Hi, I’m TERROl2. Yes, that is the name my parents gave to me when I was born.
If you believe that, stop reading and check yourself into some sort of mental institution.
I ran a hedge fund at a young age and have always made algorithms for stocks and used that to make a fairly successful hedge fund. After I closed my fund, I found myself playing online poker. When they shut down online poker (apparently they were a fraud and stealing millions or something like that) I needed to fill a hole in my schedule and found myself playing MTGO.
Now I started ‘collecting’ MtG when I was really young. I was into comic books and when my dad would go to the store, the guy at the comic book store told my dad to buy packs of cards because they would be worth something some day. Well they were packs of Beta and I was getting about 3 packs a day because I loved the pictures. I then played till about Planeshift.
Then I come back to a game that is completely different than what I had left. Planeswalkers, deck lists online, no more Type 1 and Type 2, weird cards that did stuff, etc… But what I noticed above all else is two things.
1) Originality was lacking immensely. Everyone was playing either the exact same deck or the exact same deck with extra promo cards. Deck variation and originality was lacking so much I was embarrassed at the ingenuity of mankind.
2) Bots existed, and focused on making Magic all about profit and less about the fun of the game. This disappointed me. When I was a kid, nothing was more fun than going through my cards during the week and taking new decks to play with every Saturday.
So I had an idea. Why not take my stock trading ability, algorithms needed to trade stocks could be easily tweaked for Magic, and Economic knowledge, combine that with my knowledge of MtG and bring that to the game. It actually worked.
And this is a big secret, but I also did something people very rarely do anymore. I read the cards. Wizards of the Coast makes every card for a reason (except [card]Riot Devils[/card]), so if you just look and read your cards, you have the best chance of winning.
Now when it comes to buying and selling cards, I believe 99% of people can actually afford to play competitively. So what I would like to do is talk about cards before they go up in price. This is easier to do than you think. All you need to do is understand the game, how the bots work, and what you are comfortable buying something for. Or maybe you see something someone else doesn’t. I mean someone has to find the next new deck before everyone else starts copying it, why can’t it be you?
———————————————————————————————————————
So let’s start with something that (Family Guy reference) really Grinds My Gears: and that is the card everyone loves. Snappy the Snapcasting Mage A.K.A. [card]Snapcaster Mage[/card] A.K.A Jeff.
WotC FINALLY made a smart decision and made this a rare, and not a Mythic. If it was a mythic, it would be $50 a piece, and Classic players would be using the $100 foiled version.
But the point is that Snappy is a rare. The market is flooded with them, yet the price hasn’t dropped. Based on my math, Snappy should be a $4-$5 card. There are a ton of them on the market.
The only thing I can tell you is that Snapcaster is being manipulated like the Chinese currency. The Bots have a massive amount of these cards, and need to sell them for some sort of profit after buying them originally for $12-$14.
They won’t make this money back, but they can try. I would suggest that you sell your Snapcasters if you can online for $7 a piece while they are still high because it is only a matter of supply and demand until it starts to drop. Although when it hits that $4 mark, I consider it a buy as a long term investment. It will go up eventually just like the cards from SOM are doing, but right now, it is overpriced, so if you buy it I will smack you upside the head.
Now today, WotC “accidentally” released spoilers from the next set in the ISD block, which is Dark Ascension, you all know that, so why the *%&$ did I just write all that. Regardless.
First off, Zombies are this seasons “Little Black Dress”. Gravecrawler is the new [card]Bloodghast[/card]. If this is what Zombies are going to look like, I am really thinking about Zombie Aggro. I am talking Zombie Ramp. Yeah, I went there. Just look at current zombies.
[card]Glissa, the Traitor[/card]
[card]Phyrexian Crusader[/card]
[card]GrimGrin, Corpse-Born[/card]
[card]Grave Titan[/card] poops out Zombies.
Etc…
What does this tell me? Well let’s see, I will say this with a straight face. ZOMBIE AGGRO (Although I am not sure what Agriculture has to do with Magic, but ok). Liliana makes you discard, but black was lacking creatures to protect it. Well feel free to sack away and they come right back asking for more. It also works nicely with GrimGrin for Block Constructed, but with Liliana on the board on turn 3, ways to protect it, and putting pressure on your opponent, Liliana should be considered cheap at around $19 because she can not only control your opponent, but if she gets to ultimate, ouch. Just plain ouch.
The next thing you need to buy is…
[card]Hex Parasite[/card]?
Well WotC has released a new mechanic called Undying. When a creature with undying goes into the graveyard, it returns with a +1/+1 counter. So let’s look at the possibilities. It sounds like undying will be a green thing revolving around humans and spirits. But if you can get the counters off your creatures, they can keep going in for the kill. So bye bye [card]Go for the Throat[/card]. You can also use it to activate Garruk, kill one of your creatures, flip Garruk, creature comes right back but bigger.
Then use a card like [card]Hex Parasite[/card], which is playable in any deck thanks to the Phyrexian mana cost, you can then use Garruk to sacrifice your “undying” creatures and get bigger and angrier creatures. It is like having a living [card]Green Sun’s Zenith[/card].
So for less than $2, you can get yourself a playset and see if this fits into the future deck lists for STD since I have always been a huge fan of mono-green or at least some sort of Green or White weenie deck.
Onto the next mechanic, we have Fateful Hour. This doesn’t make much sense to me. I mean when you are about to die, you get special stuff. The card they have released so far is a white card that has this “Fateful Hour” mechanic. Thraben Doomslayer. It’s a 2/2 for 3, poops out 1/1 white creatures, and I kind of forget, or just not care about its fateful hour trigger.
But this card does have a certain interesting playability. I think it’s a better version of [card]Mayor of Avabruk[card]. I think it not only fits perfectly with the current W/u Deck in STD, but also works in both the G/W and R/W ISD Block Decks.
The card I see as a good buy is Mikaeus. I mean lots of fast small white creatures, making 1/1’s, putting counters on them, it seems to make sense to me. And at a much underpriced $4, I think it’s a great buy. It just seems like a nice addition to the current Standard White Deck currently being played, and is faster and more efficient than [card]Hero of Bladehold[/card].
Well until next time, I am TERROl2.
You can watch my YouTube videos at TERROl2BradCarter (Lower Case L), or contact me by Carrier Pigeon. Until then, I leave you with my………..
Long term buy of the week!!!!!!!!!!!!
ZEN full art lands. I expect these to easily be 0.50 a piece sometime within the next 1-2 years, and is a really solid investment that you can also use in your deck to make your games look prettier. They are between 0.04 cents and 0.08, which makes them affordable and something that you can get now before they skyrocket in price. They are also much better than the Unhinged Lands because there are 4 of each, and you don’t need to mortgage your house to buy them.
Just always remember one thing. If you disagree with me, you are wrong.
It’s Kingdom Come, you ready?