Price Update (12/28/12)

Happy New Year! Masques Block cards are falling, and Urza Block cards have reached their minimum (some have already rebounded).

Urza Block Drafts

Urza Block drafts finished up this past Wednesday, and I hope you all got a chance to partake. It was my first time drafting Urza Block, and I had a lot of fun. Urza prices fell quite a bit overall, although Cloud of Faeries rebounded quite fast. I missed its minimum due to holiday travel, but I've been told that the low point was around 2 tix. I'd recommend picking up play sets of Curfew, Raze, Crop Rotation, Yavimaya Elder for future brewing, but don't pick up any extras for trading. I'd recommend picking up a play set of Snap and Unearth as well, along with a few extra for later trading. If you haven't picked up your play set of Cloud of Faeries yet, you may have missed the boat on this one. It's OK to pick up a play set now, but its price is slightly above average already, so I wouldn't pick up any extras.

		12/9/12	12/14/12	12/21/12	12/28/12	12/29/12
USG	Curfew	0.18	0.27	0.15	0.16	0.16
USG	Raze	0.38	0.51	0.51	0.13	0.13
ULG	Cloud of Faeries	3.8	5.41	4.18	3.21	3.81
ULG	Crop Rotation	0.33	0.33	0.33	0.15	0.15
ULG	Snap	2.54	2.62	2.54	1.15	1.15
ULG	Unearth	2.11	2.11	1.49	0.65	0.65
UDS	Yavimaya Elder	0.24	0.24	0.19	0.15	0.15

Masques Block Drafts

Masques Block prices are underway as I write this. They will be available until the downtime on Jan. 2, 2013. The EV for these drafts is quite good. a rough calculation is about 8.6 tix for a draft. I've done one so far, and while it wasn't a phenomenal draft format, it wasn't as bad as I imagined it would be. The major problem is that the three sets are lumped together into collated boosters, and since there are over 600 cards, the packs can be quite varied. I got lucky enough to open an Invigorate and a Daze, so the draft pretty much paid for itself. Prices keep falling, with the exception of Invigorate, which has mysteriously risen in price. I guess no one is selling the Invigorates that they open (I know that I'm not).

		12/9/12	12/14/12	12/21/12	12/28/12	12/29/12
MMQ	Ancestral Mask	4.75	4.4	4.24	3.7	3.31
MMQ	brainstorm	2	1.91	2.27	1.93	1.74
MMQ	Gush	2.12	2.12	1.92	1.74	1.33
MMQ	Invigorate	7.34	7.34	7.34	7.48	7.48
MMQ	Land Grant	1.64	1.4	0.88	0.79	0.7
MMQ	Peat Bog	0.76	0.46	0.29	0.15	0.15
MMQ	Snuff Out	2.07	1.96	1.96	1.58	1.36
MMQ	Sandstone Needle	2.97	2.97	2.6	1.93	1.74
MMQ	Saprazzan Skerry	2.59	1.48	0.99	0.94	0.79
MMQ	Spidersilk Armor	0.29	0.29	0.29	0.29	0.23
NMS	Accumulated Knowledge	3.17	3.28	3.28	2.76	2.54
NMS	Daze	8.04	7.69	7.37	6.67	5.95
NMS	Flame Rift	3.58	3.58	3.58	3.31	3.09
NMS	Seal of Strength	0.52	0.52	0.52	0.4	0.4
PCY	Rhystic Study	0.76	0.76	0.76	0.64	0.59

Risers and Fallers

Risers

This week, we had one noticeable riser, which was Nettle Sentinel going from a mere 0.83 tix to a whopping 2.42 tix! Quirion Ranger was also in the mix, which may be an indication that there are a lot of new Green Stompy players. Since this is the first time I've done this section, I also want to make note of Manamorphose, which has risen from less than a tix at the start of the month to its current price of 2.78. Both of these top risers are from the Shadowmoor Block. When was the last time that WoTC offered Shadowmoor Block drafts? 

	Exp	Name	12/21	12/29	Delta	Per.	Delta/wk	Per./wk
1	EVE	Nettle Sentinel	0.83	2.42	1.58	191%	1.39	167%
2	CSP	Rite of Flame	0.60	1.00	0.40	66%	0.35	58%
3	VIS	Quirion Ranger	0.61	0.98	0.37	60%	0.32	53%
4	EVE	Unmake	0.26	0.41	0.14	57%	0.13	50%
5	VIS	Funeral Charm	0.71	1.11	0.40	56%	0.35	49%
6	BOK	Ninja of the Deep Hours	0.42	0.64	0.22	52%	0.19	45%
7	DST	Echoing Truth	1.56	2.22	0.66	42%	0.58	37%
8	TMP	Capsize	0.17	0.24	0.07	41%	0.06	36%
9	SHM	Manamorphose	1.99	2.78	0.79	39%	0.69	34.74%
10	INV	Irrigation Ditch	0.29	0.4	0.11	37%	0.09	33.19%

Fallers

There were a number of obvious fallers this week. In fact, most of the fallers belonged to either Masques Block or Urza's Block. The only major fallers this week outside of those two blocks were Wild Growth and Darksteel Citadel. I'm not all that surprised to see that Wild Growth is finally falling in price. It kept its value for quite a while, with the popularity of the Auras deck, but I figured that once the novelty of a new deck wore off, it would fall in price again.

	Exp	Name	12/21/12	12/29/12	Delta	Per.	Delta/wk	Per/wk
10	MMQ	Snuff Out	1.96	1.36	-.60	-30%	-0.52	-26%
9	MMQ	Gush	1.92	1.33	-0.59	-31%	-0.52	-27%
8	DST	Darksteel Citadel	0.54	0.37	-0.17	-.32%	-0.15	-28%
7	MMQ	Sandstone Needle	2.60	1.74	-0.86	-33%	-0.75	-29%
6	MMQ	Peat Bog	0.29	0.15	-0.14	-48%	-0.12	-42%
5	ULG	Crop Rotation	0.33	0.15	-0.18	-54%	-0.16	-48%
4	ULG	Snap	2.54	1.15	-1.39	-55%	-1.22	-48%
3	ULG	Unearth	1.49	0.65	-0.84	-56%	-0.74	-49%
2	7ED	Wild Growth	0.59	0.25	-0.34	-58%	-0.30	-50%
1	USG	Raze	0.51	0.13	-0.38	-75%	-0.33	-65%

Traders' Corner

Buying

Most of the cards I'd look to pick up this week are from Urza Block. Snap and Unearth both seem to be at bargain prices. I'd keep my eye on the Masques block cards, and look to pick some up at their minimum value. 

Selling

Keep an eye on Geothermal Crevice, Prohibit, Cabal Ritual, Funeral Charm, Manamorphose, and Nettle Sentinel, as these cards are at or near their maximum value, but have shown no signs of decreasing.

Benevolent Unicorn and Diabolic Edict seem to have stabilized at their current values. Now is a good time to sell these on your own (read: not to bots), unless you see that a particular bot is buying them for a good price.

Sulfur Vent, Standard Bearer, and Innocent Blood are all at a high point, but their prices seem unstable. All have decreased in price recently. I would think about selling extra copies you have in order to pick up some of the cheaper cards.

Top Cards

#	Exp	Name	Price
1	TMP	Lotus Petal	8.85
2	MMQ	Invigorate	7.48
3	TSB	Serrated arrows	6.47
4	NMS	Daze	5.95
5	INV	Prohibit	4.27
6	ULG	Cloud of Faeries	3.81
7	MMQ	Ancestral Mask	3.31
8	MIR	Benevolent Unicorn	3.2
9	NMS	Flame Rift	3.09
10	INV	Sulfur Vent	2.98
11	SHM	Manamorphose	2.78
12	VIS	Crypt Rats	2.67
13	NMS	Accumulated Knowledge	2.54
14	EVE	Nettle Sentinel	2.42
15	TOR	Cabal Ritual	2.29

Final Thoughts

The holiday cube is only available for a few more days. I hope you got a chance to draft it a few times. I know that I had a blast! I cast upheaval a bunch, got to ultimate Tamiyo, and hard-cast many an Eldrazi. Turns out that a powered cube is a lot more fun than I anticipated.

I hope you enjoyed the new structure I've added to this post. I'm looking for feedback, so please let me know what you thought. In particular, I'd like to know if you think presenting the data in a different way would be more helpful, or if there are other sections you would like to see. As always, if you come across a card that costs more than a quarter that I'm not tracking, please let me know!

Thanks for reading!

-Chris
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