Hello everyone, and welcome back to Insider Trading! Today’s article is a companion piece to last week’s look at the Financial Value of Conflux; but instead of looking at the value of the cards in Conflux, I’m going to talk about how the cards in Conflux are going to affect (or already have affected) the other cards in Magic.
Before I get going there, I’d like to do a little follow-up to last week’s article. When I wrote up the Financial Value article, I used an early spoiler from MTGSalvation.com. While most of the cards were spoiled correctly, there were a couple that had been initially wrong.
There’s only one that was off enough to affect my thoughts on its value: Sphinx Summoner. In the original spoiling, Sphinx Summoner was able to get any artifact from your deck. The actual printed card can only get artifact creatures, and while I still believe this is a valuable effect, it is very much more limited in scope (in relation to the value I predicted for this card), as it cannot get utility cards (Executioner’s Capsule, Equipment, Pithing Needle). I’d predict Sphinx Summoner to be in the $2 range, and not the $5 range, due to this change.
I’d also like to talk about Path to Exile. We started Path to Exile at $4, and so far it has been our fastest selling Uncommon ever. I am comparing this to every other set we’ve ever presold, and every other Uncommon price range ($0.25 to $5). I would not expect Path to Exile to come down off that price; it is comparable to Swords to Plowshares, which is a $4-$5 despite being printed in 3rd, 4th, Ice Age, Anthologies, Battle Royale, a Coldsnap Theme Deck, and Alpha/Beta/Unlimited.
It’s been a couple of years since we had a Super-Uncommon. A Super-Uncommon is an uncommon that sees so much play, and is so desired, that it rises in value until it is comparable in value to a mid-to-high tier rare from that set. Every Super-Uncommon except one has shared a trait – the card is easily splashable, and is played in virtually every format. Previous cards include, going back to last year’s Extended:
Remand (Ravnica)
Sensei’s Diving Top (Champions of Kamigawa)
Eternal Witness (Fifth Dawn) (The one non-splashable exception)
Aether Vial (Darksteel)
Skullclamp (Darksteel)
Isochron Scepter (Mirrodin)
Cabal Therapy (Judgment)
Fact or Fiction (Invasion)
All of these cards were in the $5-$6 range during their prime, many of them have not come down of that price even years after they rotated from Standard, and several were as sought after as any chase rare from their respective sets. The closest card to making this list since Ravnica is Kitchen Finks, but Kitchen Finks has a slow build. These other cards came out of the gate swinging and never backed down (as opposed to Finks, which took nearly a year to hit its current value). I would comfortably add Path to Exile to that list; it’s playable in all four major Constructed formats, in casual play, and it’s quite powerful and splashable. Long story short: it’s not likely coming down in value, it’s not over-hyped, and worth picking up a set now, rather than when supply starts drying up and the price starts climbing to the $5-$6 range.
About once a year, there’s a card that rises from near-obscurity to become the new darling in some format or another. In the past, it’s been Glimpse of Nature, and the year before that Flash, and the year before that, Ichorid. This year? My money is on a card that will likely have a big impact on the upcoming Grand Prix: Chicago. The format is Legacy, and the card I’m seeing a lot of movement on already is Natural Order.
Natural Order is/was a centerpiece of the Jamie Wakefield deck called named Secret Force. This deck ran a lot of great Green creatures (Fyndhorn Elves, Spike Feeder, and other efficient-for-the-time Green dudes), and would have a knock-out punch of using Natural Order to fetch up Verdant Force. The deck was quite popular in Standard, fell out of favor for a while, and was resurrected by Mike Turian years later for his Top 8 finish at Worlds in 2001.
There’s a lot of buzz right now in the Legacy world about the potential of Progenitus-fuelled Natural Order decks at Grand Prix: Chicago. A lot of the discussion can be found at The Source message boards, particularly here, but to sum up:
A) Natural Order plus Progenitus is analogous to Tinker/Darksteel Colossus in Vintage (except the Tinker card, in this case, isn’t restricted).
B) People are trying out any number of builds to try to cheat Progenitus into play, and…
C) The likely best deck for Progenitus will be one that is either a Survival of the Fittest/Natural Order hybrid, or an Elves-combo deck that relies on Natural Order/Progenitus for a secondary kill.
Either way, Natural Order is going to be the “it” card going into Grand Prix: Chicago. It’s already been a proven tournament-winning card in the past, so when I hear from certain people that Natural Order is extremely competitive thanks to Progenitus, I listen. Natural Order was already a $4-$5 card prior to the release of Conflux; I have no clue exactly how high it will climb, but just to give an idea: first thing I’m doing when I get into work later today is to change our buy price on both Visions and Portal Natural Order TO $5. So if you disagree with me, here’s your chance to unload a lot of Natural Orders to StarCityGames.com (e-mail Buyer@StarCityGames.com – the newly priced buylist should go live around 10am EST tomorrow). Otherwise, try to grab a playset of Natural Order as soon as possible, because if I’m right, it’s going to take a huge price jump in the coming month.
There has been an increased interest in Forge[/author]-Tender”]Burrenton [author name="Forge"]Forge[/author]-Tender over the past couple of weeks. This is partly due to Standard and partly due to Extended, but the result is that the Forge-Tender, once a possible sideboard card, then-main-deck-hoser in Block, is now making the move into multiple other formats. A lot of the Lorwyn/Shadowmoor block uncommons are starting to soak out of circulation (Knight of Meadowgrain, Forge[/author]-Tender”]Burrenton [author name="Forge"]Forge[/author]-Tender, and Kitchen Finks are all on the rise), so I’d probably pick up other Uncommon staples from that block (Firespout, Murderous Redcap, Spectral Procession) before Regionals comes around, if you don’t have those cards already.
I’ve been asked by several people to give my opinion on Conflux as a whole. Here’s what I had to say last week:
“And that’s my take on the Financial Value of Conflux! In the end, I view Conflux as an above-average set, and one that has a very high density of playable Uncommon cards (as did Shadowmoor, and Lorwyn), so this set will be well worth getting, in general.”
Based on presales, that I believe there are still a few cards in this set being undervalued (Ethersworn Adjudicator is going to be double-digits at some point), and how many good uncommons that are in this set, I’d have to say that Conflux is, financially, the best set since Future Sight. If I had to rank all of the sets, from Future Sight forward:
Future Sight
Conflux
Lorwyn
Shadowmoor
Shards of Alara
Morningtide
Eventide
Eventide is potentially better than Morningtide at this point, but that’s only because of some late up-and-comers (Glen Elendra Archmage, some of the Filter Lands). In general, by sales and value, Eventide is the weakest effort of the past two years, while I feel that Conflux is the second-strongest. What contributes to this?
1) There are currently 3 Rares selling steadily at $10+: Knight of the Reliquary, Banefire, and Noble Hierarch.
2) Multiple Mythic cards are going to/or have already hit the $10 range.
3) This set has a disproportionately high number of good Uncommons to bad Uncommons. Fifth Dawn is the modern-day king of money Uncommons.
Fifth Dawn: 55 Uncommons Total
Ones that sell well:
1) Auriok Salvagers
2) Blasting Station
3) Channel the Suns
4) Composite Golem
5) Energy Chamber
6) Etched Oracle
7) Eternal Witness
8) Gemstone Array
9) Grafted Wargear
10) Krark-Clan Ironworks
11) Magma Jet
12) Paradise Mantle
13) Qumulox
14) Relentless Rats
15) Steelshaper’s Gift
16) Tel-Jilad Justice
17) Vedalken Mastermind
Total: 31% (about 1 in 3)
As opposed to…
Conflux: 40 Uncommons Total
Ones that have presold well:
1) Ancient Ziggurat
2) Celestial Purge
3) Countersquall
4) Esperzoa
5) Fusion Elemental
6) Hellspark Elemental
7) Path to Exile
8) Reliquary Tower
9) Shard Convergence
10) Volcanic Fallout
Total: 25% (1 in 4)
With the following showing promise:
Shambling Remains, Knotvine Mystic, Unstable Frontier, Scarland Thrinax (+4 = 14, or 35%, slightly over Future Sight’s percentage).
In short, this set has a much higher EV than many previous sets since Future Sight, in the Mythic, Rare and Uncommon slots. As a total package, it’s not as good as Future Sight (which had an absurd number of money rares, but few-to-no money Commons or Uncommons), but it’s close enough that I feel comfortable calling it the financially second-best set since (and including) Future Sight… which, for a time, was worth more opened than sealed to dealers.
Join me next week, when I take a look at the rising attendance for the U.S. Grand Prix circuit. See you in seven!
Ben