices haven’t hit the bottom, yet. They should continue to fall, since all the release events and drafts will add a ton of supply. The low point should be reached sometime in the middle of next week, at which point people like me will snap up the cards we need for constructed, and maybe some oddities we want to play around with, which will reduce supply. After that, prices should move towards their long-term levels.
Tournaments:
Thursday Night Magic for the upcoming week (October 27th): Standard constructed. Get your wolfs a-running! The TNMO card for October is an alternative art Contagion Clasp.
Wizards is running a Time Spiral block sealed event this weekend. Open your Goyfs! The average value of the cards in two draft sets of Time Spiral block is $ 9.40, so I’d recommend finishing at least 3-1 or better. (Cards in the Time Spiral booster are worth, on average, $0.85, Planar Chaos $0.89, and Future Sight $2.95. Future Sight is only that high because
Tarmogoyf really skews that average. How much – if ever other rare in Future Sight were worth $0.00, the average value of a Future Sight rare would be $1.20, and the value of an FS booster would be around $1.50.)
Let’s look at the Constructed Tournaments breakdown for the week of October 12th through October 18th. 112 constructed events fired, which is a bit low, but then we had Prerelease events sucking players out of a lot of those events. Let’s look at how they broke down.
|
Format
|
Fired
|
Format
|
Fired
|
|
Standard
|
46
|
Standard Singleton
|
0
|
|
Pauper
|
32
|
Kaleidoscope
|
0
|
|
Momir Basic
|
31
|
100–card Singleton
|
0
|
|
Modern
|
1
|
Classic
|
2
|
|
Legacy
|
0
|
Extended
|
0
|
|
Innistrad Block Const.
|
n/a
|
-
|
-
|
It will be interesting to see if Legacy and Modern can recover once we get past the Innistrad prerelease and things calm down. FYI: I got the number fired from the list of results,
here.
Cutting Edge Tech:
Standard: States – technically The2011s – happened, and we had Grand Prix Brisbane, which was also Standard format. The DEs and PEs are already adjusting to the metagame shifts. The big deck last weekend was Wolf Run Ramp, which I featured in Cutting Edge Tech last week. The Wolf Run decks are evolving – here are two new variants:
If you are battling these decks, especially in the mirror, not that there is only a single Mountain, plus the Birds of Paradise, to provide the red mana to activate Kessig Wolf Run. Just saying.
Here's another green deck - this time GW tokens
One final standard build, for this week at least.
The format is just beginning to shake out, and we will see a lot more decks in the near future. I have only read half the states Top 8 lists so far.
Modern: One Modern event fired, with the new B&R list in place. The winning deck was a Cry of Contrition deck:
Legacy: With states last weekend, SCG did not run a Legacy open, and no Legacy Dailys fired. Nothing to see here, move along.
Classic fired two DE again this week, and almost fired another Monday night. (We hit 12, but not 16.) So close. The
first event was won by a deck featuring Snapcaster Mage. (I so wanted to build a deck like this, and I had the deck roughed out, but I am not going to buy Snapcasters until the price drops a ton.) The
second event saw xcorpio take it down another one with one of his own brews, this time the
Hermit Druid / (Mimeoplasm) deck.
Classic Snapcaster Mage
Sorry that some of the cards aren't working with the decklist creator, yet. That always happens, since the web folks are busy with the craze buying and selling going on during prerelease and release weeks.
Card Prices:
Notes: All my prices come from
MTGOTraders.com for cards that are available in multiple sets, I am quoting the most recent set’s price, which is almost always the lowest. Thus, the price I’m quoting for Primeval Titan is from M12. If a card is out of stock, take that price with a grain of salt. MTGOTraders may not adjusted prices for a card until they have some to sell.
Now, with Innistrad, although these prices are unsteady, especially since the inventory keeps shifting. The new Standard metagame is forming up, and that is affecting prices all over the place. Primeval Titan and Inkmoth Nexus are soaring, because of the Wolf Run deck, and Consecrated Sphinx is up because of the UB control deck. .
|
Standard & Block Cards
|
Price
|
In Stock?
|
Last Week
|
Change
|
|
|
$ 31.00
|
|
n/a
|
n/a
|
|
|
$ 31.26
|
|
n/a
|
n/a
|
|
|
$ 13.81
|
|
n/a
|
n/a
|
|
|
$ 20.95
|
|
n/a
|
n/a
|
|
(GavonyTownship)
|
$ 5.25
|
|
n/a
|
n/a
|
|
|
$ 6.90
|
|
n/a
|
n/a
|
|
|
$ 6.79
|
|
n/a
|
n/a
|
|
|
$ 8.48
|
|
n/a
|
n/a
|
|
|
$ 5.38
|
|
n/a
|
n/a
|
|
|
$ 5.64
|
|
n/a
|
n/a
|
|
|
$ 6.22
|
|
n/a
|
n/a
|
|
(WoodlandCemetery)
|
$ 4.77
|
|
n/a
|
n/a
|
|
|
$ 11.68
|
Y
|
$ 11.19
|
+ $ 0.59
|
|
|
$ 18.34
|
Y
|
$ 21.56
|
- $ 3.22
|
|
(Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas)
|
$ 15.97
|
Y
|
$ 16.95
|
- $ 0.98
|
|
|
$ 32.15
|
Y
|
n/a
|
n/a
|
|
|
$ 16.37
|
Y
|
$ 8.90
|
+ $ 7.47
|
|
|
$ 12.67
|
Y
|
$ 13.07
|
- $ 0.40
|
|
|
$ 8.11
|
Y
|
$ 9.00
|
- $ 0.89
|
|
|
$ 15.12
|
Y
|
$ 19.25
|
- $ 4.13
|
|
(Sword of Feast and Famine)
|
$ 24.47
|
Y
|
$ 19.71
|
+ $ 4.76
|
|
|
$ 20.06
|
Y
|
$ 12.45
|
+ $ 7.61
|
|
|
$ 9.24
|
Y
|
$ 9.68
|
- $ 0.44
|
|
|
$ 14.36
|
Y
|
$ 10.76
|
+ $ 3.60
|
|
|
$ 15.19
|
Y
|
$ 15.31
|
- $ 0.12
|
|
(Sword of War and Peace)
|
$ 21.43
|
Y
|
$ 22.21
|
- $ 0.78
|
|
|
$ 8.74
|
Y
|
$ 7.96
|
+ $ 0.78
|
|
|
$ 13.67
|
Y
|
$ 8.55
|
+ $ 5.12
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Modern prices are still heading down. The correct B&R list is finally in place, so we may see some resurgence once the Innistrad release events die down.
|
Modern Cards
|
Price
|
In Stock?
|
Last Week
|
Change
|
|
|
$ 15.75
|
Y
|
$ 14.00
|
+ $ 1.75
|
|
|
$ 7.65
|
Y
|
$ 6.75
|
+ $ 0.90
|
|
|
$ 12.68
|
Y
|
$ 14.00
|
- $ 1.32
|
|
|
$ 9.10
|
Y
|
$ 9.00
|
+ $ 0.10
|
|
|
$ 7.00
|
Y
|
$ 7.00
|
---
|
|
|
$ 5.75
|
Y
|
$ 7.50
|
- $ 1.25
|
|
|
$ 8.50
|
Y
|
$ 9.50
|
- $ 1.00
|
|
(Knight of the Reliquary)
|
$ 7.06
|
Y
|
$ 6.50
|
+ $ 0.56
|
|
|
$ 72.00
|
Y
|
$ 75.00
|
- $ 3.00
|
|
(Engineered Explosives)
|
$ 14.00
|
Y
|
$ 15.50
|
- $ 1.50
|
|
|
$ 4.75
|
Y
|
$ 5.00
|
- $ 0.25
|
|
|
$ 11.50
|
Y
|
$ 12.50
|
+ $ 1.00
|
|
|
$ 16.33
|
Y
|
$ 16.66
|
- $ 0.33
|
|
|
$ 11.06
|
Y
|
$ 11.75
|
- $ 0.69
|
|
|
$ 15.50
|
Y
|
$ 15.50
|
---
|
Legacy prices have stabilized. Big Jace is down a bit this week, but the format, overall, is waiting to see what Innistrad brings.
|
Legacy Cards
|
Price
|
In Stock?
|
Last Week
|
Change
|
|
|
$ 112.00
|
Y
|
$ 112.00
|
---
|
|
|
$ 46.00
|
Y
|
$ 46.00
|
---
|
|
|
$ 74.10
|
Y
|
$ 74.10
|
---
|
|
|
$ 28.00
|
Y
|
$ 28.00
|
---
|
|
|
$ 34.78
|
Y
|
$ 37.00
|
- $ 2.22
|
|
|
$ 65.00
|
Y
|
$ 65.00
|
---
|
|
|
$11.75
|
Y
|
$11.75
|
---
|
|
|
$ 18.00
|
Y
|
$ 18.00
|
---
|
|
|
$ 17.50
|
Y
|
$ 17.50
|
---
|
|
|
$ 14.50
|
Y
|
$ 14.50
|
---
|
|
|
$ 41.80
|
Y
|
$ 41.80
|
---
|
|
|
$ 4.50
|
Y
|
$ 4.50
|
---
|
|
|
$ 8.75
|
Y
|
$ 8.75
|
---
|
|
|
$ 4.75
|
Y
|
$ 4.75
|
---
|
|
|
$ 11.95
|
Y
|
$ 11.95
|
---
|
Note: cards which are staples in both Legacy and Classic may appear in either list. If you don’t see a card in one list, check the other.
Classic prices are not moving. The format is on hold, like the rest of the Magic world, while we wait for Masques block.
|
Classic Cards
|
Price
|
In Stock?
|
Last Week
|
Change
|
|
|
$ 94.00
|
Y
|
$ 94.00
|
---
|
|
|
$ 21.00
|
Y
|
$ 21.00
|
---
|
|
|
$ 14.00
|
Y
|
$ 14.00
|
---
|
|
|
$ 12.00
|
Y
|
$ 12.00
|
---
|
|
|
$ 14.50
|
Y
|
$ 14.50
|
---
|
|
|
$ 9.50
|
Y
|
$ 9.50
|
---
|
|
|
$ 28.00
|
Y
|
$ 28.00
|
---
|
|
|
$ 42.00
|
Y
|
$ 42.00
|
---
|
|
|
$ 42.00
|
Y
|
$ 42.00
|
---
|
|
|
$ 10.50
|
Y
|
$ 10.50
|
---
|
|
|
$ 22.00
|
Y
|
$ 22.00
|
---
|
The Top Ten:
Here’s this week’s list of the top ten most expensive non-foil, non-promo cards on MTGO. Had I done this on Sunday, Liliana of the Veil would have been in sixth place. As I write this (on Wednesday), Garruk, Primal Hunter from M12 is in 11th, only a couple bucks behind Big Jace, and Snapcaster Mage is trailing Garruk by a couple pennies. Of course, those prices will change.
|
Most Expensive Cards
|
Price
|
Set
|
Last Week
|
|
|
$ 112.00
|
MED 1
|
# 1
|
|
|
$ 94.00
|
Mirage
|
# 2
|
|
|
$ 74.10
|
Apocalypse
|
# 4
|
|
|
$ 72.00
|
Future Sight
|
# 3
|
|
|
$ 65.00
|
Visions
|
# 5
|
|
|
$ 46.00
|
Tempest
|
# 6
|
|
|
$ 42.00
|
Weatherlight
|
# 7
|
|
|
$ 42.00
|
Odyssey
|
# 8
|
|
|
$ 41.80
|
Apocalypse
|
# 9
|
|
|
$ 34.78
|
The Dark(Claytor: Pete wrote this. I'm keeping it as is for the giggles!)
|
# 10
|
Deck Prices:
Deck prices will return in a week or two, once Innistrad prices stabilize. They really need that time - I have been working on this article for almost 24 hours, on and off, and have seen some prices swing by up to 50% in both directions.
Weekly Highlights:
States was last weekend. I missed it. We had beautiful fall weather, and I had not finished harvesting crops or the repairs around the house and barn I need to finish before the snow flies. I had a highly productive day, but not a Magical one. L
I have managed to squeeze in one Innistrad MTGO draft so far, going 2-1. I like the format. With any luck, I’ll be in TNMO and a few release events this weekend.
PRJ
“one million words” on MTGO.
4 Comments
Does anyone know when ISD block constructed begins? I didn't play SOM block constructed, so don't know the MTGO schedule for these things, but the idea of ISD block is pretty intriguing.
Mm... constructed without Dismember...
Also, I have a random question for you Pete - why do you capitalize 'BOT'? Usually words are only printed in block capitals if they are acronyms, and I wasn't aware that 'bot' stood for anything. Just curious, thanks for the weekly summary as always.
Cause he's yelling "BOT" at you.
It is amazing how much the Innistrad prices have already dropped since you put this article together.
There are actually some strong values to be had as I write this. Especially on the more casual cards.
I just wish I had bought more Primevals and Inkwells before they shot up :-S
Ah well, what can you do :-D
As an aside, just a warning - some dopey bastage made a FAKE bot called "MTGOTradersBuyBot3" which is NOT run by Heath. Everyone should complain to WOTC to ban / remove that dude since it's against the code of contact to pretend to be someone else.