Price 'spikiness' of M13

In a continued discussion of M13 value, @Kirblar024 made this comment on Twitter today:

This got the attention of Zac Hill (@zdch), and I want to comment on it. Now, I can only guess as to what Ian means, so my perception of what he's alluding to may be very different than his eventual expanded commentary. In any case, it got me thinking, so here's my take on it.

The 'spiky' characteristic (as I imagine it to be) refers to the distribution of card value across the set. A spiky set will see a few very expensive cards, with the majority of the cards in the set being low-value, where a 'flat' set would see many more card values being closer to the average price. Let's start off by comparing M13 to Avacyn Restored.

AVR's mythics were, from a value standpoint, pretty solid in my opinion. The following mythics are either playable in a relevant constructed format, big casual favorites, or both: Avacyn, Bonfire, Entreat the Angels, Gisela, Griselbrand, Sigarda, Tamiyo, and Temporal Mastery. (Bruna, Tibalt, and Craterhoof are not terrible pulls either.) If there are eight out of fifteen mythics you're happy to pull, that's above-average. By comparison, ISD had three: Garruk Relentless, Geist of Saint Traft, Liliana of the Veil. Sets rarely have eight mythics worth more than $5 or $6 a month after release, so AVR is definitely doing well on that front. Additionally, all of the rares that I would consider opening in AVR: Cavern of Souls, Restoration Angel, Silverblade Paladin, Terminus, Vexing Devil, Wolfir Silverheart, and Zealous Conscripts. Seven rares is not spectacular, but it's not atrocious either.  (There are maybe four rares you would be happy to see in an ISD pack, and that's pushing it. That does not include the land cycle, because lands are always a stronghold of value, and there is no land comparison in AVR.) In total, that puts AVR at eight mythics and seven rares, for fifteen total rare-slot cards you would be happy to pull.

Looking at mythics for M13, we get nine: Ajani, Akroma's Memorial, Garruk, Jace, Liliana, Nicol Bolas, Sublime Archangel, Thundermaw Hellkite, and Vampire Nocturnus. That's higher than AVR, but remember that AVR has been out for about 3 months now, and M13 hasn't even officially released yet. In a month, I wouldn't be surprised to see half of those cards drop into the 'I wish this was a different mythic' category. That's obviously speculation, and hard to quantify, but perception of value is just as important as the real value (and one could argue that 'real' value is just the aggregate of 'perception' value, but that's a whole other discussion). Onto the rares: Gilded Lotus, Master of the Pearl Trident, Talrand, Thragtusk, and Yeva. That's five, and I feel like most are already on the cusp of wishing they were something else.

So in total, that is fourteen cards in M13 we're happy to see, compared to the fifteen in AVR. Factor in where M13 may be in a month, and my rough guess puts it closer at six or seven to fifteen. Why does it seem like M13 will be so low in a month though?

The largest factor is reprints. The set of lands is on their fourth printing. They may be spectacular for the game and exactly the type of land that standard needs, but even the revised duals couldn't sustain much value if you printed them in four core sets in a row. Three planeswalker reprints, of which only one has ever been relevant. Gilded lotus, a casual/EDH favorite, is on it's second printing. Intrepid Hero: fourth print. This is Mutilate's third time around, Quirion Dryad's third, Redirect and Reverberate's 3rd and 4th, Serra Avenger's 2nd, and Silklash Spider's third. That is a lot of extra copies of those rares in circulation that is definitely suppressing their value. Those reprints I listed are just the cards that I feel MAY have had value if it was their first time around. There are other reprints as well, but I don't think they would have been worth much even if they were brand new.

That is only half of the spiky factor, though. The other half is the few cards that may be all-stars in constructed formats, and generate a great deal of demand. The banner card at this point for prospective long-term value and playability is Thundermaw Hellkite. A lot of people have talked about how good the card is, so I won't discuss that. I simply want to recognize it as what could likely be the most valuable card in the set in three weeks time. What does that have to do with price spikiness, though? Well, if there is only two or three mythics that are any good at all, and the rest of the set has had it's value massively suppressed by reprints, it means a lot of value is going to get pushed upward. When a fat person puts on a girdle, it doesn't get rid of the fat, it just pushes it elsewhere. In this case, it's going straight up. If an AVR box and an M13 box are both $90, then the market is going to try it's damndest to set the average value of both sets as close to each other as possible. When 95% of the set is incapable of holding any real value due to reprints, that leaves only a few places to put the weight of that $90 box: squarely on the shoulders of Thundermaw Hellkite and maybe two other mythics. The reason Griselbrand isn't a $40 mythic is because he's surrounded by a lot of other playable/popular mythics that help prevent him from climbing like a rocket. (Bonfire is currently $30, but I believe that is a short-term high, and it will drop closer to $18-$25 in a few weeks.)

As I write all of this, I realize a source of tension I hadn't considered in this light before that Wizards has to deal with: reprints. Reprints may be fantastic for the actual gameplay (such as the M10 lands), or they may be casual favorites (Battle of Wits, Gilded Lotus), or they may be utility cards (Mutilate). Whatever they are though, their value is constrained by the number of copies in the world, and they will find it impossible to climb much in value. The tension for Wizards is that they may really want these cards in a core set, but the grim reality is that they are going to actively drive down the value of packs. Of course, as players, we feel the outcome of their decision. Standard is a better format, but my 40 M10 lands just dropped $2 each. I'm really happy I can finally pick up a Gilded Lotus for my EDH deck, but my friend's foil copy just halved in value. Reprints are really, really tricky: Everyone wants them, and they typically contribute to the health of the format, but they're almost never worth any money.

At the end of the day, Thundermaw Hellkite has the potential to be a price spike. He could hit $40 as a four-of in many standard decks, which is a losing proposition for everyone, and starts drawing comparisons to Baneslayer's first visit to standard, or a smaller-scale JMS. Nobody wants $50 and $60 cards in standard. There is no real way to stop it from happening, unfortunately, unless the set the card is in has a more evenly-distributed value. Which means very few reprints. Which means not giving players what they want, and not being able to use core set space for exactly what it's intended for. I don't know the solution to the problem, and I'm not sure Wizards does either.

The Value (or lackthereof) of Drafting M13

Today was the first day I drafted M13, and it may in fact be the last. This is in no way a statement on the quality of the format. After one draft, there is certainly no way I can say how enjoyable the environment is. My comment, instead, is a reflection on the value of the set.

Flipping through the TCGPlayer values for every card, I find that there are currently six cards worth more than $10, and five of them are mythic. The one rare is Thragtusk, at $12. The five mythics vary between $10 (Nocturnus) and $30 (Ajani). Every other rare in the set is below $10, and only a few approach $5 or more. Keep in mind as well that the set isn't even officially out yet, and sets almost as a rule drop in overall value from now until they rotate. Additionally, with a little light speculating, things seem even worse. There are four real big mythics - Ajani, Sublime Archangel, Liliana, and Thundermaw. It's reasonable to assume all four of those will drop, and in the case of Ajani and Liliana, I can see them both under $10 in one to two months.

This isn't about speculating on prices, however. It's more about both the retail and 'perceived' value of the set (I'll get to perceived in a minute). After the draft, I tweeted my observations:

I triggered a bit of discussion, and one @nex3 came forward to discuss some data he had. Given the data he compiled (which is very rough at the moment), here is the value of M13 relative to the last two years or so:

SOM - No Data
MBS - Less Value
NPH - More Value
M12 - Less Value
ISD - More Value
DKA - No value
AVR - No Value

So MBS and M12 were worth less at their prerelease than M13, while NPH and ISD were worth more. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that DKA was worth less than M13 as well, but I'm willing to venture that AVR was worth more overall at it's prerelease, and will show to have held it's value better than M13 will in the coming weeks. I would also consider AVR to be the most relevant set to compare to, as it's the format  we've been drafting for the last two months or so.

The comparison of all of this data is mostly to set a backdrop for what our draft group encountered today. The overall mood of the eight of us was resoundingly 'Ugh, this is it?' When we laid out all of the rares and foils to pick from after the draft, we found that beyond first place, there was basically nothing. First got a Thundermaw, but second place got a Master of the Pearl Trident. Second place got a $4.50 card. After forking over $10 for a draft set, that's pretty brutal. The last AVR draft we did, our ten man group ended up with 8th place taking a $7 card. That was undoubtedly the best payout we saw from all our AVR drafts. However, frequent sentiment at AVR drafts was how deep the value ran, not how shallow it was.

Perhaps we ran poorly today, and as a group pulled below the average value of the set. Perhaps our lifetime average on AVR was high, and we ran better than most did. I absolutely recognize the possibility of anecdotal evidence here. Working on the assumption that our experiences have not been too many deviations from standard, however, leads to a possible issue: There is little to no financial incentive to draft M13.

I would love to to be at a place in my life where I can draft solely for the sake of drafting, with no considerations for the value of the cards that I end up with when I finish. Unfortunately I, along with the rest of my draft group, don't quite have that luxury. We're a group in the age range of 18-30, and of the 15 or so regulars, I don't think a single person makes more than $45,000/year. More than half have no real source of income (student/unemployed). If the value of the set is low, it gets difficult to justify the $10 for packs needed. Sure, you're probably ahead if you win, but if it feels like even second place won't get you your $10 back, then it gets real tough to justify that expense every time. There's already a bias against lower-income areas on flat-rate goods (The cost of a pack is about $3, whether you're in the poorest city in Tennessee or any other more affluent city. Being in Buffalo NY, I'm on the lower end of that scale). When a set has a poor retail value, it is felt more by the poorer Magic players.

Something else that crossed my mind when considering all of this is perceived value in comparison to retail value. Right now, Ajani is $30 from several vendors. However, what is he really worth? He may cost $30 to buy, but what if you don't know anyone that wants to trade for the card? He quickly starts to look less attractive when you consider that the general consensus is that his price is going to drop pretty hard. We encounter the same concerns for the new Liliana. Sure, her price sticker may be $20, but if there isn't a market for trading the card locally, and you think that she is only going to become less valuable in time, then the card quickly appears less valuable than what she's 'worth.' Perhaps what we are seeing is a delay between the retail value of the cards and their actual value. It was easy to see how Bonfire of the Damned and Entreat the Angels could demand $15-$25 price tags. It's a lot tougher to imagine Ajani maintaining that figure in a month.

I want to make it clear that I'm not blaming Wizards for this. They claim they pay no attention to the secondary market when developing cards and sets. I don't know that I completely believe that, but I think that for the most part, that is correct. Even if they wanted to, I don't know how feasible that would be. Wizards just ships the packs; we all decide how much the cardboard is really worth.

At the end of the day, this all boils down to one question: Is it worth it for me to put my $10 towards an M13 draft set, when I feel like there's very little likelihood of me profiting, much less breaking even? I understand that a question like this is going to vary for every person, as nobody's finances are the same. Those of us that are forced to consider the set in that light, however, may find that we are better off waiting for the greener pastures of shocklands in Return to Ravnica.

'Grey Areas' at FNM

Recently at FNM, I encountered a situation in which I found myself at a crossroads of social allowances and official MTG rules. On turn two, my opponent played an artist-signed Sword of War and Peace. I followed with a foil Sword of War and Peace of my own. I joked that mine did more damage because it was shiny. He responded by saying that not only was his signed by the artist, but was even more special. He then slid the card out of the sleeve, and showed me the back of the card: it was white, with a pen sketch on it. The card was an artist proof he picked up at the last GP he attended. I wasn't sure how to react, so I said nothing. He slid the card back into the sleeve, untapped, equipped it to his birds, and the game continued from there.

The issue here is the use of an artist proof card at FNM. Because the card does not have an official MTG back, it is not legal for tournament use. Plain and simple, with no room for interpretation at all. At a PT, GP, or even PTQ, I wouldn't hesitate to call a judge. However, at FNM, even though it's still technically against the rules, do you call your opponent out on it?

Nobody wants to be 'that guy.' You don't want to rules lawyer a 12 year old because she accidentally stacked her Hero of Bladehold triggers wrong, even though she knew the eventual outcome worked (both tokens receiving the battle cry bonus.) However, if a player is blatantly cheating by knowingly drawing extra cards, you are for sure going to call him out on it, alerting everyone else in the room, and especially the TO/judge. The issue, however, is where does it become socially - not technically - acceptable to enforce certain rules?

This particular FNM I was playing at is pretty laid back. The store owner runs the shop because he loves comics, not because he wants to run a thriving MTG business. The players are quite casual, with maybe 10% of the entire 25-40 people on any given Friday having played in a PTQ before. My opponent in question was a 40-something dad who brings his 14 year old son. The dad plays for fun, and it's evident in his play (as well as the play of many people in the room). Drawing before upkeep, mostly ignoring changing of priority, and so forth. Basically the rules knowledge and adherence of a player that recently made the jump from the kitchen table to the local FNM scene. He is a friendly guy that everyone enjoys chatting with. He isn't that one jerk in every store that you would love to nail to the wall for any rules infraction you can. A casual dad who just wants to play a few games of Magic every Friday night with his son - is it worth risking making him, and potentially other players at the store, really upset because you told him that he can't play that one card? Maybe you inform him of the rules, and he just goes 'oh man I had no idea, I'll take it out right now' and there is no fuss. That isn't guaranteed though, and if the public opinion about it's acceptability is against you, you're going to look like a dick.

What I find myself considering is the 'slippery slope' concept. One artist proof SoWaP in a 75 card standard deck isn't an atrocious violation. But what about two cards? Five? 40? What if it's not an artist proof, but a basic land with a picture of SoWaP printed out and glued to the front? How about sharpie on a draft common? The tricky part here is identifying the line. You probably aren't letting someone sit down across from you with a 75-card UW Delver deck that is entirely proxied. Somewhere you have to decide how many cards is acceptable and how many isn't. Without any sort of official proxy ruling posted by the store, what is your guideline? At what point do you decide 'ok, I'm going to say something to this guy.'

Then there is the cost of the card as a factor. At the time of my writing, SoWaP is $25-$30 on TCGPlayer. Three weeks ago, I'm pretty sure it was over $30, and at some point, the card was over $40. That isn't chump change. I wanted to run four Bonfire of the Damned this past Friday, but I didn't, because I only owned three. So I played three. I didn't want to spend the money on the card, so I don't get to play with it. That's part of playing Magic competitively, at any level - it costs money to compete and own these things. We all know it, and we (mostly) accept it as part of the cost of admission. But what if it's a really cheap card? If someone shows up with four checklist cards but only three Delvers, and the store is out of that common, are you really going to give the guy a hard time for running all four checklist cards? The card is $0.05. At that point the player isn't missing the card due to financial concerns, or even general card availability (some cards are just difficult to find, even if they're cheap. Next time at FNM, see how many people can trade you a playset of Daze.) By accident he only grabbed three Delvers on the way out the door, and the store doesn't happen to have any left in stock. If you try to tell him he can only play with three checklist cards, both he and the store owner are going to tell you to buzz off. So, just like quantity of proxies, what is an acceptable social dollar amount to proxy at FNM? If you proxy 20 commons in your deck and their grand total value is $6, is that better or worse than the guy with the single artist proof SoWaP?

I genuinely am still not sure how to feel about this. I don't want to be a jackass, I really don't. This is a guy who just wants to play some Magic on a Friday night with his son. He isn't crushing the event - I don't think he has ever received a payout at FNM. Yes, technically what he is doing is against the rules - but in this atmosphere, does it matter? What would you do in this situation?