A Modern Fallout: Post-Apocalypse Binder Survival Guide

“I’ve always found it very sanitary to be broke.” - Orson Welles

Unless you haven’t been looking at the glass cases at your store or notice the outcry on Twitter, a lot of Magic cards have seen ridiculous spikes over the weeks. It’s difficult to pin point the main problem behind it, but here are some of the more practical ones:

Competitive Standard has gotten stale, which has players looking at other formats (Modern/Legacy).

Speculators are looking for the next big thing.

Magic as a whole has been growing by millions of new players each year. The supply for cards cannot meet the demand.

So what does this all mean for us? The players? For me specifically, it just means staying ahead of the curve and taking your own moral stance. Ever since the Modern format was partially revealed at the Community Cup not too long ago, I was always excited about the idea of a non-rotating format.

Wouldn’t it be great to have a format where you could always play with the cards you first opened in your booster pack? Or play with your first Planeswalker that your boyfriend bought in a fatpack. You know, that fatpack he bought for your anniversary to secretly hope you’d give up Magic and keep your cards?

Not saying your boyfriend is like that…

Back to Basics

So how do you stay ahead of the curve you might wonder? All it takes is a little attention. Like anything, if you apply yourself to a goal, you’ll reach it. It may not be an over night thing and everyone has their own curve, but you’ll get there. So here are some basic ways to spot trends:

Study each deck archetype in the format you’re interested in.

Know each deck’s weaknesses and strengths.

Know key sideboard cards.

Play the format (extremely important)

Review daily price changes at MTGGoldfish.com or similar sites.

Review daily deck lists going 4-0 on MTGO.

By knowing the format, you’ll understand what are the key cards needed to stay competitive.

Since the beginning of the format, the MTGO results have always been the key for me. Because of MTGO results, I was able to commit purchases such as:

Splinter Twin for $4 USD

Gavony Township for $.50 USD

Celestial Colonnade for $4 USD

Liliana of the Veil for $20 USD

Fetchlands for $10-$20 USD

Threads of Disloyalty for $3 USD

Vendilion Clique for $8 USD

Cryptic Command for $20 USD

The list goes on and if you’ve been keeping up with my tumblr, you know how accurate some of my calls have been. I am not a speculator. I just want to compete in a card game (and play with cool Angels), not against speculators and hoarders.

With what I told you, what should we be looking out for the coming weeks leading up to the actual MTG Modern Event deck and the actual Modern season? My advice since so many of the rares and Mythics have more to grow and are out of many players price ranges, I would suggest focusing on Modern Masters commons and uncommons, as noted by various podcasts such as Brainstorm Brewery.



“Sword of Omens, give me Sight Beyond Sight!”

As a quick disclaimer, these are cards that I feel you need to personally review yourself before slipping into your trade binders. While I won’t state all high value cards in each set, I will highlight those that don’t cost more than breakfast for two at an IHOP.

Remember, these are for competitive level play for Modern and some of them will overlap into Legacy. If you can get these cards at foil, I’d recommend it.

What commons/uncommons? Let’s review some of the most played ones available in Modern Masters:

Path to Exile (there’s a FNM Foil - Get that now if you want it)

Spell Snare

Kitchen Finks

Spellstutter Sprite

Lightning Helix

Aethersworn Canonist (rare, but does have room for growth)

Eternal Witness

Manamorphose

Krosan Grip

Relic of Progenitus

Engineered Explosives

Most of these cards are support cards and are the best in the format. If you can get major cards such as Vendillion Cliques, Cryptic Commands, Dark Confidant really cheap, I suggest going for them.

As for cards you own from Innistrad block, review these in your binder:

Enemy color Tap Lands

Stony Silence

Delver of Secrets

Grafdigger’s Cage

Thalia

Cavern of Souls

Desolate Lighthouse

Ghost Quarter

Gavony Township

Restoration Angel (all versions)

Snapcaster Mage (may see another spike mid-season)

Liliana of the Veil (currently a $70-$80 card, will see another spike sans a reprint this year. Not saying there will be.).

Big note here is Restoration Angel and Grafdigger’s Cage. Restoration Angel is probably one of the most versatile mid-range creature ever designed. You will be seeing pod-lists using her as their plan B win condition, similar to UWR Twin. The difference is, she’ll be backed with Gavony Township as support in Pod lists, so it’s even more dangerous.

Grafdigger’s Cage sees play in all external formats. Most importantly, it shuts down Birthing Pod, Chord of Calling, Snapcaster Mage and Past in Flames. There are more cards to name, but you get the idea.

Also, if there’s any transformation cards you’ve thought about getting, but never had the chance to (Garruk), you might want to get them since they don’t have the best chances of being reprinted anytime soon.

Cards from Scars of Mirrodin:

All Fastlands

Sword of War and Peace (most important protection from the format)

Deceiver Exarch (superior to Pestermite for Lighting Bolt survival)

Inkmoth Nexus

Gitaxian Probe

Melira, Sylvok Outcast

Galvanic Blast

Dismember

Blade Splicer

Thrun, the last troll

Leonin Arbiter

Spellskite (if you can get them cheap)

Vapor Snag

Ship’s sailed on a lot of the targets, such as Splinter Twin/Birthing Pod (which I pointed out last year).

Time for some R&R (Rotation & Ravnica)

Don’t trade or sell your shock lands.

If you haven’t noticed yet, the trend in the previous sets have been dual land variants. Your mana base is the key to lowering variance in the game. When you break down what Magic is, it’s still drawing 7 random cards for your starting hand each game. Having the right mana at any given time allows your deck to function.

Even if you think you won’t ever use certain ones, you’ll eventually do down the line. Shock lands may not seem special now since you see them everywhere, but in another year or so when Modern becomes bigger than what it already is, you won’t regret holding onto them.

They even make great presents down the line.

Ravnica is just one of those sets that showed up at the right time. Before it’s announcement, some shock lands were heading up towards the $50 range. This was a time when fetch lands were also around $10-$15 as well, so keep that in mind how different the secondary market was a few years back. Not saying that shock lands will ever hit the $50 range again, but don’t expect them to be cheap as they are now in 2015.

Here are some cards you might hold off from cashing out when it rotates this summer:

Shock Lands (all)

Abrupt Decay

Izzet Charm

Boros Charm

Rest in Peace

Supreme Verdict

Deathrite Shaman

Goblin Electromancer

Loxodon Smiter

Ghor-Clan Rampager

Wear // Tear

Pithing Needle

Annual Bake Sales & Angels

Known as the Magic base sets (M10, M14), these sets are marketed towards new and casual players. So it’s not surprising that some of the best cards are Angels and Dragons. Sometimes, it does give Wizards an opportunity slip in reprints.

Here are some cards you might want to review:

Allied Tap Lands

Mutavault

Archangel of Thune

Thundermaw Hellkite

Baneslayer Angel

Birds of Paradise

Lightning Bolt

Scavinging Ooze

Gideon Jura

Growing Pains

I’ve stated a few times that you don’t have to have $100 fetch lands to enjoy the game. At a high competitive level, maybe it might make a difference winning $40,000, but at your local FNM or even your kitchen table? Maybe a pizza.

One of the most over looked real estate has been around since 1995 and will generally be ignored by a lot of shop owners. The pain land cycle is not only cheap, but quick. They don’t come into play tapped like guild gates and they don’t burn you all the time as the game progresses. Their most recent reprint were in Tenth Edition (seen here) and are completely Modern legal.

Some have been reprinted as much as six times. Check your local stores first before checking for online sites, such as eBay.

“You are bad guy, but this does not mean you are *bad* guy”

So wrapping up, some might point out that by hoarding cards it indirectly hurts the secondary market and other players.

Hoarding?

There is a huge difference between holding back 9 shock lands and keeping them in your shoe box compared to a speculator keeping 300+ copies of Birthing Pod in organized and labeled card boxes. That is happening right now in Magic. That is the kind of thing we have to deal with from now on until Wizards of the Coast finds a way to deliver us cards directly.

Until then, we just have to help each other as a community.

The main goal of this post is to help those that are on the fence with their Magic collections, Modern, etc, especially after seeing the shake ups in Modern prices and especially the things going on in Legacy ($300 Volcanic Islands for example).

With the information I have shared today, I hope that you guys don’t feel bad after a trade. That after selling your Restoration Angels, you won’t regret it. I enjoy playing the game as much as you do, but not everyone else does and they would rather focus on the money game than the game.

Thanks for reading and you can find me on Twitter @polishtamales or on Tumblr - polishtamales You can also find me on Magic sites such as LegitMTG.com, GatheringMagic.com or ManaDeprived.com.

Have a magical day!