Over and Under: December 2022

Happy holidays, everyone! This month in Over and Under, we've got a couple interesting cards to talk about, as well as an opportunity to highlight some of the differences to consider during card acquisition for investment, speculation, and value. Let's get into it!

First off, our overvalued pick of the month: Heliod, Sun-Crowned.

 

Heliod, Sun-Crowned is a card with a couple of interesting applications. It's a combo enabler in Commander, has seen some competitive play in Modern, and is a solid Commander option for Mono-White in and of itself, something the color has frequently struggled with. That all being said, Heliod's popularity in Modern has been trending down recently, with it entering the realm of fringe-decks as opposed to format all-star. A similar statement can be made with respect to its popularity in Commander – while it is certainly a solid combo finisher option alongside cards such as Walking Ballista, Heliod's popularity as a Commander has also been falling by the wayside, with Mono-White not being a particularly popular deck option even from the very beginning.

Right now, although Heliod is still certainly a viable card with widespread applications, the greatest amount of support for the card comes from it being a combo piece, and while that's certainly a strong point to have, being a combo piece isn't usually enough to justify a high price tag in absence of any other attractive qualities. In order for combo pieces to justify a high price tag, they standardly need to either be incredibly widespread and ubiquitous across the meta, powerful in and of themselves, or on the reserved list. Heliod comes close to the second of these three points, but not close enough to justify the current price tag.

Heliod isn't necessarily facing downwards price pressure in the immediate future, so flipping him isn't something I'd say needs to be done immediately if you want to lock in gains, but he is facing off against the next worse thing: price erosion. The card has been trending sideways for a while now, only ever shifting incrementally in either direction (up or down) just to shift back a few days later. This isn't a great sign, especially for a card whose play percentage is dwindling. So, while I don't see the price crashing any time soon, the sun does seem to be setting for Heliod.

And next, our undervalued pick of the month: Fierce Guardianship.

Now, I'll be honest here, I struggled a bit at first when deliberating with myself as to whether or not Fierce Guardianship to talk about [card]53455/card. The reason for this is because Fierce Guardianship is undervalued, but really only when you consider it in a reprint vacuum, which is something I'm not too keen on doing with most non-reserved list cards. To clarify this, considering a card in a reprint vacuum means evaluating its price without the assumption that it will be reprinted in the near future. Considering cards in a reprint vacuum is a risky thing to do with modern cards – between Secret Lairs, Masters Sets, and every other specialty product that Wizards has created recently, most in-demand cards appear to get a reprint every couple of years or so.

This brings us back to difference between investment, speculation, and value acquisition. I'm not going to spend too much time on the details of the difference between the three (that's more of a topic for The Big Things, and if you'd like me to write about it, feel free to join the MTGStocks Discord and reach out), but in essence the primary difference comes down to risk tolerance. Investment is more so focused with the risk-averse question of "how much money can I stand to lose," whereas speculation is focused more so with the risk-tolerant question of "how much money can I make?" Value acquisition is a bit in between, searching the market for current discounts as opposed to seeking opportunities based on expectations of anticipated future price movement. Value acquisition can turn in to investment or speculation, but it isn't necessarily either of these things in and of itself. This is where I see Fierce Guardianship.

Fierce Guardianship is one of an ever-expanding selection of cards which explicitly state the word "Commander" on them. This creates a barrier for reprint, as the only avenues for doing so either have to be in sets which can enable Commander draft experiences or be made available directly to players via channels such as promo printings or Secret Lairs. Given that the near-term product pipeline revealed by Wizards of the Coast doesn't include any such Commander sets, this limits the possibility of a reprint to the direct-to-player model. These reprint series have historically not had a substantial downwards pressure on the prices of the cards included, and as such are not a significant cause for concern with respect to the near-term price of Fierce Guardianship. Couple this with its status as a staple across any deck that can run it in what is now the most popular format, and all the conditions for relative price stability (and potentially gradual increase as we exit the bear market) begin to crystalize.