Previous post (which is the topic of today's post).
Standard disclaimer: This is entirely my opinion, I could be completely wrong about any of this, I play a card game like it's the stock market. Today I'll be reviewing my MH2 predictions from a couple months ago, during release weekend. Here we go!
Amazon and MVP boxes get delivered in a couple days. This is where the dead cat bounce (which I believe we're currently in) starts seeing the effects of gravity, so to speak, and prices drop for a lot of stuff.
Close but no. The bounce happened a bit over a week after release, and came back down to earth about a month later.
...Forgotten Realms spoilers begin, and hype shifts from MH2 over to that. Folks chase the new shiny, demand for MH2 goes down, and prices go down even further for a majority of cards.
Subverted by the fact that Forgotten Realms was severely underwhelming, which couldn't really have been predicted. Prices still went down a bit as a function of more stock entering the market.
Price memory is a hell of a thing, and as EV goes down, these probably won't be the ones to suffer nearly as much. If you're buying anything MH2 right now, these are very safe bets - they're likely soaking up EV from a bunch of other cards going down.
Pretty accurate. Their prices now look only slightly lower than they did on release weekend.
It's seeing Modern/Legacy play as a one-of, which is promising, and is riding off the coattails of Urborg, but as EDH is concerned, there aren't nearly as many Forests-matter effects as Swamps-matter. I'm thinking it could dip lower.
Dip lower it did. The average went down from $18 to $10, although this could be said about a lot of MH2.
He's amazing - poggers, even - and goes into a ton of decks, but I think he might be temporarily coming down from $70. Call it a gut feeling with the dead cat bounce and Fetches having yet to soak up all the EV I think they will from mythics.
Maybe briefly correct, but very briefly. Ragavan was around $50 for a little while after writing, and then stayed very consistent at $70, being a playset inclusion in just about every red deck that could play him.
- Most of the Enchantments-matter cards
Probably coming down in the next few weeks. They're all good, but pretty narrow. Sythis in particular doesn't currently justify being more than some of the good broader-yet-cheaper cards like Persist and Out of Time (although I can imagine a future where enchantress is a viable Modern deck). Nettlecyst might go up from where it's at, though. It's pretty cool and appeals to two different archetypes at once, with no color restrictions.
Correct. Sythis, Sanctum Weaver, and Presence all went down in the following weeks. Sterling Grove was slightly more resilient but still went down a bit. Nettlecyst stayed pretty consistent.
Dakkon is pretty much completely outclassed by T3feri in the vast majority of decks. I think he's easily the weakest of the three walkers in the set. Geyadrone is pretty clearly a Commander card. I think it's possible their value goes down further, being gobbled up by Fetches.
I underestimated how hard they'd drop - they're now about a dollar each. Nobody's playing these (although I like Geyadrone significantly more than Dakkon, as she has some casual EDH appeal).
The one possibly viable walker in the set. It's loyalty abilities aren't anything too special, but being able to Unearth and CoCo it is novel, and it dodges Negates. It's also a cute Commander. I'm not exactly down on it, but I don't really know that it can stay above $10.
Grist put up a better fight than the other two walkers, but still halved in value down to $5. Might be a decent spec for the future, but for now, nothing's really able to take great advantage of it.
- Most Suspend cards, Academy Manufactor, Diamond Lion, Chitterspitter, Squirrel Mob, Charmaw, Kavu, Carth, Garth, Zabaz, Lonis, Dockhand...
I fully expect these to tank to pure or near-bulk status. They're just too narrow and/or stone unplayable to not have their value sucked up even more by fetches. Resurgent Belief and Profane Tutor might hold their heads up above the water because they're Suspend 2 (I think Cascade decks are just gonna stick with Living End or Footfalls, meaning I'm expecting a couple commander decks to actually just suspend these). Kavu could possibly find a home in some 4/5C deck that mostly just wants a cheap beater with gravy. Manufactor could actually do some weird combo stuff but that's way above my head. That said, realistically I can't foresee the conditions being right for most of these.
Pretty spot-on aside from Manufactor, which saw significant demand from AFR-borne EDH treasure decks and has started to rise, and Profane Tutor, which has some big casual EDH appeal I guess? The rest went to bulk or near-bulk, as predicted (I feel for anyone who's pulled Garth). I don't dislike Kavu, Lonis, Charmaw, Chitterspitter, and Resurgent Belief at bulk prices, but the rest are pretty hard sells for me even now.
These mythics are played, but I'm thinking they're gonna have to come down given how narrow they are, once Fetches start soaking up value. Chatterfang especially only has Commander appeal.
Very wrong on Regent, a little wrong on Kaldra, and correct on the others. Regent ended up being a staple of Izzet decks in Modern and Legacy alike. Kaldra ended up being a one-of in Stoneforge decks which was enough to keep it from tanking, but it still went down about 40%. The others, especially Svyelun, halved or worse.
I've been snatching up all of these that I could pick up in stacks for close to $1.25 or lower, mostly the sketch versions that folks aren't really paying attention to. It's among the better single-target reanimation spells out there, IMO only really worse than Reanimate, Animate Dead, and maybe Necromancy. It's starting to go back up at time of writing, but I think it's possible it may dip again during the dead cat bounce's fall before getting snatched up again. Even with EV going down, I don't see a world where one of the better reanimation spells printed is below $2 for an extended period of time.
Grabbing Persists (about 80) at the prices I did ended up not being a terrible idea, but it's yet to really pay off. I still think they're underpriced, but my wallet's tapped out on them for the moment.
It's Oubliette but a three-mana boardwipe. Commanders can't be put into the command zone as a replacement effect when phasing out, which, aside from it being three mana, is where most of the appeal is. Vanishing is pretty much a non-issue here - 99% of the time, OOT leaves the battlefield because of Naturalize. This does not seem like a sub-$1 card to me.
I still love the card and it being near-bulk is astounding to me. It's still significantly better than many of the crappy MH2 rares at or near its price. I went in for nearly 200 at an average of ~$.38.
On one hand, I don't think it has the broad appeal of something like Persist, but on the other, there really aren't as many low-cost grave tutors out there as there are reanimation spells. We have Entomb and Buried Alive competing with it, and that's about it. Nothing else directly comparable with it in Modern either. Keep an eye on it.
I bought a decent handful of these at or near the $1 floor, and they've gone up to about $2.50 and still seem to have a good bit of buying pressure on them. Card's good.
Given how many interesting things you can do with it, I think this has to find a home eventually. Make Death's Shadow a 13/13. Blank Spell Queller just before it's death. Effectively counter Snapcasters. Remove Infect and Prowess. Stick a Kroxa for 1UBR. Completely screw over any of the mythic Elemental Incarnations in the set. Basically skip the Amulet Titan or Stoneblade player's turn. Break out of a Death & Taxes lock. Stall a Commander. It's a situational card, but there are a lot of relevant situations. Crucially, it replaces itself - at absolute worst, you cycle it for 1U. That said, I'm waiting for a few days to pick up more of these.
This card is the big buzz in MTGFinance at the time that I write this. I picked up about 80 in total for $.25 each. As of writing, we're in the middle of a buyout on these and they've gone for as much as $7 now, just a bit over what you could buy an Ignoble Hierarch for. Dress Down currently sees some experimentation in Modern Grixis Shadow, is a 3/4-of in Legacy Miracles, and sees a (very) modest amount of EDH play. I think by play metrics, it's an underrated card, but upwards of $7 and beginning to rival Hierarch, Subtlety, Voidwalker, and Yavimaya is clearly a buyout, followed by intense FOMO - It's at the price I'd've expected it to have been after a year or so, not two months out from release. However, just because it's a buyout doesn't mean it won't be or hasn't been successful. Indeed, Card Kingdom already raised their buylist prices to up to $1.75 for normal versions at one point, and are currently sitting at $1.35 for both normal and sketch versions, with plenty of stock they're willing to buy. I'd fully expect them to raise their prices in the coming days, as the demand is evidently real enough to profit off of relatively safely. The main two questions regarding the card right now are where the top is, and where it will settle when it comes down. Given how hard it's clowning on the rest of MH2, and the fact that I've never seen a buyout and spike of this order on a previously bulk rare from an in-print, just-released set like this before, I have no good answers to those questions. It's possible that the spike brings more attention to what I believe is an underrated card, and organic demand will increase as it sees more experimentation. It's also possible that this causes copycat buyouts on similar underdog MH2 cards. I certainly don't know for sure.
I'm good to pick these up when they become bulk. They seem to be a step above crap like Magus of the Bridge, Calibrated Blast, and Necrogoyf, in that they'll still be dirt cheap when the MH2 hype dies down, but they'll actually have a chance at future gains.
I ended up picking up a fair amount of Piru, Search, and Moderation at their bottoms, of which I'm most optimistic about Piru, given she's an elder dragon and can go in pretty much any Mardu EDH deck with varying degrees of success. Didn't pick up Dermotaxi in numbers and I don't expect I will unless it goes below $.10 somehow. I'm kinda eyeing Master of Death as being copies 5-8 of Squee, and Wonder at bulk prices doesn't seem too bad to me either.
Other things I didn't mention but that caught me off guard were Endurance climbing to ~$35 (I knew it was good, but I wasn't expecting second-best-non-fetch-card-in-the-set good), Ignoble Hierarch being as low as it's gotten (you can pick up sketch versions for about $7 right now), and Asmora being pretty low (I've gotten her as low as $.50, and she's the co-star of a fairly successful Modern archetype right now).
My Review and Analysis of the Entire Reserved List
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