fbpx

Let’s Get Ready For Modern Masters 2015

Chas’ inbox and social media feeds have been blowing up with folks asking about what they should do about Modern Masters 2015. Chas has answers about print runs, about price math, and about the reprints here!

If you’re reading this article on its publication date, Modern Masters is just eighteen days away from hitting shelves. Eighteen days is nothing! Grateful
Dead songs last longer than eighteen days.

As spoilers continue to trickle in, the Modern market has been reacting in wild (but fairly predictable) ways. My inbox and twitter feed (@ChasAndres) are
being inundated with questions about the coming storm. Is it time to sell out of Modern, or has that window already passed? Should people actually be
buying high end Modern cards considering Tarmogoyf and Dark Confidant went up in price the last time they were printed? Is it a good idea to buy a sealed
box or two now, or should we wait until after the set comes out? What’s the deal with airline food?

Settle in, grab a drink, and put on the jam band record of your choice. We’ve got eighteen days to go, my friends, and this week is all about Modern
Masters.

On Print Runs and Pack Costs

There was a rumor going around last week that Modern Masters 2015 might actually have a lower print run than the first Modern Masters set. The
rumor originated from a couple of store owners whose allocation of MM2015 was smaller than their allocation of Modern Masters. The internet (being
the internet) overreacted, and we were subjected to a brief flurry of “sky is falling!” tweets.

The rumor isn’t true. The plural of anecdote isn’t data, and we have way too much actual information to fall for this sort of thing. First off, we know
that MM2015 has to support three massive and simultaneous Grand Prix, at least one of which has a cap of 10,000 players with guaranteed Modern Masters
Draft and Sealed Deck side events firing all weekend long. Since the printing will be long over by the time the deadline to sign up for the GP expires,
WotC will have to plan for a full crowd of 10,000 participants and allocate packs accordingly. Second, most retailers aren’t experiencing allocation issues
for Modern Masters-in fact, some of them reached out to me directly to let me know
that WotC told them directly that MM2015 will indeed have an increased print run. In most cases, stores are being allocated between two and three times as
many boxes. Lastly,

Wizards of the Coast told all of us that the print run would be higher last December

. WotC might not be great at doing things like fixing Magic Online, but they’ve never lied about something like this.

Most people are aware that the set will have a fairly large print run, so Modern Masters 2015 booster boxes are still available at a price that’s
fairly close to MSRP. With 24 packs per box and an MSRP of $9.99 a pack, $239.76 plus tax is a good baseline price to think about when calculating how much
you should pay for a box. Of course, a normal booster box contains 36 packs at an MSRP of $3.99, but most sealed boxes are easily available between $90 and
$100, so it’s possible that MM2015 boxes will be available cheaper than MSRP if the set ends up sitting on shelves. That’s fairly unlikely, though.

How much will a Modern Masters 2015 booster box set you back today? StarCity has a couple in stock for $275, which translates to about $11.45 per
pack. The cheapest box I can find for sale anywhere (and I can’t guarantee that it comes from a reputable dealer, so take this price with a massive grain
of salt) is $252, which is a pack price of $10.50. eBay does show a few completed auctions for $205 per box-or roughly $8.50 per pack-but those auctions
probably ended at a bad time or happened before any exciting cards were spoiled. The more we know about the set, the higher I expect the price to go.
Sealed box prices for sets like this can get a little nuts in the waning days of spoiler season, especially when it looks like every card in the set will
be a gem.

Should you pre-order a box of MM2015 from StarCityGames right now? That depends on how much risk you’re willing to take on and how much you want to make
sure that you have a box in your possession. There is a decent chance that the increased print run of MM2015 will service the growth of the player base
plus the larger Grand Prix without actually increasing the relative supply of boxes available to you. In this case, locking in a box close to MSRP would be
a good thing because you wouldn’t have an opportunity to walk into your LGS and buy packs for $9.99 each.

Of course, it’s also possible that WotC feels emboldened by the success of the original Modern Masters and is planning on printing enough Modern Masters 2015 to completely satisfy demand for at least a month or two. Two to three times the print run is a massive increase, and the
tenor of the marketplace will change considerably if packs end up being freely available on store shelves. We might actually see boxes selling for less
than MSRP by mid-May if the print run is too large. A big portion of original Modern Masters boxes were purchased and either privately drafted or
hoarded by players who didn’t know if a set like this would ever happen again. Now that Modern Masters seems to be a regular part of WotC’s set rotation,
there’s much less urgency surrounding the set’s release. The pricier per-pack MSRP hurts people here as well-while not many boxes were sold in the $160
range last time around, a few stores (including two near me) did honor that price, which made the purchase a no-brainer. At $240 per box minimum, buying a
box is a harder decision for most people this time around.

I do expect that WotC will compensate a little for the increased price by making MM2015 even more exciting than Modern Masters, though that might
not be good news for those of you who want the card prices to retain a reasonable portion of their value. The more Modern staples are packed into the set,
the more spread out the value will be. A more valuable set will help promote sales and keep boxes from stagnating on the shelves, but if the set has too
many staples in it, prices might collapse across the board. It’s a fairly tricky balance to achieve, but you’re crazy if you don’t think that WotC
considers all of this when designing these sets. Wizards normally doesn’t get to make much direct profit off of the secondary market, but $10 booster packs
only sell if the secondary market value of the cards is fairly high.

So-how important is it for you to get a box or two of Modern Masters? The safe move involves locking in your purchase now, knowing that the first wave of
product will go fast and the second wave will likely be small. If you absolutely must open a box of Modern Masters, get it now and don’t worry about
whether or not the price goes down by $20 or $30 down the road.

If you’re more value-conscious and you only want to buy a box if the price is right, though, you should wait until the set reaches maximum saturation about
two or three weeks after printing. There’s a chance that the boxes will keep going up in price like last time and you’ll never have a chance to buy in at a
reasonable price. Of course, there’s also a good shot that the supply will be large enough to net you an awesome deal. Personally, I’m buying one box now
and waiting on the rest.

When it comes to print runs and pack costs, though, the real question is this: Will the average price of a broken down booster box in singles be roughly
equal to the cost of a sealed box? In normal sets with a wide release, this correlation keeps cards like Siege Rhino and fetchlands fairly cheap because
there’s so much value in the set and it has to all add up to the cost of a box. The original Modern Masters was short printed to the point that this never
happened, which made buying boxes at MSRP a no-brainer. Instead of singles dropping in price to match the cost of sealed boxes, (though they did to some
degree) the prices of sealed boxes actually went up to match the price of the cards inside. If that happens again with MM2015, you’ll probably wish that
you had bought more boxes at the current price. If not, it probably means that Modern staple prices are dropping by 50% or more across the board. And
that’s kind of a scary thing.

So. Modern Singles. Sell, or Buy?

The first major card spoiled for Modern Masters 2015 was Emrakul, the Aeons Torn. That announcement took place on December 8th of last year. The
fair trade price for an Emrakul on the day of the announcement was $49. It’s $43 today. That’s about a twelve percent decrease in value.

Karn Liberated and Tarmogoyf were spoiled as mythics in MM2015 at PAX East on March 6th. Their fair trade prices before the announcement were $54 and $185
respectively. Today, they’re $44.50 and…$199. Karn Liberated dropped by about 18%, but Tarmogoyf actually went up by 7.5%. Granted, part of the price has
to do with how each card has been performing in Modern lately, but it’s still kind of crazy that people know the card is going to be reprinted and are
still buying enough copies to raise the price that much.

Part of this has to do with what happened at Grand Prix Vegas last time around. Instead of trying to undercut each other like normal, several dealers used
the opportunity to stock up on Dark Confidants and Tarmogoyfs at retail while supply was at its highest. This resulted in the price of these two cards
going up by 20-30% while every other rare and mythic in the set dropped in value. This time around, people are being far more cautious about the set’s
marquee mythic, and it’s very hard to find copies at or under current retail.

Could this kind of reverse trend happen to the mythic rares in Modern Masters 2015? It’s possible, but it’s very unlikely to happen if the print
run for Modern Masters 2015 is significantly higher than that of Modern Masters. Because the original Modern Masters print run
was so low, it was fairly easy to create a dealer-led buyout on the two best cards in the set. This sort of action is possible when every store in the
world is sold out of sealed boxes, but it’s simply not feasible when there’s enough product to go around.

It’s also very likely that any future Modern Masters buyouts will be limited to Tarmogoyf alone. Dark Confidant is no longer a powerhouse card in any
format, and I can’t really imagine another card in MM2015 that could take its place in terms of real-world demand and stability.

Buying out Tarmogoyfs isn’t as easy as it once was, either. This is now the third time that the card has been printed, and the price is higher than ever.
Even if MM2015’s print run feels small to people, the number of Tarmogoyfs in the world keeps going up.

Also, people forget that all of the other mythics in the original Modern Masters set dropped in price. The two swords weren’t hit that hard thanks
to their sweet alternate art, but even format staples like Vendilion Clique and (at the time) Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker dropped by about 20%. The mythics
that weren’t tier one format staples like Sarkhan Vol, Kokusho, the Evening Star, and Vedalken Shackles were hit even harder, dropping by 30% or more.

The set’s rares were hit even harder. Casual cards got it the worst, with Adarkar Valkyrie being the most egregious example. Expensive mostly because of
its scarcity, Adarkar Valkyrie plunged 80% from $10 to $2. Even Modern staples like Cryptic Command, Glimmervoid, Blinkmoth Nexus, and Aether Vial took
hits of at least 20% across the board.

If we assume behavior in line with the original Modern Masters set, here’s how we should be expecting the spoiled cards to behave between today
and the month after the set release:

  • Tarmogoyf: No drop.
  • Format staple mythics with good alternate art: 5% drop.
  • Format staple mythics without alternate art: 15% drop.
  • Format staple rares: 18% drop
  • Second tier mythics: 18% drop.
  • Second tier rares: 30% drop.
  • Casual mythics: 30% drop.
  • Casual rares: 50%++ drop.

This chart assumes that MM2015 cards behave similarly to their counterparts in the first Modern Masters set, of course, which is the best case
scenario for preserving card prices. If the cards are printed in even greater numbers, we could be seeing significantly lower prices within a couple days
of the set’s release. The first Modern Masters also served as a gateway to the format for many players who hadn’t even considered building a
Modern deck before. Will Modern Masters 2015 do something similar to the format, or are there fewer potential new Modern players out there than
there were back in 2013? We’re not going to know the answer to this until well after Grand Prix Vegas.

Based on this, should you be selling the entirety of your Modern collection? It might already be too late for you to get rid of some high profile reprints.
Take Splinter Twin. The card was spoiled at rare in Modern Masters last Wednesday morning, and the price has already dropped considerably in the days since
then. Before the announcement, the fair trade value for a NM copy of Splinter Twin was about $28. Right now, I can find copies for $20. That’s a 29% drop,
which is a larger than predicted hit considering it’s a tier one format staple. Spellskite was trading for about $25 before it was spoiled at rare the same
day. Right now, I can find one for $16. That’s a 34% loss in a matter of hours.

It’s very possible that these rares will keep dropping. We might see $15 Splinter Twins and $8 Spellskites before long. The better Modern Masters is and
the more boxes are printed relative to the player base, the lower these prices will go. Without all of the details, however, it’s hard for me to recommend
that you try to sell your cards at a 35-45% loss (once shipping and fees are calculated in), especially if you’re going to want to require them later on.
At a certain point, it makes more sense to stay put and hope that the set has enough clunkers in it. After all, right now all we really know about are the
exciting cards-the tier one format staples and MVP casual mythics. But this set is going to retail for $10 a pack, and a bunch of those packs will have
cards like Incendiary Command and Murkfiend Liege in the rare slot. Would you really be surprised if Spellskite and Splinter Twin end up being two of the
ten best rares in the set? Also, Cryptic Command was down to $25 after the first Modern Masters printing. It’s worth more than twice that now. Sometimes,
you just have to play the long game.

I could be wrong, of course, and it might be right to sell everything right now regardless. What I do know is that if top tier rares like Splinter Twin and
Spellskite are going to experience sustained drops of 30% or more, then the spoiled mythics are being wildly overvalued by the market right now. In the
first Modern Masters set, format staple mythics dropped about 60% as much as format staple rares did. Karn, Emrakul, and Vendilion Clique haven’t
gone down nearly that much relative to the price drop that Splinter Twin and Spellskite just experienced. If I had any of the spoiled mythics right now,
I’d sell them. And yes, that includes Tarmogoyf.

What about all of the cards that haven’t been spoiled yet? Well, according to some people, the vast majority of good cards in the set are already known.
Last week, a spoiler announcement dropped that contained the following cards:

Mythic Rare

Emrakul, the Aeons Torn Kozilek, Butcher of Truth Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre All is Dust Karn Liberated Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite Tezzeret the Seeker

Dark Confidant Splinter Twin Tarmogoyf Iona, Shield of Emeria Vendilion Clique Mox Opal

Rare

Noble Hierarch Goblin Guide Fulminator Mage Austere Command

Cryptic Command Incendiary Command Primal Command Profane Command

People were quick to believe this rumor, as it came from a source that spoiled several cards in the first Modern Masters set. Unfortunately for
its purported authenticity, an official spoiler featuring Splinter Twin at rare (and not mythic) was released several days later. In light of that, I can’t
see how we can take this list as anything more than conjecture.

That said, all of these cards are likely to be in the set regardless. Noble Hierarch, Goblin Guide, and Fulminator Mage are as close to auto-includes as
we’re going to get, and there’s virtually no chance that we won’t see Mox Opal occupying one of the mythic slots. It’s fine to sell your cards as if this
list were confirmed if you’d like, but be aware that it is far from being confirmed.

As I wrote in my article last November, you can make a case for about two
hundred rares to be included in Modern Masters 2015. If you want to be thorough, you should think about selling everything from Mirrodin
through Rise of the Eldrazi with a price tag of $4 or more. Of course, if you had wanted to do this, you should have done it a month or two ago.
At this point, even cards that haven’t been spoiled yet are dropping by ten or fifteen percent based on speculation alone. Noble Hierarch has dropped
almost 20% and is in free fall. Dark Confidant isn’t doing much better.

Selling cards like this is perfectly fine-the price will continue to tumble after they’re officially spoiled-but it’s worth keeping in mind the fact that
some number of great Modern cards from this era will not be reprinted in MM2015. Once the final card is spoiled, you’re going to see an immediate reversal
in the price charts of some of these format staples as people scramble to buy every available copy. If you are attempting to sell Modern cards right now,
keep tabs on the spoiler and pull your available copies of everything when it looks like the set is close to being fully spoiled. Otherwise, you’ll be
taken advantage of by people attempting to get ahead of the latest demand trends.

This Week’s Trends