MTGNexus

For some reason, Arcum's Astrolabe seems to be slowly going up in price.

The Fluff wrote: ↑

4 years ago

For some reason, Arcum's Astrolabe seems to be slowly going up in price.

This is one of those high utility cards that sees play across formats. It's big in Pauper and a cornerstone of Urza ThopterSword; I've also seen a few Legacy decks using it. In some regards, it's almost a better Chromatic Sphere/Chromatic Star for decks that can support it because you get the cantrip immediately, plus ongoing utility from having an artifact in play (e.g. metalcraft, Urza tap, snow permanent count, etc.). I expect foils of this card to be pricier than normal.

All of those points, and the way Astrolabe allows you to proof a 4 color manabase from Wasteland (in Legacy) is not something that's been seen to this degree since Deathrite Shaman was legal. While it's definitely a player in Modern, I'd say Legacy/Pauper are definitely driving those prices.

oh, I see it's even played in Pauper?? Fair enough reason that the price would start to climb. Thankfully, it is a common so the price climb is not so big.

Am I crazy or has the format gotten significantly cheaper? Look at the prices for decks on MTGGoldfish, even Jund is under $2000.

idSurge wrote: ↑

4 years ago

Am I crazy or has the format gotten significantly cheaper? Look at the prices for decks on MTGGoldfish, even Jund is under $2000.

Going off of Goldfish's metagame page, the top 8 listed decks average $1,032 a piece. With the only deck under $800 being burn at $520. Seems just as expensive as ever, especially if you need anything that is woefully under-printed or any of the chase cards from Horizons.

I still think thats cheaper. :D

Top tier may be cheaper, but t2/3 decks feel like they're closing the gap very quickly. Can't tell you how many times I see a sweet brew I wanna jam and realize I'm missing a playset of something that's 20-30% of the decks cost.

bitterblossom and a few faerie cards in particular carry some silly price tags. I get the pedigree but that deck has abysmal modern results to support those prices.

I'm a big advocate of getting competitive decks down in general so we can attract players to game, the collateral damage to the kitchen table staples was an unforeseen cirsumstance for me.

cfusionpm wrote: ↑

4 years ago

idSurge wrote: ↑

4 years ago

Am I crazy or has the format gotten significantly cheaper? Look at the prices for decks on MTGGoldfish, even Jund is under $2000.

Going off of Goldfish's metagame page, the top 8 listed decks average $1,032 a piece. With the only deck under $800 being burn at $520. Seems just as expensive as ever, especially if you need anything that is woefully under-printed or any of the chase cards from Horizons.

idSurge wrote: ↑

4 years ago

I still think thats cheaper. :D

Mapccu wrote: ↑

4 years ago

Top tier may be cheaper, but t2/3 decks feel like they're closing the gap very quickly. Can't tell you how many times I see a sweet brew I wanna jam and realize I'm missing a playset of something that's 20-30% of the decks cost.

bitterblossom and a few faerie cards in particular carry some silly price tags. I get the pedigree but that deck has abysmal modern results to support those prices.

I'm a big advocate of getting competitive decks down in general so we can attract players to game, the collateral damage to the kitchen table staples was an unforeseen cirsumstance for me.

Interesting topic! I checked back to one of my old 2015 articles to look at top-tier Modern deck prices:
http://modernnexus.com/legacy-and-moder ... omparison/

There's a table of Modern decks down the article, and here are some of the summary statistics:

-Average Modern deck price: $1215.53
-Average Modern card price: $13.72
-Modern deck price low: Burn ($594.24)
-Modern deck price high: Jund ($1922.47)


-Average Modern deck price (no sideboard): $1058.38
-% change from with-sideboard price: -10%
-Average Modern card price (no sideboard): $16.06
-% change from with-sideboard price: +17%

Not sure what the 2019 numbers are, but it's a cool idea for an article or at least a post somewhere.

Modern horizons certainly threw a curveball at people like me who foil out modern decks =\

I'm still looking to pick up (in foil) prismatic vista x 2, sunbaked canyonx4, fiery isletx1, force of vigorx2, force of negationx2, plague engineer x2, arcum's astrolabex4, goblin engineerx4, and sword of sinew and steelx1.

Thankfully, most of them appear to have stabilized for now, but I don't know how long that'll stay true. I have a strong suspicion that when hogaak gets banned on the 26th, we're going to have some serious spikes on these foils in the following month as people get brewing again.

For people like me, who have a big collection and play the finance game seriously enough to have changed my working hours, maintaining top tier modern decks is very bad form and will cost, but selling them is a source of profit. Maintaining tier two or tier three plus any pet decks makes more financial sense. Then, when they spike with a rogue result, article or brew that makes to higher tier, such as Lantern did for a while (from deck creation) sell the hot deck or its engine.
I think it is just financially better to have Legacy decks and RL cards like duals rather than many top decks, providing you can play the format.
How beneficial is a tier one Midern deck? In many LGS metas having a top deck is not actually that beneficial if everyone's deck choices don't replicate the same metas that make the top deck so good. I know at my LGS there will be Tron regatdless of its position in the meta, and that a certain player will always be on soul sisters, a certain on always on a spells matter combo like Storm or Phoenix etc.
Having the best positioned deck is only decent for me then if it is Eldrazi or Hoogy good. If it is just "the best deck" then it is not worth the cash, because I will still end up losing matches to the variety of tier 2 and below strategies that people just like having.

Bans, unbans and cards being more valuable than they should be- Bitterblossom, for example, are actual opportunities providing people are willing to sell aggressively as prices shoot up. I have sold many complete decks in my time- Infect, Green Tron, Merfolk, U tron, Storm, Living End, Boggles, Inst reanimator, Scapeshift etc. I have ripped apart countless others and sold the guts when they went up in price. I don't think there is a Modern deck I would not sell if it hit the heights, even if I like the deck, and having high value decks in the format is great for me, as most decks I put together cheaply in the first place, sometimes years before they become viable. Ok, every now and then I will find a shell or deck that loses value or gains nothing, but most ideas have their day in the sun. For all those who look at a deck like Phoenix and think 'that is expensive, ouch- yeah it is expensive. Don't buy it! Get into a couple of cheaper decks, with different matchups agaibst the top decks, rotate and build the collection, draft often and soon- a couple of years- those decks will be within easy reach. Those who buy into top tier Modern decks at their peak are the guys who fund other people's hobby.

when can we see the price of stoneforge mystic stabilizing? I'm not sure when to get my set

motleyslayer wrote: ↑

4 years ago

when can we see the price of stoneforge mystic stabilizing? I'm not sure when to get my set

Kicking myself for not pulling the trigger in a set last week before the announcement. I wonder if it will drop back down to $40. Also, I wonder if there is any chance of a reprint in the near future which would discourage people from buying into the current hype.

Yawgmoth wrote: ↑

4 years ago

motleyslayer wrote: ↑

4 years ago

when can we see the price of stoneforge mystic stabilizing? I'm not sure when to get my set

Kicking myself for not pulling the trigger in a set last week before the announcement. I wonder if it will drop back down to $40. Also, I wonder if there is any chance of a reprint in the near future which would discourage people from buying into the current hype.

I could have probably purchased a set for the price of 1 now that it's unbanned but I can't see them unbanning it without a reprint incoming as it's only had the one printing so far

I might just move my 5 mana Teferi's soon since I'm not using them

Yawgmoth wrote: ↑

4 years ago

motleyslayer wrote: ↑

4 years ago

when can we see the price of stoneforge mystic stabilizing? I'm not sure when to get my set

Kicking myself for not pulling the trigger in a set last week before the announcement. I wonder if it will drop back down to $40. Also, I wonder if there is any chance of a reprint in the near future which would discourage people from buying into the current hype.

Kicking myself way harder than you for not getting the 100s of copies that I said I would get in the past few years.

Regarding a reprint, I'm pretty certain there will be one soon. I just don't know what set they'll put it in, as Modern Horizons just came out and Modern Horizons 2 seems like a good fit for the Mystic.

motleyslayer wrote: ↑

4 years ago

when can we see the price of stoneforge mystic stabilizing? I'm not sure when to get my set

maybe wait a month or two?

people are still very hyped to buy. SFM price is at an all time high now.

FoodChainGoblins wrote: ↑

4 years ago

Yawgmoth wrote: ↑

4 years ago

motleyslayer wrote: ↑

4 years ago

when can we see the price of stoneforge mystic stabilizing? I'm not sure when to get my set

Kicking myself for not pulling the trigger in a set last week before the announcement. I wonder if it will drop back down to $40. Also, I wonder if there is any chance of a reprint in the near future which would discourage people from buying into the current hype.

Kicking myself way harder than you for not getting the 100s of copies that I said I would get in the past few years.

Regarding a reprint, I'm pretty certain there will be one soon. I just don't know what set they'll put it in, as Modern Horizons just came out and Modern Horizons 2 seems like a good fit for the Mystic.

They can't print her in Modern Horizons 2 because she's already legal in Modern, right?

Soadi wrote: ↑

4 years ago

They can't print her in Modern Horizons 2 because she's already legal in Modern, right?

It would be a massive miss for the entire product if they never did any reprints in the MH series. I wouldn't expect a huge percentage of the set to be reprints, but I would be shocked if they didn't take advantage of the easy sales generated from doing the Enemy Fetches, JTSM, SFM, Lili of the Veil, etc slowly over the course of the set's future releases.

I think MaRo probably left the door open to reprints in the set when they announced that the set would be "reprinting" the basic lands as if it was some uncertainty, but calling it as such leaves the literal aspect of reprints in the set open to be used later. MH1 had already Modern legal "reprints" in it by literal reading of MaRo's comments. Further use of the opportunity seems inevitable, especially if you consider how the set series functions already; eventually all the cards from the past will either be on the "absolutely not" list or printed via MH into Modern, naturally all that's left is reprints (and things they print for Commander, but that's a whole different bag of cats, imo). They'll likely want to slow the inevitable spiral towards that conclusion, so reprints will likely be used to supplement the absolutely new things.

I guess that's just my take though. I'd be interested if anyone has a differing opinion on the matter.

The Fluff wrote: ↑

4 years ago

motleyslayer wrote: ↑

4 years ago

when can we see the price of stoneforge mystic stabilizing? I'm not sure when to get my set

maybe wait a month or two?

people are still very hyped to buy. SFM price is at an all time high now.

that's probably the best idea, gives time to see if we can get a reprint and I can borrow them for now

when would people get rid of 5 mana Teferi?

not surprisingly... leonin arbiter and collector ouphe also spiked a little because of the sfm unbanning. The ouphe was a 2 dollar card before the unban, now it's almost double the price. Should have bought mine earlier, now I have to bite the higher price tag.

need the ouphe as a traverse target for my bg delirium deck.

[mention]motleyslayer[/mention]

yep, just borrow for now. Then get some copies when the hype has passed.

Noticed that Torpor Orb has risen in price as well. It was a 2-3 dollar card a few weeks ago, now it's at 4-5 dollars each.

The Fluff wrote: ↑

4 years ago

motleyslayer wrote: ↑

4 years ago

when can we see the price of stoneforge mystic stabilizing? I'm not sure when to get my set

maybe wait a month or two?

people are still very hyped to buy. SFM price is at an all time high now.

Considering there's a return to Zendikar in about a year, and Wizards usually reprints an unbanned Modern card about a year after the unbanning (JTMS was the exception) I think we know when it will next appear.

Having not been able to play in paper for a while and moving more into MTGO, there's a really strange discrepency between costs of paper and online. What's weird is that things are either weirdly cheap or weirdly expensive compared to their paper counterparts. It's super frustrating. Like I was going to pick up Baubles for Mardu Shadow (currently going between Grixis and Exper w/o baubles), and despite being $8 in paper, they're $30 EACH online. This is stupid.

cfusionpm wrote: ↑

4 years ago

Having not been able to play in paper for a while and moving more into MTGO, there's a really strange discrepency between costs of paper and online. What's weird is that things are either weirdly cheap or weirdly expensive compared to their paper counterparts. It's super frustrating. Like I was going to pick up Baubles for Mardu Shadow (currently going between Grixis and Exper w/o baubles), and despite being $8 in paper, they're $30 EACH online. This is stupid.

Everybody on MTGO is buying Whirza or has recently bought it? This seems like that is the card that people who have bought the deck or speculated online have decided to make rise. (I mean, I certainly can be wrong. I don't play online. But that is my best guess.)

FoodChainGoblins wrote: ↑

4 years ago

cfusionpm wrote: ↑

4 years ago

Having not been able to play in paper for a while and moving more into MTGO, there's a really strange discrepency between costs of paper and online. What's weird is that things are either weirdly cheap or weirdly expensive compared to their paper counterparts. It's super frustrating. Like I was going to pick up Baubles for Mardu Shadow (currently going between Grixis and Exper w/o baubles), and despite being $8 in paper, they're $30 EACH online. This is stupid.

Everybody on MTGO is buying Whirza or has recently bought it? This seems like that is the card that people who have bought the deck or speculated online have decided to make rise. (I mean, I certainly can be wrong. I don't play online. But that is my best guess.)

While that was one example, I noticed discrepencies with a ton of things. Like, looking at Plague Engineers, I was forgetting why I didn't own any digital versions, but I have 3 in paper. It was because I opened one, and got the other two for like $2 each. Online? $25 right now (with paper ones up, but still only about $7). On the flip side, while paper Teferi Hero of Dominaria spent most of his life at $50, his online counterpart has been $4 or less since June, with only a brief peak above $10. This economy is wildly different than paper and exceedingly frustrating.