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Fran-tic Search: A Financial Look at Innistrad

About a month ago, I got a job working at a local card shop and comic book store called Phoenix Comics. Before landing a job at Phoenix, I had a decent grasp on the financial aspect of Magic, but now I’ve seen it from a totally different perspective. I’ve now been exposed to a huge subsection of casual players that I was aware of but never fully understood.

With this in mind, today I’m going to take some time to talk about Innistrad and why I think it’s so popular among the masses. I’m also going to go over my opinion some of the cards that make Innistrad great and how I think their prices will change over time.

Innistrad as a whole

At Phoenix Comics, Innistrad has been the highest selling set, as far as boxes sold on opening day, of all time. That comes as a huge surprise to me because, although Innistrad isn’t the worst set by any means, it is not at all the best set in terms of overall power level. With the popularity of Magic at a seeming all-time high, it’s possible that the sales of Innistrad are inflated by the number of buyers more so than due to the specifics of the set itself. Although an increased number of players is definitely a factor, I don’t believe it’s the sole reason for the wild popularity of Innistrad.

When Wizards created Innistrad, they purposefully wanted a set centered around horror. In particular, they knew they wanted tons of flavor as well as hordes of Zombies, Werewolves, and Vampires. Since starting at Phoenix Comics, it has absolutely blown my mind the number of casual players that come in every day looking for cards for their Vampire/Zombie/Werewolf deck. I thought coming in to the job that the hottest cards would be the competitive-oriented cards. However, it might surprise you to know one of the hottest cards at my local card shop is [card]Cemetery Reaper[/card]; we just can’t keep it in stock. Wizards knew that the masses loved these themed cards and have cashed in on that demand by making a set that caters to the desires of these kitchen table gamers.

Individual Cards

In this section I’m going to go over the individual cards that make Innistrad as popular as it is. I’m going to outline the prices and my predicted prices of these cards, as well as a little overview of the cards in particular.

[card]Liliana of the Veil[/card]

Current Price: $70

Predicted Future Price: $35

Liliana is the real deal. This card is definitely over-priced now, but it’s a ruthless, under-costed and can single-handily take over games. Liliana works great in conjunction with [card]Sun Titan[/card] in Solar Flare, but I believe there is huge potential for an agressive deck centered around hand disruption that could pop up and also take advantage of Liliana.

[card]Snapcaster Mage[/card]

Current Price: $30 (Sold out on Starcity)

Predicted Future Price: $25

The general consensus on Snapcaster is that he is over-priced. Most people that I’ve spoken with believe that he is just a rare, and will soon be going down to the $15 range. While I agree that [card]Snapcaster Mage[/card] will be going down, I think he will settle around the $25 range.

I’m sure that anyone who has played with Snapcaster can agree that the guy is ridiculous. He has only been around for a few weeks, but has already proven himself to not only be a Standard superstar, but also a Legacy all-star with multiple decks cropping up looking to take advantage of his unique ability. Also, solely because of the printing of [card]Snapcaster Mage[/card], [card]Riptide Laboratory[/card] has gone from a $5 rare to a $15 rare sold out on Starcity. I believe this is just the beginning of the different decks Snapcaster enables.

[card]Stromkirk Noble[/card]

Current Price: $10 (Sold out on Starcity)

Predicted Future Price: $8

When this guy first hit the scene on the release day, he was a $4 rare, but it didn’t take people long to realize that this guy is a auto 4-of in Mono Red. Stromkirk immediately shot up from a $4 rare to a $10 rare.

Mono red is a legitimate deck, and although it didn’t do very well at the Starcity Nashville Open, I believe it’s still good. A lot of the Solar Flare decks came prepared for Mono Red with maindeck [card]Wurmcoil Engine[/card], [card]Batterskull[/card], and multiple [card]Timely Reinforcements[/card], which hindered Mono Red’s performance greatly. I think Mono Red will be like Legacy Dredge in that as long as people remember to pay the toll, and have hate for Mono Red, they will be able to beat it. However, if people forget to pay the toll and have Mono Red hate on the bench, then Mono Red will be well positioned for success.

[card]Woodland Cemetery[/card], [card]Hinterland Harbour[/card], [card]Clifftop Retreat[/card], [card]Sulfur Falls[/card], and [card]Isolated Chapel[/card]

Current Price: $8-$10

Predicted Future Price $6-$8

These lands are the continuation of the land cycle that started with M10. Although they seem shiny and new now, I believe these are prime candidates for being reprinted in future M1X sets. Due to the potential of reprints, as well as the process of Innistrad being opened and the supply of these cards increasing, I believe they will go down with time.

[card]Mayor of Avabruck[/card]

Current Price: $5 (Sold out on Starcity)

Predicted Future Price: $8

The Mayor, or Nenshi as we call him here in Calgary (Our mayor’s name is Nenshi. Clever, I know), is the card that I think has the highest potential for increases in price. Any casual player would love to add this to their Werewolf theme deck, and they completely eat this guy up. But it’s not only the casual players that lover this guy. The Mayor makes a great 2-drop threat that is literally a 1-man army. I believe their is a huge potential for a draw-go type deck with this guy as the main threat you want to be throwing down on turn 2, and then leave counterspell mana open the next turn allowing you to flip him easily. There are already some RUG decks cropping up that showcase this guy, but I think that’s just the start and this guy has potential to be a serious player. The only thing I believe keeping his price down for the time being is the fact that it was the Prerelease foil.

[card]Bloodline Keeper[/card]

Current Price: $5

Predicted Future Price: $8

This guy has been one of the hottest cards out of the new set at Phoenix Comics. Casual players everywhere have Vampire decks that all want this guy. Although he dones’t have too many applications in constructed yet, I believe the price will be driven up by the casual crowd alone. A great example of a card like this is [card]Vampire Nocturnus[/card] which is worth $20 despite not being standard legal and being the pre-release foil.

[card]Army of the Damned[/card], [card]Endless Ranks of the Dead[/card], and [card]Unbreathing Horde[/card]

These are all cards that are relatively inexpensive, and don’t really have too much room for growth in my opinion, but are great trade fodder for the casual player I’ve been talking about, as well as the EDH crowd.

Well that’s all I’ve got for you today. Hope you learned something!

Thanks for reading!

Francis Toussaint

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