Anyway, on to the money cards of Rise of the Eldrazi.
I checked several major retailers and eBay for the best prices on ROE presales. Unlike many financial blogs, I assume people are somewhat savvy about getting a good deal. In other words, I assume people don't auto-buy from SCG without checking other sites. If you do this, maybe you should put in a little extra work. As it turns out, you can save $40 on a playset of Vengevine if you do. That's not chump change.
Also, the cheapest place, usually, to buy singles is from eBay, so I list that as a source a lot. Although I realize now that it restricts you to getting full playsets, usually, since that's how you get the best deals. For other good deals on singles, check Coolstuffinc and Channelfireball. Well, they're at least better than SCG usually.
Current Pre-Sale prices found from:
CSI (CoolStuffInc)
eBay (Buy It Now prices)
CFB (ChannelFireball)
SCG (StarCityGames)
All price predictions are what I feel will happen 3 months from now. However the prices for ROE will take a longer time to go down because Standard PTQ season is starting in May. Which means cards like Gideon Jura are going to stay where they are (or even go up) in the next month or so. Depending on how certain you are of playing certain cards, if you want to PTQ, I recommend just buying them as singles now. If you wait for prices to drop, it'll be too late by then.
This means that if I say a rare is going to go down, there's still a chance it'll show an increase in price before dropping eventually. If you want to PTQ or play Standard in the next month or so, I would just buy the singles now. The T2 staples aren't going to be getting cheaper in the next month.
Taking my own advice, I just bought Gideons for $33 each and Student of Warfare for $7 each. I'm picking and choosing carefully, however. I'm not going all out and buying Eldrazis and Sarkhans because I'm 98% certain I will not be playing these spells come next month -- based on personal preference and what I think will be relevant in the next Standard season. Even if Eldrazi decks are a contender, I simply have no interest in playing them. But if you know you want to be casting Kozileks or cheating in Emrakuls at PTQs, you should probably buy them now at $12-13. Or, you know, grab some Emrakuls at the Prerelease. Cha-ching.
Card | Price $ | Trend | Discussion |
14 (eBay) | Down (8-) | Good card but narrow in use. | |
12 (CSI/CFB) | Stable/Up | The Prerelease will cool down prices, but I expect regular and Japanese foils to be hot. Beyond the Prerelease, there should still be incredible demand for these, so $11-15 seems a totally reasonable price. | |
13 (eBay) 25 (CFB) 30 (SCG) | Down (15-) | So there’s a huge discrepancy between eBay and other major retailers on Kozilek. The fact he’s actually being sold for $25 at one place and $13 at another is making me raise all kinds of eyebrow. I think $13 is reasonable. Even $15 is okay. But $25? Get real. | |
7 (eBay) 9 (CFB) | Down (6-) | The difference between 10 and 11 is huge in Magic. And people have reduced prices accordingly. I feel Ulamog has nowhere to go but down. | |
33 (eBay) | Down (30-) | The online stores have him at $40, but that’s clearly too high. eBay has measured demand and has put it at $33, which is actually quite reasonable. I suspect Gideon to remain at 32-35 for quite some time since Standard PTQ season is directly on the horizon. And Gideon is the real deal. | |
2 (CFB/SCG) | Down (1-) | Bulk rare. It’s like Marshal’s Anthem – it looks useful and will see play here and there, but more people are going to have these floating in their binders than not. | |
10 | Down (6-) | Has less application than Iona and certainly falls flat in a Jund-infested meta. Seems like she could have sideboard uses, but white has better maindeck role-players. However, she’s legendary, an angel, and has interesting effects in multiplayer, so she will be sought out. | |
7 (eBay) | Stable/Up | High demand counteracted by the fact it is an Intro Pack rare. $7-10 is about the price most people will pay for these. | |
5 (CFB) | Up (7+) | Interestingly, CFB is selling these for a $1 cheaper if you pre-order them, while their regular price is $6. $5 is a GREAT deal on these. They can’t go anywhere but up. White never gets solid 3-drops! | |
2 | A chase uncommon, if you will. But on eBay you can try to grab a cheaper playset. | ||
5 | Down (2-) | Has a very specific niche in casual and multiplayer. | |
Other blue rares | Bulk! Crap! | To be honest, I cannot predict the prices of some of these blue cards with confidence. They all look like bulk rares to me. But who knows? Maybe someone will break Training Grounds. If you are so inclined to go all-in on one of these rares, feel free. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. I like Coralhelm Commander, but that’s it. And Coralhelm doesn’t even have any Merfolk to back it up right now. | |
4 (eBay) | Up (5+) | Even if it only makes it into Jund sideboards, that’s enough reason for it to see a spike. It’s a potent hoser of all white-based creature decks. As well as Ally and Vampire decks. Favorable interaction against manlands as well. | |
5 | Up (6+) | Wow, a while ago this card was in the $2-3 range (when I happened to purchase my playset). Seems like people have caught on to how good this is. It should stabilize at $4-6, but during PTQ season, who knows – could go as high as $8. | |
2 | Down (1-) | Bulk rare. Despite how bomby it is in Limited, it doesn’t make the cut anywhere else. | |
2 | Down (1-) | Bulk rare. Same story as above. I had high hopes for this card, but I’ve realized since then its Level Up cost is severely restrictive. | |
3 (eBay) 6 | Down (2-) | Once a $15 mythic, now dropped to semi-reasonable prices, but it still has room to fall. | |
5 (eBay) | Down (2-) | Bulk Mythic. | |
9 (eBay) | Up (12+) | If you like playing red cards at all, you’re going to want 4 of these. As big of a deal people are making over Vengevine, I think this is actually a Mythic more deserving of the hype. | |
2 | Down (1-) | Might see play here and there for the curious, but that certainly doesn’t mean it’ll cost anything worth writing home about. | |
5 | Stable | I don’t expect this to jump in price anytime soon; it certainly isn’t the next Bitterblossom. Perhaps with Scars of Mirrodin it might be more interesting, but I don’t expect super-crazy things to happen with this card in the next 6 months. $5 is already on the high end for rares; so I’m being generous. | |
1 (CFB) | Stable/Down | I thought it was an uncommon at first. It has room to fall right now. | |
<1 (CFB) | Stable | Bulk rare! | |
<1 (CFB) | Stable | Bulk rare! I expect my binder will pile up an inordinate amount of these… | |
5 (CFB) | Down (3-) | An exciting mythic rare for Timmies everywhere. Which will fortunately be pretty affordable in a few months. | |
6 (CSI) | Down (4-) | Excellent card but not one that can go in just any deck playing green. Nor will playing 4 copies be helpful. It’s narrow but will see play. As a rare, will not be impossible to find copies. | |
5 (eBay) | Down (3-) | Cool design and everything, but manipulating its abilities is going to be more annoying than playing with Vampire Nocturnus. This is just the crappy version of Knight of the Reliquary. | |
6 (eBay) | Down (3-) | All these falling green rares! As much as people want this card to be useful, it just isn’t “Gifts Ungiven.” Not even close. Instant-speed “draw 2” is kind of nifty though, but as people keep saying, it doesn’t fit in the Legacy Lands deck. And in Standard, the lands just aren’t worth all the effort. Without better lands, this is no toolbox. It just draws at instant speed, which is good but not broken. | |
18 (CFB) | Up, then Down (15-) | This card is kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Pros are saying it’s format-bending, so yes, it costs a lot right now. Most places, it’s $20. SCG has it for $30 (lol). It’s like they don’t understand what “having competitive prices” means. Anyway, it’s a great card, but the 4-drop slot is so packed right now. I see it being used in a lot of places, but I also see a lot of people just opting not to use it. And I don’t think they’re automatically going to lose a bunch of games because of that. Vengevine is a powerful option; it’s not a must. It warps the decks that tries to fit them. Thus, instead of adding power to current decks, it actually just changes them into something else – which may or may not be as good as current decks. Again, the price will jump during PTQ season but die in the subsequent months. Get them now if you want them. | |
13 (eBay) | Down (10-) | I could be wrong about this because Sarkhan Vol was one of the most expensive planeswalkers for a while despite not seeing heavy play in Constructed. This guy could very well have that same appeal to noncompetitive players. In T2, its use is very narrow and fitting him in Jund is impossible. So RB will use him, but that alone won’t keep his price up forever. | |
7 (eBay) | Stable | Everyone and their mother will want to play these lands. You don’t have a lot of choice here; if you want to cast big Eldrazi spells, you get these lands. It’s harder to say whether they will be able to maintain this price. |
