Going into this week, I wanted to find a way to integrate Azorius Week with relevant financial information; after all, the Azorius are about law and order, and the financial market had a lot of unknown rules and hidden secrets to uncover. This past weekend, I was at Grand Prix: Philadelphia, or as some of you may know it, Grand Prix: Sandy. While there, a number of financially relevant happenings occurred, including the sudden buyout of Zendikar fetches, particularly the blue ones, as well as various spikes and lulls in Return to Ravnica. Combined with my conversation about segments and how to improve this series with Adam Styborski, I decided a good way to represent the mighty rule over this market was by introducing my new segment.

To put it simply, I am going to begin including a section at the end of each article that will describe briefly why certain cards may be flying under the radar and which are looking at a downward plummet in the near future. Some weeks, I may have only a few cards, while some may be a good part of the entire article. Beyond just calling out price changes, I will be recording the data each week and writing a review article every so often detailing my progress.

By this point, you are probably wondering where I will be gathering my information and how you should be researching your own market trends. There are a multitude of sources that will be used to come up with these informed decisions, some of which I will be covering today, while others I will explain as this section continues.

Jace, Architect of Thought has plateaued at an even $50 for a few weeks now, and it seems that had been the accepted price for that period of time in retail numbers. While this market has held solid, the financial world knows that many price trends come from the player and small-time dealer market. If you look at the price of Jace on eBay or other auction sites, you will see that some copies have been closing in the high twenties, a far cry from the $50 price tag retail sites have been charging.

This may seem rudimentary, but very few people actually consult multiple sites when looking to price a card. If you have a number of sites memorized, at least on high-discrepancy cards, you can take advantage of this information to not only know what to buy and sell, but also to track the trends of the two sites against each other providing you with an idea of how large that window is to play the market.

Moving beyond the obvious methods, I will also be using metagame analysis. Though this may sound simple, there is actually a finite amount of time to profit from this method, meaning you always need to be a few steps ahead.

Whenever the market plateaus, it is usually a good indicator for a card such as Entreat the Angels that its fifteen minutes have given way to another finisher that is probably an answer to its predecessor—such as the Hellkite. If you can see these patterns before the general public, you may just catch that window.

Among the less certain calls are cards such as Thragtusk. With the tusk ruling the current format, the $25 price tag is understandable. This new price barrier for rares has been a recent emergence that began with Snapcaster Mage and Cavern of Souls, both breaking $30 at some point.

This is not to say I believe you should be picking up cards like Thragtusk expecting to sell them for more, given the opportunity to obtain some below retail, though; I would consider it for just the trade value alone.

Other situations can show the same information to provide a much different outcome even if just on speculation. I have noticed a severe drop in sales over the past week of Modern staples. This may be due to various factors—including the hype of the Pro Tour winding down combined with the announcement of Modern Masters. I understand the fear of these inevitable reprints in the coming future, but I do not believe that means it is the time to stop buying product while the price is down.

The initially apparent cards to target are the ones beyond the range from this round of possible reprints. Although that is a fine—and safe—way to approach the market, it also provides very little time to pick up the cards you believe will spike. If you miss this window, you need to look at cards within the boundaries for some quick money. I would begin by analyzing the format as a whole, including event coverage and price trends. If you notice a card is seeing heavy play but has either dropped in price due to the initial scare or has not caught up with the market, it may be time to move in. The format has not shaped enough from the Pro Tour to allow me to say for certain any cards are good pickups, but expect some news on this after the coming Grand Prix in Chicago.

Before I depart this week, I want to talk about the Modern Masters contest I covered last week. I still haven’t decided on a prize, but I have the rules and e-mail set up, so let’s get this thing rolling. I want a list of the mythics you believe will be in Modern Masters as well as a short one- or two-sentence description as to why you believe those cards will get the nod. I will be taking submissions through the first of the year, but tiebreakers will be decided based on who submits their answers first. I hope to see some creative concepts here since it is unlikely all of the mythics will be heavily played cards or even for the Modern crowd at all. I will announce the prize in the coming weeks, but believe me that it will be worth your time. The e-mail you should send your submissions to is:

I will discuss some of the picks as they come in and will give a breakdown after the first of the year to see what you, the community, feel are the most likely cards to be included.

As I mentioned above, let me know what you guys think of this new section. I hope that this can give you a weekly idea of what you should be doing to move with the market. As always, thank you for reading, and leave any other comments you may have below. If you have any other ideas about content or even other weekly sections, submit them, and I will see what I can do.

Ryan Bushard

@CryppleCommand