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Oh Spoiler Season. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. As a trader, I love offering people options to lock in pre-order prices on trades in exchange for cards now. As a dealer, I'm looking forward to selling my first round of pre-orders with Mirrodin Besieged. They're a wonderful financial instrument that helps savvy folk leverage the time value of money and engage in a form of speculation only available for a few weeks out of the year. There are some serious risks involved, but with proper hedging, almost all of these risks can be ameliorated. Unfortunately, most stores are pricing pre-orders somewhere in the upper stratosphere. Is that the Hubble Deep Field telescope that just bumped into me? Only a fool would place pre-orders at some of these prices.
Today we're going to look at some charts. Charts are awesome, since they give us a visualization of raw data. While we could all study spreadsheets, let's be honest. Charts have pretty colors and make us look smart. I'm going to use data from the Black Lotus Project to do some analysis. Black Lotus Project uses data originally gathered from Ebay, which I consider to be a relevant and accurate indicator of the open market. While a single data point from Ebay is not perfect, a large sample size will give a fairly accurate trend line. Prices cited are approximate, as there is no need to specify accuracy to two decimal places. I'm only using graphs for cards that experienced a large change from release price to current price.
Some sites pre-sold her for $40. $40. If you bought a stock, and it went from $40 to $12 in the span of two months, you'd hire a thug to break your broker's kneecaps. To be fair, actual recorded prices showed her starting at $20, but that should serve to underscore just how badly out-of-alignment her $40 presale price was. If you bought Elspeth at anything above $20, you were a damned fool. Buying at $20 is forgivable, because she'll easily command that price again if a deck decides to use her. That could happen in Extended, but she has yet to demonstrate her playability. Result: Massive loss.
No chart is included because he's stayed around $1-$2 since release. Some sites presold him above $5, and he was sighted at $8 when the spoiler was fresh. What a joke. In what universe is this card more than a $2 Mythic Rare? Maybe in Magical Christmas Land, where everyone makes money and no one pays any attention to frivolities like logic or reason. If you bought on Ebay at $2, you probably don't care at all. If you pre-ordered at $5+, you feel like a total moron, as well you should. Result: Massive loss.
This trend line looks familiar. Oh wait, it's a straight, steep downward slope. Thank goodness for that long tail at the end that cut our losses, or else we'd owe money to organized crime. Yes, a 3/4 Angel with a cool ability is highly desirable. No, a 4-drop that needs 3 other cards to be even remotely relevant is not an expensive card in the making. Much like Geth, this Mythic Rare started at $8 on many sites, but fell quickly. Considering the card is $2 on the open market, anyone who preordered it, at all, for any price, got hosed. Result: Wait for it....
MASSIVE LOSS! Who knew?
Mmm, my favorite Planeswalker in the set. Koth is everything I love about Red, and he even gives Red Decks a long game. He's yet to find a home in Standard, but I am confident he will, eventually. He's got a long time left on his tenure, and then Extended calls. There's no way that a Planeswalker that begins life as a 4/4 haste (that dodges Condemn, even) doesn't get some play. Regardless, the graph looks no different than the last few. Are you seeing a trend here? Another Planeswalker that pre-sold for $30+, if you preordered for much more, you took a bath (something I wish more Magic players would do, but that's another article entirely). If you bought in at $30, you didn't do too badly, only spending 50% more than you had to. That earns Koth a special place on the trophy shelf: the first Mythic Rare that didn't incur a massive loss. Result: Moderate Loss. Once again, however, if you lost 50% of your money in two months, you'd call your favorite hit man to kill your broker. Sad times.
There's nothing to say. If you paid money for this card, at any time, close this window and go for a walk. You're not ready for this stuff. Sorry, pal.
You have no idea how dissapointed I was to see that the French version wasn't named "Cannon Deluxe". Maybe I'm just a jerk, but that's almost good as a French Wild Mongrel. Anyway, have a peek at that chart. The results might surprise you. Just kidding, they're the damned same as the rest. Preorders started well above $5, Ebay started at $4, and they have settled at the consensus "almost bulk" Mythic price of $2. Result: M-M-M-M-MONSTER LOSS! Are you even surprised anymore? At this rate, we might as well just go to the bank, get a roll of quarters, and flush them down the toilet one by one. At least you'll get the satisfaction of watching the little guys spin around before your money disappears into Davvy Jones' Locker.
Oh, good, a Mythic Rare that was printed in a highly available set that has almost no constructed applications whatsoever. For in depth financial analysis, go check out Liege of the Tangle and ponder your actions on your meditative stroll.
This is getting sad. I don't mean like "sad clown" sad. I mean like "Bambi's Mom Dies" sad. I mean "Any David Spade Movie" sad. I mean poigniantly sad. There are real people out there that literally just spent too much money for almost no gain. Now I realize well that people who buy Ebay cards in the beginning, at release, might have needed them for events, but the people who pre-ordered basically just gave the dealers a loan with NEGATIVE INTEREST. Here's $20, and you can just pay me back with $10 later. No prob, brah. Molten-Tail Masticore is in the same category as Koth of the Hammer; he started preselling at $20, debuted at 75% of that, and is now about half that. Ideally, you bought closer to $15, and you will still pay around $12 for one, so really, you only incurred small losses. Result: Small-to-Moderate Loss.
I don't want to talk about it.
No, seriously, I really don't want to talk about it. One of my employees bought some of these at $30 from a customer. We usually pay half of retail or so on cards we have in-stock, slightly more if we're running low. My current buy price is around $8. I don't want to talk about it. Result: I said I don't want to talk about it.
Platinum Emperion, Quicksilver Gargantuan
Irrelevant to the discussion, and almost no one disagreed since no one pre-ordered more than one of each for EDH. Even if you did, shame on you. My buy price on each is 50 cents. You'd need to sell me one of each to buy a bottle of water. Yes, these are worth less than water, which is largely free. Result: You dumb.
With apologies to all of my editors, and curses to Wizards, I managed to spell Skithiryx correctly for the first time today! It's easy: "Control-C"! Skithiryx's chart isn't terribly interesting, only showing a 25% decline in Ebay value. He presold for well above $10, but overall, you didn't do too poorly on Skitherz if you did pre-order later in the season. As an aside, if poison becomes a Tier 1 strategy, you might look to him to be your rebound girl. Result: Small-to-Medium Loss
Another boring chart, Sword of Body and Mind has lost about 50% from its presale high. It was also included in the From the Vault: Relics set, which saw it debut at $10+. The hype died, the card saw play as a 1-of in some decks, and now it's hovering around $6. You likely got in slightly below $10, especially if you were doin' it Ebay style, so this is the first card that gets a respectable rating. Result: Small Loss.
Venser's chart is another one that's not to exciting; take a piece of paper, and draw a line that goes from the top left to the bottom right. There ya go. How's that for reader interaction. For fun, let's all post our best Scars of Mirrodin chart mockups! On second thought, don't. No one will care. Though the presales at $30+ didn't last long, there had to be a few people out there that bought a copy or four up there. Good job! You could have had them at $20 when they debuted, and for around $14 now. Result: Massive loss on preorders, Minor loss on release orders.
I'd feel lazy if I didn't give you one more chart, and Wurmcoil Engine is one of the few cards on this list that is seeing play, didn't lose a massive amount of value in a short period of time, and the only card for which I will not chastise you. While, yes, preordering at $10 was a bad idea considering you got one for free at a Prerelease, which saturated the market, you still didn't tank too badly. You lost maybe 25%, which sucks, but it's not enough to give it a bad rating. Rating: Minor Loss
I'm not one for lengthy, obtuse conclusions, so I'm going to leave you with two parting thoughts. First, there were zero cards on this list that broke even or posted a gain. Zero. That's less than one. There was no case in which it was correct to pre-order a Mythic Rare, and it was rarely even just a "bad" idea to buy them at release. In most cases, you experience catastrophic losses. Second, the only card that didn't really hurt you too badly was Wurmcoil Engine, which is a powerful and universally playable card. It was also priced modestly due to being the Prerelease promo. Widely playable and modestly priced. Small losses. It seems to be the only card from the set that fits the bill. Remember all of these things next time you aim to pre-order some cards. You might find yourself better suited hitting the bank and getting that roll of quarters after all.
