Modern Masters 2015 Financial Set Review!

Chas Andres is the go-to guy on the finance floor, and there is no set with greater financial implications than Modern Masters 2015! Now that the spoiler is out, see what direction the market will take!

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The biggest problem that most people had with Modern Masters was the inclusion of the Kamigawa Dragons. While these cards are beloved in casual
circles, seeing them take up a third of the set’s mythic rare slots was brutal.

This time around, we watched the spoilers roll in with dollar signs in our eyes. With only one mythic (Comet Storm) that could really be described as
disappointing, Modern Masters 2015 absolutely nailed our top end desires. Tarmogoyf! Vendilion Clique! Bitterblossom! Mox Opal! Karn Liberated!
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite! All three Eldrazi titans! These are the mythics we’ve been looking for.

When I woke up on Friday morning, though, my Twitter feed was exploding with disappointment over the back half of the spoiler. No Damnation? No Goblin
Guide? No Serum Visions, Aven Mindcensor, or Gitaxian Probe? What the heck happened!?

As it turns out, Wizards of the Coast decided to change the scope and complexion of Modern Masters this time around. While the first set was deep in
playables at all rarities, MM2015 seems built mostly to pack a wallop at the top end. In the first Modern Masters set, you had a very good chance
of cracking a pack and finding a worthwhile card in the rare slot alongside a couple of $1-$3 commons and uncommons. In Modern Masters 2015,
however, you have a better chance of opening a great card…but also a better chance of finding a fifty cent bulk rare staring back at you.

I didn’t see this shift coming, but I should have. Here’s why Wizards’ new structure makes sense:

They gave us what we wanted.
I don’t have access to WotC’s market research data, but common sense tells me that Magic players aren’t motivated to buy packs based on the value of the
sixth best white rare in the set. Players like exciting mythics and good Limited environments, and Modern Masters 2015 will give us both of those
things. Adding value to the back end doesn’t sell packs.

Casual reprints are a limited resource
. Reprints sell sets. Why waste the excitement of a reprint like Adarkar Valkyrie or Woodfall Primus on Modern Masters when the price of those
cards are just going to tank to Ant Queen levels anyway? It’s better to save them for another time when they’ll make a bigger impact and print actual Ant
Queen again.

Flagship mythics that help sell sets like Modern Masters are an even more limited resource.
If Modern Masters 2015 was oozing value from top to bottom, everything in it would drop in value by a lot. That includes cards like Vendilion
Clique and Tarmogoyf that WotC needs to keep expensive in order to make Modern Masters 2015 (and 2017, and 2019…) packs feel worth it at $10 each.
Remember: Wizards of the Coast wants Modern to be affordable enough to play, but not affordable enough that the idea of a $10 pack of Modern Masters seems silly. It’s a hard line to walk, and it relies on keeping the dream of $200 Tarmogoyfs alive. In order to keep the secondary
market healthy, there always has to be another carrot just over the horizon.

What I don’t understand and can’t justify is why a few of the uncommons that really needed a reprint weren’t included in MM2015. I expect that we’ll see at
least one of them as the August FNM foil (Serum Visions?) and at least one more in Battle for Zendikar. (Inquisition of Kozilek?) A few other
absences are baffling, though. I’ll get to them near the end of the article.

For now, it’s worth taking some time to talk about how Modern Masters 2015 actually stacks up. How many rares will cost you more than the
price of a pack? Is it worth buying a booster box? Which cards are most likely to hold their value, and which seemed destined to tank the fastest? What are
the most glaring omissions? Let’s find out, starting with a color-by-color breakdown of every mythic and rare in Modern Masters 2015:

White Mythics & Rares

Average Rare Slot Value: $10.24

As we go through this article, I’m going to break down the average value of the rare slot by color. Note that this is a rough calculation that isn’t likely
to remain accurate for long-card prices will drop once the set hits store shelves. I’m using a 1:2 calculation in order to compensate for mythic rarity
since that’s the ratio they appear at on the print sheets. As always, your own personal pack value will vary widely based on how many mythics you are lucky
enough to open. The more packs you crack, the more your series of pulls will regress toward the mean.

Anyhow, of the eight white cards in the set, there are four solid pulls and four total disappointments. Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite sees both competitive
and casual play, so I expect it to retain the majority of its value. Iona, Shield of Emeria won’t hold up quite as well, but it does have a home in
Commander (for those who hate fun) and in some competitive Reanimator decks. Leyline of Sanctity is a crucial sideboard card in Modern, so it’ll make a
pretty good pick-up once it bottoms out in a month or so. Daybreak Coronet’s playability, however, is solely tied to G/W Hexproof. Unless that deck makes a
comeback, Coronet could drop pretty hard and never recover.

Blue Mythics & Rares

Average Rare Slot Value: $12.95

Blue is a little more top-heavy than white, with only Vendilion Clique and Cryptic Command likely to remain above-pack-value pulls. Tezzeret the Seeker’s
uses are mostly limited to the casual arena, and Elspeth vs. Tezzeret copies are already available close to the $10 mark. I doubt this one stays at $15 for
long.

I’d expect the supply of copies of Hurkyl’s Recall to outpace demand fairly soon, though it’s always a nice long-term hold. Hurkyl’s Recall has been
reprinted several times, and it always seems to recover. I’m a buyer if it drops off over the summer.

Black Mythics & Rares

Average Rare Slot Value: $8.67

Continuing the trend established by the blue cards, black is the most top-heavy color yet. Dark Confidant and Bitterblossom are always going to be good
pulls, though Dark Confidant’s price could continue to take a beating until it finds a new home in a top tier Modern deck. If Bob remains borderline
unplayable in all formats, we could be seeing sub-$30 prices as soon as August.

I think that Bitterblossom will do a better job than Dark Confidant of maintaining its value. Tokens decks aren’t exactly lighting the Modern scene on
fire, of course, but Bitterblossom is very popular in kitchen table matches and in Commander. B/W Tokens is also a very popular budget/casual deck for
Modern-lite players, and the event deck from last year pumped a lot of the deck’s other staples into the marketplace. Many people are going to buy the
event deck after they open a Bitterblossom and will try to trade into a few more copies after that.

Beyond the mythics, black has a couple of unexciting cards in the $3 range mixed with a few bulk rares. That’s not exactly great news for value seekers.
I’ve long been a fan of Necroskitter as a sleeper spec, but at this point it seems overpriced considering how many copies are about to flood the market.
Overall, I’d stay away from everything else in black until the set scrapes bottom in late July/early August.

Red Mythics & Rares

Average Rare Slot Value: $5.06

Oof-if you’re value-conscious, look away from the red section of the spoiler. Kiki-Jiki is in Modern Masters 2015 mostly because there aren’t any
good alternatives. What else could they do? Reprint Dragonmaster Outcast? Upgrade Magus of the Moon or Through the Breach to mythic rare? At least
Kiki-Jiki is beloved in casual circles and does see occasional Modern play. I doubt it’ll drop below $15-$18 based on the kitchen table market alone.

Splinter Twin is even more likely to maintain its value. Twin is still one of the two or three best decks in the format, and there simply isn’t enough
value in MM2015 to tank this card below $15 or so. I’m holding all of my copies of this for now.

Beyond those two cards, there’s nothing here worth saying much about. Foil copies of Wildfire should hold a premium because the Modern Masters artwork is
pretty cool. The lack of both Blood Moon and Goblin Guide is pretty glaring, though.

Green Mythics & Rares

Average Green Slot Value: $21.53

Tarmogoyf looms large over this section of the spoiler. The second most valuable card in Modern Masters 2015 is worth $49.99- the ‘goyf is
three-and-a-half times more valuable. A large part of the price you pay for every pack of Modern Masters will be due to the fact that this might be hiding
inside.

Will Tarmogoyf still be worth $175 at the end of the summer? At this point, yeah, I bet it will be. Unlike Dark Confidant, Tarmogoyf backs up its
reputation with a ton of high level play. Demand will stay strong, and people will be reluctant to trade these away. Tarmogoyf might drop to $150, but I
can’t see it going any lower than that.

Noble Hierarch is another card that I doubt will drop too much more than it already has. It sees play in multiple tier one decks, and casual players love
it as well. I’m targeting $30 in trade, which would put it in line with Cryptic Command’s quick drop and rebound in the first Modern Masters.

I don’t think that Primeval Titan will hold as much of its value. The fact that it’s banned in Commander limits its upside severely, and I’m not sure if
Amulet Bloom will remain a tier one strategy in Modern. It’s a finicky, high variance deck to begin with, and the results it put up recently have to be
taken with a grain of salt considering that Steven Speck, who had been killing people on turn 1 with regularity, was DQed from a tournament for palming his starting seven.
If Amulet Bloom falls off a bit, Primeval Titan could easily find itself in the $6-$8 range before long.

Multicolored Mythics & Rares

Average Multicolored Slot Value: $5.62

There aren’t any multicolored mythics in the set, so we’re left with two high end format staples and nine casual cards. Both Fulminator Mage and Wilt-Leaf
Liege are tier one cards that should hold most of their value going forward, and Apocalypse Hydra and Creakwood Liege are intriguing long-term spec buys if
they drop down to the $1 range. Everything else here is going to be disappointing to open in a booster pack, though.

Artifact & Colorless Mythics & Rares

Average Artifact & Colorless Slot Value: $11.55

The artifact and colorless section looks juicy at first glance, but that’s mostly because five of the fifteen mythics in the set are here. Of these, I like
Mox Opal and Karn Liberated the best. Mox Opal is a four-of in one of the safest and easiest to build decks in the format. Affinity might not be the most
exciting deck in the world, but Wizards has been supporting it without banning since the creation of Modern, and it has always been at least a second tier
option. Karn Liberated is another mythic that has both casual and competitive appeal. Not only is it good in G/R Tron, but every Cube and Commander player
out there could use another copy. His price shouldn’t drop that much.

As for the Eldrazi titans, their price will be driven by casual demand as well as what happens in Battle for Zendikar. If we see new titans (and
enablers) this fall that aren’t as powerful as the original three, their prices could shoot up considerably. If the new batch is even bigger and scarier,
Ulamog and Kozilek might be in for a fall. I’ll be monitoring them closely as the summer rolls on.

On the rare front, Spellskite and All is Dust are solid cards that should maintain at least 70% of their current value. Etched Champion has probably fallen
about as far as it can and is a reasonable buy at $3. The rest of these cards aren’t very exciting-in your wildest dreams, did you ever imagine that you’d
be paying $10 a pack of a set only to find a Long-Forgotten Gohei staring back at you?

Land Mythics & Rares

Average Land Slot Value: $7.49

There isn’t much to see here. People will want Blinkmoth Nexus for Affinity, so the price should stay relatively high. Eye of Ugin will probably drop off
even more until we start to see Eldrazi spoilers in the fall. I might grab a few if they hit $2 in late July.

Overall Thoughts on MM2015 Rares and Mythics

MSRP on a pack of Modern Masters is $9.99. If you add up the current StarCityGames price of all the rares and mythics and average them out, you get $10.06.
Granted, that doesn’t include the value of the commons, uncommons, or foil slot, but that number tells me that there isn’t going to be a lot of room for
these cards to drop much further. It also tells me that buying a box of Modern Masters 2015 at retail isn’t a terribly good deal. If you only want
a few select playsets of cards, you’re better off buying them separately and only cracking packs when you’re in a draft or attending Grand Prix Las Vegas.

What are your odds of opening a pack that contains a rare worth at least as much as the retail price of the booster? Not counting the foil, it’s 28%.
That’s better than a normal set like Fate Reforged or Dragons of Tarkir, but you’ve still got a decent chance of sitting down to a draft
and opening a bulk rare in all three packs. That wasn’t the case in the first Modern Masters expansion, where the value was much more spread out.
In addition, the average value of the rare slot in the ‘bad’ packs of MM2015 (the 72% of packs where you don’t at least make your money back) is a putrid
$1.50. For a $9.99 MSRP, that’s a dreadful return on your investment.

What about the commons and uncommons? Can you make your money back at the lower rarity levels? Let’s take a look:

Significant Commons and Uncommons in MM2015

Here are all of the commons and uncommons in MM15 currently retailing for at least $0.99 as of today:

Total = $29.85

That’s 3/102 commons (2%) and 12/80 uncommons (15%). Not a great ratio, but not that far off from the original Modern Masters set. It’s not exactly a fair
comparison because the original Modern Masters came out two years ago, but here’s what the cream of the crop from that set looks like today:

Total = $44.04

That’s a very similar 3/102 commons (2%) and 11/60 uncommons (18%). The problem isn’t the ratios – it’s the lack of high end common and uncommon reprints
in MM15. Beyond Remand and Electrolyze, we’ve got a couple of cards that used to be commons (Lightning Bolt and Cranial Plating) alongside a rare in
Eldrazi Temple that has been downgraded for Limited play. That list is a far cry from Path to Exile, Spell Snare, Kitchen Finks, and Lightning Helix. I’m
also not convinced that narrow demand casual cards like Incandescent Soulstoke will hold their value at all over the next few years, and this list could
look a lot worse in a few weeks. Overall, I have to rank the commons and uncommons among the most disappointing aspects of Modern Masters 2015.
Unless you open a Remand, (one in every 26.6 packs on average) you’re going to end up disappointed.

Biggest Non-Inclusions in Modern Masters 2015

The Rolling Stones were onto something when they told us that we can’t always get what we want.

That said, here are the cards that would have made the biggest impact had they been in MM2015. I’m excluding most of the purely casual cards since that
list would be hundreds of cards long:

Mythic Rare

Sword of Fire and Ice Sword of Light and Shadow Linvala, Keeper of Silence Blightsteel Colossus Vengevine Sword of War and Peace Batterskull Thrun, the Last Troll Vedalken Shackles Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas Ajani Vengeant

This list isn’t bad at all. Sword of Light and Shadow and Sword of Fire and Ice were both printed in the last Modern Masters set, so there was no
expectation that we’d see them again. Linvala, Keeper of Silence hasn’t seen much play since the Birthing Pod banning, and I doubt that will change any
time soon. Batterskull was a Grand Prix promo last year. WotC did a very good job on the mythics.

Of the cards on this list, Blightsteel Colossus, Vengevine, Thrun, and both of the planeswalkers have the highest upside. All of these cards are capable of
becoming the cornerstone of the right deck, and all have spent time at $20 or more. I’m actively trading for all five of these cards.

Rare

Misty Rainforest Scalding Tarn Marsh Flats Arid Mesa Verdant Catacombs

Graven Cairns Wooded Bastion Cascade Bluffs Fetid Heath Flooded Grove

Mystic Gate Twilight Mire Sunken Ruins Fire-lit Thicket Rugged Prairie

Damnation Azusa, Lost but Seeking Horizon Canopy Grove of the Burnwillows Crucible of Worlds

Goblin Guide Inkmoth Nexus Sower of Temptation Aether Vial Arcbound Ravager Scapeshift

Pact of Negation Auriok Champion Serra Ascendant Chalice of the Void Ensnaring Bridge Celestial Colonnade

Threads of Disloyalty Creeping Tar Pit Leonin Shikari Flagstones of Trokair Mutavault Engineered Explosives

Infernal Tutor Ghostway Bloodghast Ranger of Eos Goryo's Vengeance Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir

Summoner's Pact Through the Breach Slaughter Pact Oblivion Stone Blood Moon

Phew-I could keep listing Modern staples for hours! I wouldn’t worry about Goblin Guide or the Zendikar fetchlands-I expect that we’ll see them return in
this fall’s Battle for Zendikar. The Shadowmoor/Eventide filterlands are also going to show up again sooner or later.

Otherwise, there’s a lot of upside on this list. Inkmoth Nexus is the easiest call, but people caught on to that one as soon as the full spoiler dropped,
and the price is already through the roof. Blood Moon, Azusa, Lost But Seeking, Damnation, and Arcbound Ravager are also trending upward, and that’s likely
to continue. All of these cards are worth trading for at current retail, but if they go up significantly, I’ll be selling into hype. The pendulum tends to
swing too far to the other way when things like this happen, and people get worried that they’ll be locked out of ever owning a card like Damnation or
Crucible of Worlds. If someone tries to force a buyout, don’t get caught up in the hype.

Uncommon

Aven Mindcensor Inquisition of Kozilek Mishra's Bauble Path to Exile Cursecatcher Choke

Shattering Spree Spell Snare Might of Old Krosa Dryad Arbor Tolaria West Ghostly Prison

Flames of the Blood Hand Merrow Reejerey Summer Bloom Ancient Ziggurat Guttural Response Kitchen Finks

Harmonic Sliver Steelshaper's Gift Congregation at Dawn Sylvan Scrying Lightning Helix

There are lots of cards here that should have been reprinted in Modern Masters 2015. We might see Inquisition of Kozilek in the fall and Mishra’s
Bauble is fairly new tech in Modern, but Aven Mindcensor and Might of Old Krosa should have been auto-includes at the very least. Might of Old Krosa is my
favorite target on this list-Modern infect decks need it, and I don’t see where they’re going to reprint it anytime soon. It might be underpriced even at
$7.49 retail.

Common

Serum Visions Gitaxian Probe Sleight of Hand Simian Spirit Guide

Gitaxian Probe isn’t an awful miss since it’s still just $3, but it’s baffling that Serum Visions wasn’t in MM2015. I suspect that we’ll either see it in Magic: Origins or as the August FNM card. If not, then it’s likely to be banned at some point soon. I’m only targeting this in trade if I end up
needing it for a personal deck. Otherwise, I’m staying well away. Something just doesn’t add up here, and I’m not going to throw my money at finding out
what it is.

Overall, I’m not sure what to make of Modern Masters 2015. I’m glad that I have several boxes of the first Modern Masters set socked away
because I think it’s the better of the two expansions, and I expect prices to keep trending upward. I’m also glad that I’ve got a box of MM2015
pre-ordered, and I’m really excited about Grand Prix Las Vegas. I probably won’t be buying more boxes of MM2015, though, and I know I’ll end up playing in
at least one or two brutal $30+ drafts where I end up with $2 worth of cards. It’ll be worth it if I open a Tarmogoyf. It’ll stink if I don’t. And that,
really, is Modern Masters 2015 in a nutshell.

This Week’s Trends

  • Back in Standard, the biggest winner of the week by far is Den Protector. The card is all over the top tables, and I doubt we’ll be seeing the end
    of it any time soon. Deathmist Raptor and Dragonlord Dromoka are also trending upward, and at this point it looks like Dragonlord Kolaghan is the
    only one of the brood not joining in on the fun. In the meantime, both planeswalkers from Dragons of Tarkir are still dropping like
    stones.

  • Do you have your fetchlands yet? You might want to get on that. All of them bottomed out in early April, and they’ve been slowly trending upward
    since then. I doubt we’ll see them drop off at all this summer, and I’ll be holding mine for the next year at least.
  • Otherwise, this week has been all about Modern and the MM2015 spoilers. Expect to see the spoiled cards begin trending downward while the unspoiled
    cards begin to tick upward. Don’t panic, don’t overreact, and ignore all major drops or spikes in price. These things always even out over time.