MTG finance

Transitive Roku Properties | Brainstorm Brewery #545

DJ (@CardgardenMTG), Corbin (@CHosler), and Jason (@jasonEAlt), breakdown all the latest Magic: The Gathering news about, you guessed it, finance and Commander. 04:00 Minneapolis Command Zone 09:01 Breaking Bulk 20:59 Hot Rosewater Commander Takes 25:30 All About The Benjamins 42:00 MTGstocks Mini Game 45:45 Pick of the week https://linktr.ee/BrainstormBrewery Support our Patreon! www.patreon.com/bsb Need to…

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Organizing Your Collection #1 – Piles of Cards

When we moved house a few months ago, Himself wanted to call our new house ‘the house of cards’ as we own so many. Often we have piles of cards all over the house, until I get around to sorting them all out again. Himself has been playing Magic off and on since he was…

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Privileged Perspective 18 – DTK Preview Edition!

Sarkhan arose, wearily. He edged closer to the edge of the ravine, gazing into it with strain and apprehension. Ugin sprung to life from within the chasm, letting loose a cacophonous din that seemed to rend the very heavens. “What?” Sarkhan becked in reply, his voice coarse. Again, Ugin roared. Sarkhan seemed to this time take his meaning,…

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Conjured Currency #54: Draguncommons!

Welcome back, to another wonderful Thursday of learning how to make some spare change off of the card game known as Magic: The Gathering. During these next couple of weeks, there are going to be a lot of financial set reviews popping up. Should you sell this cool new mythic rare? Is $3 the correct…

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Weekend Magic: 3/6-3/8

WOTC and Star City Games teamed up to host Grand Prix Miami this past weekend, which will further add to the Standard results we’ve been seeing since Fate Reforged was released. However, we also need to keep in mind that Dragons of Tarkir is right around corner and that Standard again is due for another…

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Privileged Perspective 17 – Last Week and the Future

So last week’s article happened. The feedback that I got was mostly reticent confusion, which is how I imagine most test audiences walked out of advance screenings of Donnie Darko. Let’s address the problems with last week’s article: I started an experiment that I knew could not be quantified within my typical writing window (my…

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The Wealth Effect

Magic financiers typically point to the growth of the playerbase as the primary driver of rising card prices in recent years. Rising card prices, in turn, have been the primary driver of Magic finance. Without new money pouring in, speculating on Magic cards would largely be a zero-sum game closer to gambling than investing. The…

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Weekend Magic: 2/27-3/1

This week brought us Star City Games: Baltimore, where Modern was the featured format with a side of Standard and Legacy. Let’s dive into the results to see what innovations were showcased this weekend. Star City Games: Baltimore – Modern Open (Baltimore, MD – USA) Decklists Deck Finish Player Deck Finish Player Sultai 1st Gerard…

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Conjured Currency #52: Wizards Has Never Done That!

Welcome back, everyone who still reads my articles (or are just starting to read my articles!). I’d like to start out this week by clearing up a misconception that many people have about what I (and other Magic financiers) do in the community. I do not own a [card]Crystal Ball[/card]. Well, I probably do somewhere…

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Weekend Magic: 2/20-2/22

This certainly wasn’t a weekend to miss. Two grands prix, along with Star City Games Open Series in Los Angeles, means there is a ton of information for us to digest. Let’s dig in and see the results. Grand Prix: Memphis (Memphis, TN – USA) Format – Standard Top 8 Decklists Jack Fogle took down…

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Privileged Perspective 15: Challenging Perspectives

Confession: I wasn’t 100 percent sold on the name of this column when I started. I liked “Privileged Position,” but I think someone else is already using it. Privileged Perspective sounds like a Magic card name, and maybe some day it will be, but I’m worried the name doesn’t make a whole lot of sense if you…

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Conjured Currency #51: From the Helvault

Have you missed out on some of the “most formidable winged warriors to ever grace the game”? Do you have an Angel-themed EDH deck? Are you trying to collect one copy of every Angel to ever be printed? If the answer to any of the above questions is “maybe,” “I guess,” or “not really,” you…

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PT Fate Reforged: 18 Match Points (6-4) or Better, By the Numbers

Based on comments from my previous article, I would like to take a more in-depth approach to Pro Tour Fate Reforged. Covering only the top eight leaves out many of other archetypes that were present over the weekend. This time, I’m going to look at all the players who earned at least 18 match points (a 6-4…

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Privileged Perspective 14: Loser

Magic casts a pretty wide net. I’ve met a lot of different people playing this game, with various work and education backgrounds. Magic finance, on the other hand, seems to largely attract those who have some sort of economics or business background (or like to think they do!). Perhaps this is why my perspective is…

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Conjured Currency #50: Artificial Spikes

Pro Tour Fate Reforged happened. While I know it was just last week, I don’t really want to talk about it. Well, I’m probably still going to talk about it, but I don’t want to do an identical analysis to what’s already out there. There will be several other articles out there for you to read that recap…

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Privileged Perspective 13: Beginning to Look to the Future

Sometimes it is difficult to get the writing process started, and other times the words flow out as if someone else already did everything for me. There are weeks, like this one, where I have fragments of the piece I wish to assemble, but they are adrift of each other and devoid of interlocking context….

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Conjured Currency #49: Rent-a-Car(d)

Throughout the first few weeks of a set’s release, there is one single question that every single well-known financier is asked to no end. While the exact words might vary each time, and the specific card in question will differ, there’s few general models to this tricky question: There are common pieces of information in…

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Weekend Magic: 1/30-2/1

Last weekend brought us some Legacy action with Star City Games: Indianapolis, along with side events for Standard and Modern. Let’s see how the weekend turned out after the [card]Treasure Cruise[/card] banning. Star City Games: Indianapolis – Legacy Open (Indianapolis, IN) Decklists Deck Finish Player Deck Finish Player Sultai Delver 1st Jim Davis U/W Control…

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Financial Five: Fate Reforged

With each new set it seems like retailers are getting better at pre-pricing cards to fit card hype and demand. I look past the chase rares/mythics and find the diamonds in the rough. Below are five cards I think are worth investing in. [card]Alesha, Who Smiles at Death[/card]($2) The list of “bring-backable” creatures seems be…

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Privileged Perspective 12 – The Real PP12

Okay, so last week was a long one, as well as the start of my first meta-series. Today is going to basically be an extended edition of Quick Hits, where we touch on a bunch of different stuff at once (this hides the frequent loss of focus that comes with running WoW1 in the background)….

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Weekend Magic: 1/23-1/25

With a new Standard set and recent Modern and Legacy bannings  and unbannings, this weekend is sure to bring attention to several cards that were previously flying under the radar. We’ll also see old decks coming back again. Let’s take a look at Star City Games: DC to see what the outcome of it all was….

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Collectibles: Why Magic is One of the Best and Nintendo is One of the Worst

As far as collectibles go, Wizards of the Coast has one of the best systems in place in the gaming industry to support its customers. This position may sound weird, given all the cries for reprints and the soaring costs of eternal formats, but Magic has one of the greatest distribution methods and most finely tuned…

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Privileged Perspective 12 – Facilitating Value

When I first accepted my prestigious and highly paid position here at Brainstorm Brewery, this article was one of the ones on my mind. So much so that I have taken several months to ruminate over some of my points. This will not be an all-encompassing treatise on Magic finance, but rather the humble beginnings of…

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Conjured Currency #46: A Modern Modern Format

One of the downsides of my writing deadline being Tuesday evening is that my articles can’t go up until Thursday morning. In a world where a new influx of information causes prices to spike hundreds of percentage points in a matter of hours, a two-day delay is less than helpful for in-the-moment action. This past Monday, Wizards…

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Diary of a Former-but-Relapsing Competitive Player

A little-known fact about me: I am not much of a writer.  Growing up, everything came fairly easy to me in terms of school. A perfect storm of introversion and private schools during my elementary years made the remainder a bit of a cake walk once I moved to a rural public school. College taught…

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