‘Post-scarcity’ refers to the idea of an economy where the availability of goods and services is infinite. If you live in the Star Trek world, for example,
why would you pay two bucks for a cup of Earl Grey Tea when you could get one for free from the family replicator? Thousands of pages have been written on
what might happen to us humans if we ever reach post-scarcity, with theories ranging from Trek-like utopias to horrific future societies where everyone
becomes slothful or even downright evil.
The Magic economy is nowhere near a state of post-scarcity, but the biggest financial trend of 2014 was the continued flattening of prices due to increased
card availability. This is not a new trend-remember the pre-internet days when you had to rely exclusively on trading or the case at your LGS?-but 2014
represented a seismic shift in the way cards are bought and sold. The rise of online trading and open sales marketplaces has been a game-changer. The big
stores have gotten smarter and more efficient too. I check Magic prices on Star City Games nearly every day for my job, and I feel like the number of times
I had to stare at an ‘out of stock’ notification were cut in half this year. If you wanted a card in 2014, getting it quickly and cheaply was easy.
If 2013 was the year of the buyout brigade, 2014 was the year of the failed spec. Because of increased availability, speculation was an order of magnitude
more difficult this year. Tournament based price spikes happened in a matter of hours instead of days, and very few cards went from $5 to $20 and stayed
there. In 2014, most hot cards doubled in price quickly, which caused the market to flood with copies being offered by players and speculators looking to
cash out. Demand would be satiated overnight, and the card drop back to $5 by the end of the week. Most of the cards that broke this rule were from
under-opened sets and ended up in tier one decks: Goblin Rabblemaster, Courser of Kruphix, Stoke the Flames, etc.
With a few exceptions, Magic singles prices were down across the board in 2014. March gave us a spike in Eternal prices, with the dual lands and Zendikar
fetches leading the way. September gave us a spike in Standard prices as Khans shook up formats in a big and exciting way. While a few of these cards
maintained their post-spike prices, the vast majority of them dropped again as soon as demand was filled. As always, 2014 was great time to sell into hype.
The exception was power. Black Lotus and the moxen were up big in 2014, and I don’t see them ever coming down in price.
I’m going to attempt to follow these trends forward into 2015 and predict what might happen to the Magic economy from January onward, but that’s going to
be in next week’s look at the future. This week’s article is all about 2014, beginning with a review of the bold predictions I made at the end of 2013. How good
was I at predicting the future twelve months ago? Let’s find out.
#1) True-Name Nemesis will be at least $60 retail by this time next year.
The biggest baddie In Commander 2013 is currently sold out at the retail price of $19.09-a laughably far cry from my $60 prediction. The major reason for
this bust of a call? WotC chose to address the True-Name Nemesis availability issue by offering retail stores extra cases of Commander 2013 that were
guaranteed to have two copies of Mind Seize. When you combine this with the evolution of the Legacy metagame and the printing of True-Name hater Council’s
Judgment, you end up with a call that looks terrible in retrospect. I still think that True-Name Nemesis will be worth $40+ long term, but that kind of
gain might be a year or more away.
#2) The Onslaught fetchlands will not be re-printed in 2014.
This list sure starts off poorly, doesn’t it? In my defense, I flip-flopped in this prediction in a major way over the summer and was one of the louder
voices calling for people to sell their Onslaught fetches before the reprint took place in September. I moved all of mine in July, well before the
announcement. What changed my mind? Part of it was speaking to pros about Modern and getting assurances that the addition of five more fetchlands wouldn’t
change things all that much. The other part was seeing the painlands reprinted in M15, setting up the perfect opportunity for the fall set to have five
high profile allied lands. This, incidentally, is also why I don’t think the five enemy fetches will be released in 2015.
#3) Modern Masters II will be announced for a Spring 2015 release. This will coincide with another Sealed Grand Prix in Las Vegas.
I really needed a win here, especially when I doubled down and wrote an entire article on Modern Masters II before the set was spoiled. This
prediction never seemed all that bold to me, but it was fun to nail it almost a year to the date before the WotC announcement.
#4) The Grand Prix Vegas attendance record will not be broken in 2014.
I was right here too. For now, the GP Vegas record of 4,492 attendees still stands. GP Richmond in March (Modern) came close with 4,303. GP New Jersey in
November (Legacy) also got to a whopping 4,003. With that many people showing up to support the Eternal formats, I wouldn’t be shocked to see a couple of
GPs break the Vegas record in 2015. Heck, the second GP Vegas should shatter that record easily. See you there!
#5) The M10 rare buddylands will be reprinted in M15.
Let me cop to something real quick-this prediction was a bit of a self-jinx. I had predicted the end of the buddylands every single year since 2010 and
every year they kept coming back like a nagging cough. This year, I finally predicted they’d be reprinted and bam-no more buddylands. You’re welcome,
America.
#6) Mutavault will not be reprinted in 2015.
This one was a gimme. Mutavault was the most iconic and format-warping card in M14. There was no way they were going to bring it back for a second year. A
more interesting prediction will involve what the final core set ever is going to look like. I expect something quite epic.
#7) The Kansas City Chiefs will beat the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl XLVIII.
Nice! I got one of the teams right, even though I wrote the article before the football playoffs started-that’s not half bad! Well, er, actually it is
exactly half bad, because the Chiefs were nowhere near the Super Bowl last year. Seriously? Alex Smith? I bet that Alex Smith would win the Super Bowl? I
guess he got close-ish in 2011, but still-not making this mistake again.
#8) If the New England Patriots and Denver Broncos do meet in the conference championship, Brady will outgun Peyton Manning and New England will win
the game.
Glurp. The Broncos and Patriots did indeed meet in the conference championship. The results? Brady was rushed and knocked down the entire game, and the
final score made it look more competitive than it was. Manning won easily, punching his ticket to the drubbing of a lifetime at the hands of the hungry
Seahawks.
#9) The Saint Louis Cardinals will win the World Series this year, avenging their loss to Boston last year.
It was an even year, so the San Francisco Giants were obviously going to win. How did I miss this?
#10) They will beat the Tampa Bay Rays, who will win the AL East.
No one could have seen the Royals coming, but the Rays weren’t even in the conversation this year. They aren’t likely to be contenders in the near future
either-not having just lost their manager and half their outfield, at least.
#11) Bryce Harper and Mike Trout will win their leagues’ respective MVP awards.
Harper was hurt most of the season, but Trout did win the AL MVP despite having the worst of his three seasons as a pro. The kid is very good. I also got
to see him hit a home run in person this year, which was pretty sweet.
#12) Mono-Black Devotion will be a tier one Modern deck. Phyrexian Obliterator will hit $40.
Wow, this was a bold prediction. Mono-Black Devotion ended up being the scourge of Standard, but it hasn’t done much Modern domination to date.
Obliterator is still under $30.
#13) Stoneforge Mystic (now $13) will hit $25.
Ding! Stoneforge Mystic currently retails for $22, but it peaked at $30 this year and spent enough time in the $25 range that I’m calling this predication
a win. Mystic has continued her streak as a key card in Legacy and Commander, so I wouldn’t be shocked if she continues to rise in price.
#14) Raging Ravine (now $4) will hit $12.
Raging Ravine is still $4, though it did start trending up in January and February of this year and got as high as $6-$7 for a few weeks before falling
again. It does see some play in Modern, though G/R decks aren’t exactly dominating that format these days.
#15) Standard prices will continue to lag into the New Year. Once the pre-order allure wears off, both of the next two sets in the block will be lower
value sets like all of Return to Ravnica and Theros have proven to be.
Yeppers, neither Born of the Gods or Journey Into Nyx were popular, impactful, or good. Standard prices didn’t really move all that much this year except
in late August and early September when Khans of Tarkir hype drove everything into the stratosphere.
#16) The MTGO beta client will not go wide. We will still be playing the same client we are now in December 2014.
I thought that this prediction might end up being incorrect, but I didn’t expect it to end up being wishful thinking. The version 4 rollout was a disaster,
and most MTGO players wish that we were still playing on the awful V3 client instead of the broken Flintstones car that is V4. I knew that there was no way
that an appropriate client could be built in time for a 2014 release, but I assumed that WotC would be smart enough not to release a lousy, buggy version
and force us to endure it until they could patch it into something remotely workable. I was wrong.
#17) Large MTGO events linked to paper tournaments will not be back in 2014.
Again, I was wrong. Again, I feel like WotC should have held off. Online tournaments are still a disaster.
#18) The From the Vault set this year will focus on Instants and will contain Mana Drain.
I wish I had been right about this, but instead we got an uninspiring paean to board wipes. Yawn.
#19) Imperial Seal will be released as a judge foil.
There weren’t any P3K cards released as judge foils this year, though we did get Rolling Earthquake in From the Vault: Annihilation. I still expect both
Mana Drain and Imperial Seal to be re-released at some point soon-possibly even in 2015.
#20) The fall set will not be a return to either Onslaught or Lorwyn, but it will be the third heavily tribal block in Magic’s history.
If you count the fact that every pro besides Ari Lax seems to force B/W Warriors every time in Khans Limited, you can call this one a win. Otherwise,
doesn’t it seem like we’re overdue for a tribal block? We haven’t had once since Mark Rosewater’s NWO.
#21) Wizards will release another set of Commander decks in Autumn 2014. I will buy them.
Yes and yes. I’ve already modified my copy of Nahiri into a Voltron equipment deck with Eight-and-a-Half Tails as the commander. These decks were a solid
win for casual players, and they had a few spicy Constructed cards too.
#22) Films that will be very good in 2014: Interstellar, X-Men Days of Future Past, and Godzilla (yes, really).
Remember: I had to write these predictions without so much as a teaser trailer. According to Rotten Tomatoes, X-Men is the most beloved of these films with
a 92% fresh rating. Interstellar and Godzilla both trail behind at 73%. Personally, I loved both Interstellar and X-Men, and I didn’t end up seeing
Godzilla, mostly because I heard that there was only about 20 minutes of monster fighting in the entire film. How can that even be possible? Even still,
these scores are well above average.
#23) Films that will disappoint in 2014: RoboCop, 300: Rise of an Empire, and Sin City: A Dame to Kill For.
The tomatometer tells the story here: RoboCop was the winner at 48%, Sin City was at 44%, and the 300 sequel was just 42% certified fresh. Considering the
worst film on my ‘very good’ list finished at 73%, I’m calling this prediction a win. Hey, maybe I should be writing about #moviefinance instead!
#24) I will finally win either my fantasy football or fantasy baseball league.
2014 was a huge fantasy sports year for me. I won two of the three baseball leagues I played in and finished second in the third. As of the writing of this
article, I’m still alive in the championship game of my biggest fantasy football league too.
I’ve tried to explain the appeal of fantasy sports to Magic players who aren’t into it, and the best I can say is that it’s like a booster draft where you
have to prepare for weeks ahead of time, the draft lasts for an entire day, and the games last for, like, six months. If that doesn’t sound awesome to you,
I don’t know what more I can say.
#25) Avacyn, Angel of Hope and Griselbrand will both hit $30.
Avacyn, Angel of Hope actually did hit $30! Bet you didn’t see that one coming. Griselbrand is still lagging behind at $18 retail, though part of that is
likely due to the fact that we all know he’s going to be the Grand Prix Promo in 2015. Expect his price to drop next year.
#26) The god cycle from Theros will be higher than the $5-$15 they sell for right now.
This prediction was a couple of years early at best. The Gods are actually pretty nice casual buys right now, especially in foil, but I don’t think we’ll
see them pay off for a while yet. Theros was heavily opened and really unpopular, y’all.
#27) Master of Waves will hit $25 again.
For whatever reason, my predict-o-vision was always terrible when talking about Theros cards. I feel like I got five or six things catastrophically wrong
for every prediction I nailed with that set. This Master of Waves call was far from an isolated incident, and I hate myself for even attempting it. Bad
Chas, bad!
#28) Jace, the Mind Sculptor will hit $150.
A more interesting prediction would have been to compare the price of Jace, the Mind Sculptor with the Jace coin released by the New Zealand mint. Right
now, the Jace coin retails for $150 and Jace is on sale for $85. Will Jace go up in price faster than the coin, or will an actual precious metal win out?
Will one Jace coin ever be worth exactly one Jace? And why did anyone think that it was a good idea to make a square coin with Jace’s face on it? Were they
drunk?
#29) Sealed Modern Masters boxes will finally start to rise in price. They will end the year above $350.
Modern Masters boxes did rise in price this year, but they fell off again once people realized that a second set was on the way. The SCG retail on these
boxes is $400 though, so my prediction actually did come true. As I said a few weeks ago, I still like these boxes as long-term holds. The draft
environment is an all-time great and some of the key MM cards probably won’t be reprinted in MM 2015.
#30) There will be another set of Comic Con planeswalkers. They will be even harder to get at first and will start selling on eBay in the $400 range,
but they will end up being about three times more common than the 2013 variant.
This is almost exactly what happened. The 2014 variant sells on eBay for $250-$300 while the 2013 planeswalkers are still worth $500-$550. Expect another
set in 2015 with a similar print run to this year’s variant.
#31) Liliana of the Veil will hit $100 unless she is spoiled to be in a duel deck.
Liliana wasn’t spoiled to be in a duel deck, but we did learn that she would be featured as a major tournament promo in 2015. In addition, Jund/attrition
decks fell out of favor in Modern thanks to Treasure Cruise and other Delver-related shenanigans. Between those two factors, Liliana is still available
under $60 and should be even lower this time next year.
#32) A high profile cheater & scumbag will be banned for life by the DCI, possibly for something unrelated to in-game conduct.
While there were no major lifetime bans handed down, 2014 was a banner year for catching cheaters and getting known scumbags off the pro circuit. I can’t
remember another time in Magic when there was so much community pressure to play the game with integrity and behave with exemplary conduct. Well done,
everyone.
#33) None of the high profile DCCGs will eat into Magic’s market share significantly.
If you believe the executives on Hasbro’s quarterly investor calls, then yeah, this prediction came true. If you live in the real world though, you’re
probably aware that 2014 was The Year of Hearthstone. I can’t tell you if Magic has been impacted significantly by Hearthstone or not, but I do know that
the Twitch numbers are much higher for Blizzard’s game than for MTGO. I’m not worried about Magic’s future, but Hearthstone is far from a minor player in
the arena now.
#34) Magic will continue to grow, albeit at a slower rate than the 2010-2013 clip.
This is exactly what’s happening. Magic is still growing, which is a good thing, but there’s no way that those 2010-2013 figures are in any way
sustainable. From what we learned on the Hasbro investors’ call (which happened before Khans, mind you) overall player base growth is down significantly
this year.
#35) Remand and Noble Hierarch will be reprinted.
Remand was reprinted in Duel Decks: Jace vs. Vraska. My Noble Hierarch reprint is probably going to have to wait until MM 2015 though.
#36) 2014 will be the warmest year on record.
This happened. How could I have known this would happen before 2014 even began? It’s almost like climate change is a real thing. Either that or I am an
actual wizard and you should fear my heat-related powers.
#37) 2014 will have a very long winter followed by a hot, dry summer.
The veracity of this prediction depends on where you’re living, I suppose. The winter 2014 introduced us all to the concept of the polar vortex, and here
in California we had the worst drought in recorded state history over the summer. I’m considering it a win, but again, it’s an obvious one. Thanks, climate
change!
#38) Magic will continue to be awesome.
I nailed the most important one on the entire list. Despite the consistent bungling of MTGO and the disappointment of Theros block, 2014 gave us Conspiracy
drafts, Khans of Tarkir Limited, Khans of Tarkir Standard, a ton of great new Commander decks, the biggest-ever Modern and Legacy tournaments, and so much
more. Hearthstone may be here to stay, but Magic ain’t going anywhere either.
Overall, I did okay but not great. As per usual, I nailed many of the bigger trends, but I whiffed on my smaller predictions. Overall, I was more bullish
on Magic prices in 2014 than the market bore out. That’s great for those of you actively buying cards and not so great for people who already have giant
collections. As a champion of the little guy, I say lower prices for everyone-Magic is at its best when we can all afford the decks we most want to play.
My Best of 2014 Awards
Best TV Drama-Fargo
. Nothing could fill the Breaking Bad-sized void in my heart, but Fargo came closer than anything else did. The acting was sublime, the plot was great, and
it was the show that I looked forward to the most on a weekly basis. If you’re a fan of dark dramedy and Cohen-brothers-esque twisting worlds filled with
odd morality, this is the show for you.
Honorable mentions:
· The Americans (A very close second; quite likely the best show you’re not watching)
· True Detective (The best acting on TV hands down, but the plot left something to be desired)
· Game of Thrones (Still the most consistently great thing on TV)
· The Good Wife (Doing its best work in season six.)
Best TV Comedy-Rick & Morty
. Take the Doc & Marty dynamic in Back to the Future, twist it in a dark direction, and throw it into surreal and subversive animated world. Many of
the people I’ve tried to get to watch this show are turned off by the amount of belching in the pilot episode, but you’ve got to stick with it because gets
so much weirder and so much better. Nothing else on TV surprised me quite so much in 2014.
Honorable mentions:
· BoJack Horseman (Stick with it through the first half of the season and you’re rewarded with some of the most poignant and hilarious storytelling I’ve
ever seen in animated television)
· Louie (Mr. CK is still the master of comedy)
· Key & Peele (Unless these guys are)
· Community (A return to form after the gas leak year)
· South Park (Serialized storytelling works for Trey & Matt, who knew?)
· Parks & Recreation (A step down from a sublime season in 2013 but still excellent).
Best Film – The Lego Movie.
I wanted to write about a highbrow film here, and it’s possible that the fact that I haven’t seen either Boyhood or Inherent Vice yet is blinding me from
the truth, but damn it, this is the movie I want to write about. Most of the artistic films I saw this year felt flawed to me one way or another, and I
keep coming back to The Lego Movie as 90 of the most enjoyable minutes I spent this year. Yeah, the plot is the same as every other boring family movie
released this decade, but for once I actually felt like a kid again while I was watching it.
Honorable mentions:
· Birdman (Captivating structure and dynamic acting, but so many final act issues.)
· Interstellar (My jaw hit the floor of the theater a few different times.)
· Guardians of the Galaxy (A ton of fun. Maybe I really like Chris Pratt? Yeah, I think that’s it.)
Best Album – The War on Drugs – Lost in the Dream.
There were a lot of great songs released in 2014, but no albums quite as good as 2013’s Random Access Memories. Lost in the Dream didn’t immediately
captivate me, but the more I listened to it the more it pulled me into its lush and brilliant world. Red Eyes is the best song on the album, but An Ocean
In Between The Waves is my favorite. This is the record I keep putting back on over and over again, so it gets the nod here.
Honorable mentions:
· Dum Dum Girls – Too True (I don’t know how well this album works as a cohesive whole, but every song on it is great)
· Lana Del Rey – Ultraviolence (There’s something perfect about this record on a too-hot day in the summer in LA)
· Sun Kil Moon – Benji (I can’t listen to this more than once every few months because it’s too raw and it demands every ounce of my attention, but holy
crap is it good.)
· Stars – No One is Lost (Apparently part of this record was recorded on the roof of a defunct gay disco in Montreal. It sounds exactly like how you’d
think it would from that description.) [Don’t most Stars records?-Ed.]
Best Song – St. Vincent – Digital Witness.
This was not a hard decision. Digital Witness was my favorite song of the year by a wide margin, and if more people started incorporating horns into their
indie songs the world would be a better place.
Instead of me giving you runners-up for favorite song, here’s a Spotify link to my Best of 2014 playlist. It contains every song I found interesting this
year and it’s meant to be played on shuffle.
For those of you who don’t think that music is any good anymore, well, here’s 280+ songs I liked from this year alone. Enjoy!
Best Article of Mine –
Modern Masters II
Most of Magic finance is reactionary. I write about tournaments that have already happened, sets that have already been released, changes to banned lists
and metagames and sideboards. Even when I write speculative articles like set reviews, I feel like I’m treading water in a busy public pool. Everyone is
writing about the same things all the time, and it’s nearly impossible to break new ground.
My article on Modern Masters II was a risk because I chose to write about something that wasn’t real yet. It was fun and incredibly liberating to do. I
didn’t know how people would react. I was thrilled beyond belief when you all went along for the ride and engaged me in a really interesting discussion
about a thing that we all knew might not actually happen. It was, by far, my favorite article-related experience of the year. Thanks so much for making it
happen.
This Week’s Trends
– There were a few fun foil spikes last week thanks to Greg Hatch’s Artificer’s Intuition Legacy deck. If you aren’t familiar with this crazy brew yet,
check out the deck tech here. Personally, I’m staying away.
Hatch went 2-6 in the Legacy portion of the Invitational, so I don’t expect too many others will be following him down this particular rabbit hole. If you
bought any of these cards on spec, sell ASAP.
– It’s about time to start thinking about what a post-Jeskai Ascendancy and Treasure Cruise Modern Metagame will look like. I expect both cards to be
banned, and there’s a dark horse possibility of Birthing Pod getting the axe too just to shake things up. If you have copies of key cards from these three
decks that you aren’t using right now, I’d sell them before the next B&R announcement.
– According to my price charts, all five fetchlands and Sidisi, Brood Tyrant are up a little since last week. This is the bottom of the winter market for
many Khans of Tarkir staples, so your window to buy low is closing fast. Also trending upward again: Chandra, Pyromaster and Liliana Vess from M15.
– Did you watch the Season Four Invitational? The format still looks a little bit like Goblin Rabblemaster vs. Siege Rhino to me, and I’d expect both cards
to rise in price as springtime approaches. I’m trading aggressively for both.