45 Predictions For 2015

At the end of 2014, the world of competitive Magic couldn’t be more different.

If you want to be a semi-professional Magic player, you only really need to master one Constructed format: Standard. Thanks to the changes in the Open
Series and the PTQ system, the vast majority of major tournaments in 2015 will be Standard. You can play Magic at its highest level all year long without
having to pick up a Modern or Legacy deck. Heck, you’ll barely have to draft. This isn’t true for players who are on the Pro Tour or travelling each
weekend, of course-those elite few will still have to keep up with everything. For the rest of us though, Standard has become far, far, far and away the
most important format.

A lot of ink has been spilled on this point, much of it concluding with the so-called ‘death’ of Modern and/or Legacy. I couldn’t disagree more. The beauty
of competitive Magic right now is that there are more opportunities than ever before to play whatever format you want at a high level.

Is Modern your favorite format? There’s going to be a major event for each at every Open Series in 2015. Want to hit up a GP? Side events are so much
better these days, and you can pretty much play whatever you want for the entire weekend. Add that to the increasing number of random events being run on a
weekly basis and the start of sanctionable Legacy and Modern FNMs beginning in January and you have the basis for a world where you can play the type of
Magic that makes you the happiest nearly all of the time.

This transition is key to understanding how Magic finance will evolve in 2015. The key is specialization, and people will continue tailoring their
collection to the format of their choice. All those players who claim that Modern is dead because they don’t absolutely have to play it anymore? Chances
are, many of those folks are going to stop playing it. Others will double down on Legacy and Modern, knowing that they can travel to Opens and GPs and play
Eternal Magic for the entire weekend. I expect that fewer people will attempt to build an exhaustive collection allowing them to play whatever they want
whenever they want.

In addition to this shrinking of the Eternal player base, we’re going to be hit with a massive number of reprints in 2015. Modern Masters 2015 is going to
have a ton of high level format staples in it, and I doubt WotC will release their last-ever core set without some majorly exciting blasts from the past.
Add those releases to the standard schedule of Duel Decks, From the Vault, Commander, and Judge Foil reprints, and I expect we’ll see more high profile
Modern reprints in 2015 than in any other year.

For quite some time, collectors have looked at post-rotation Eternal playables as if they were blue chip mutual funds. Once a staple rotates and proves
itself in Modern, Legacy, or Commander, it has rarely gone down in price all that much. I don’t expect this trend to continue for much longer. Innistrad is
just three years old and we’re already seeing its flagship card, Liliana of the Veil, being reprinted as a PTQ foil. Scars of Mirrodin was released only
four years ago, but between the Commander decks and Modern Masters, I expect many of the key cards from this block to show up again in 2015.

And then there’s the matter of player base growth. While we don’t have the Q4 numbers from WotC yet, as of mid-August it looked like Magic’s five year
cycle of unprecedented growth had begun to slow significantly. This more than anything was responsible for the crazy Modern prices of the past few years.
In the initial press release for Modern Masters, Aaron Forsythe told us that the purpose of the set was to get more copies of pre-Alara staples into
circulation because those sets were wildly under-printed compared to today’s expansions. Well, Modern Masters 2015 is likely to re-print a bunch of that
pre-Alara stuff that was just printed in the first Modern Masters along with Shards of Alara and Zendikar block cards that were printed with a much larger
player base than, say, Future Sight was. Oh-and MM2015 is going to have a bigger print run than the first MM. I’m not saying that MM 2015 is going to tank
prices, but there’s certainly a non-zero chance of it happening.

If this heavy cycle of reprinting keeps up, we’re going to have to find a new way to think about Modern. Right now, it’s viewed as Legacy lite, a format
where having a deep and valuable collection is essential. In the future, I wouldn’t be surprised if Modern is more like Extended, a format where you need
to collect the most valuable cards from the past few blocks, but everything before that is reprinted regularly enough that nothing is all that hard to get.
Even if a Modern Masters set is only released every two years, there are only so many times you can reprint a card before demand is satiated. And if WotC
is really going to try and sell $10 packs, the contents are going to have to be pretty darned exciting.

There’s also a chance that the days of sets spiking after being out of print for a couple of years is behind us as well. If the Modern player base really
is stagnating, why would Return to Ravnica-block cards surge in value? There should be enough shocklands out there for everyone who wants them, right? And
if so, the number of exciting reprints that WotC will have to draw from in the future is going to be much smaller.

Heading into 2015 then, we can say the following things with some level of certainty:

• Like we discussed last week, it is easier than ever to trade and
  sell cards, resulting in a much more efficient market.
• While Modern and Legacy will continue to have a vibrant core of eager and committed players, it is likely that a smaller percentage of Magic players will
  be focusing on the Eternal formats.
• There are going to be a lot of high profile reprints this year.

Taken together, I believe that Modern prices will drop in 2015. It won’t be every card (I still believe that RTR block will spike, at least a little), and
I doubt it’s going to be a major crash or anything, but I wouldn’t be shocked if the whole Modern index drop ten or even twenty percent across the board in
2015. Supply is going to go up. Demand is going to go down.

What else is going to happen next year? It’s hard to say for sure. This time last year, we didn’t know all that much about what would be in store for 2014.
We knew that the second set in Theros block would be called Born of the Gods, and we suspected that it contained the first of the ten promised demigods. We
knew that M15 would be released over the summer and that there would be a fall set released in September. We suspected that the best cards in
Theros-Thassa, Master of Waves, Nykthos, Polukranos, Sylvan Caryatid, Thoughtseize, Elspeth, Stormbreath Dragon-would continue to be good in Standard. We
knew that the MTGO team would attempt to roll out a new client, and that they were working on an online-only product called Vintage Masters. That’s about
it.

Comparatively, we actually know quite a bit about what the next year in Magic is going to look like. The 2015 product release schedule is going to be
something like this:

• January 23 – Fate Reforged.
• February 27 – Duel Decks: Elspeth vs. Kiora.
• March 27 – Dragons of Tarkir.
• May 22 – Modern Masters 2015.
• July 10 (estimate) – Magic 2016.
• August (estimate) – From the Vault: TBD
• September 25^th (estimate) – “Blood.”
• November 4 (estimate) – Commander 2015 Edition.

We don’t have confirmation on another From the Vault or Commander release yet, but the FTV series has been consistent for years now and the Commander decks
have been selling very well. I’d be shocked if both sets don’t return next year.

Standard demand tends to peak whenever the format is shaken up by a new set, so a lot is going to be determined by how impactful Fate Reforged and Dragons
of Tarkir end up being. After two straight years of disappointing second and third sets, I expect both of these to be significantly better than, say, Born
of the Gods and Journey Into Nyx. If true, expect to see Standard staples spike in late January and late March before hitting their peak in mid-April.

The end of March should be incredibly interesting actually. By moving the spring set release up significantly, WotC is increasing the amount of the time
that the full block is going to be around before people begin to worry about rotation. Add that to the excitement of the impending Modern Masters release
and I believe that we’re going to have a very robust market this spring. That’s why I’ve been urging people to pick up their Theros, Khans of Tarkir, and
M15 staples now.

What about the Modern bear market I predicted earlier? I don’t think that’s going to happen until the summer. The release of Modern Masters is going to
cause a ton of cards to drop in price, and I expect that trend to continue throughout the summer and fall. Similar to how the market worked in 2014, the
bulk of the Modern downswing will come in the second half of the year. If Modern experiences an uptick this spring, sell as much as you can into that hype.

As for Legacy and Vintage, I expect business as usual. Power will continue to rise, as will dual lands and the other elite staples. Fringe playables will
continue to drop. The tech-of-the-week will keep spiking when it’s hot and falling when the metagame moves on. A couple of reserved list cards will triple
in price and we’ll all shake our fists at the sky and blame WotC.

Overall, Magic will sink or swim next year based on the strength of the four Standard sets. If Khans block sticks the landing and the next fall set is
epic, next year will be incredible. If not, it could be the first year in the past ten that the player base shrinks. Wizards of the Coast bet big on
Standard going into 2015, and R&D needs to deliver. I think they will.

45 Predictions for 2015

• In an effort to shake up the format, Treasure Cruise, Jeskai Ascendancy and (surprise!) Birthing Pod will be banned in Modern.
• Regardless, Siege Rhino will continue showing up as a 4-of in winning Modern decks. It will hit $8 retail at some point in 2015…
• …and Sidisi, Brood Tyrant will hit $12.
• In late December 2015, every Khans fetchland will retail between $13 and $20…
• …and we’ll also see the first $400 revised dual land.
• Nothing will be banned in Legacy in 2015…
• …but Mind Twist and Black Vise will be unbanned.
• Steam Vents (currently $12) will break $20 retail…
• …as will Abrupt Decay (currently $10).
• The Boston Red Sox will win the AL East and become the first team in baseball history to go from first to worst to first to worst to first…
• · …but the resurgent Chicago Cubs will win the World Series, fulfilling the Back to the Future II Prophecy. 100 to 1 shot, I tell ya!
• AL MVP: Robinson Cano. NL MVP: Anthony Rizzo.
• M16 will have more reprints than usual. It will be incredibly nostalgia-driven and will shake up Standard in a major way.
• There will be one jaw-dropping reprint that no one would have expected to see again.
• What, you want me to actually pick something? How about…Force of Will?
• Oh, and both Baneslayer Angel the Titan cycle will be back as well.
• After the first print run of Modern Masters 2015 sells out, a second print run will satiate demand almost entirely. You will be able to walk into your
  LGS and buy a box at retail without too much difficulty.
• The set will contain all three Eldrazi, Mox Opal, Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, Karn Liberated, and Tarmogoyf at mythic…
• …but not Dark Confidant, Vendilion Clique, or Elspeth, Knight-Errant.
• The limited mechanics will include Phyrexian Mana, Infect, and Metalcraft.
• Jurassic World will be significantly better than Jurassic Park III and roughly on par with The Lost World.
• Star Wars: The Force Awakens will be significantly better than all three prequels, but not even close to as good as any of the original three Star Wars
  films.
• The Avengers: Age of Ultron will be the highest grossing film of the year and will have the best critical reception of any Marvel movie to date.
• We’ll also get the first teaser trailer for the Magic: The Gathering film. Jace Beleren will be the protagonist.
• The spring set will involve the Eldrazi. There will be three new mythic Eldrazi titans.
• None of them will have as much raw power as Emrakul, but they’ll all be easier to cast.
• A green-based Eldrazi Ramp deck will emerge in Standard. See the Unwritten will be a four-of.
• The most valuable card in Khans block will be the currently spoiled planeswalker Ugin.
• The Fall 2015 set will be a return to Zendikar.
• It will contain the five Zendikar fetchlands will brand new art…
• …and one of the best one drops in the history of Magic.
• At least one of the expansions released in 2015 will be regarded as an all-time great Draft set.
• There will be five Grand Prix with an attendance level over 4,000.
• GP: Vegas will draw upwards of 7,000…
• …and it will be won by someone with zero previous GP or PT Top 8s.
• A football team will win the NFC South with a losing record. They will then win at least one playoff game.
• The Pittsburgh Steelers will beat the Green Bay Packers in the Super Bowl.
• And in 2015, the Jacksonville Jaguars will double their wins total from 2014.
• Jay Cutler will be traded. Robert Griffin III won’t be. By the middle of next season, both decisions will look like mistakes.
• Unbelievably, Half Life III will be confirmed. [Call.-Ed.]
• There will be no significant changes to MTGO, but the buggy V4 will continue to get less buggy to the point where we’re all reasonably okay playing with
  the client, even if it looks like it should have been scrapped in 2003.
• WotC will release a Cube product. It will be expensive, extremely limited, and suboptimal. It will come in an awesome box that for some reason won’t fit
  sleeved cards. Womp womp.
• Starting in fall 2015, the MSRP of booster packs will rise to $4.49. We’ll all grumble, but it won’t mean much.
• Conspiracy Booster Boxes (currently $100) will end the year sold out at $150.
• Ravages of War will be re-printed either as a judge foil or in this year’s From the Vault.
• I will end the year as a married man living in a new city and actively working toward my goal of being a full-time writer.

Happy New Year, everyone! See you in 2015.