Modern Times: The State of Modern Speculation

Happy Wednesday folks! Today I bring to you a special edition of Modern Times - one that focuses on a broader strategy for speculating in the age of print-to-demand sets and cascading supplemental products.

Before I begin, I’d like to thank “dazzirous” in the MTGStocks Discord whose comments motivated this article. Without further adieu, let’s dig in.

Speculation in the Modern Times

Beyond Modern, formats like Pioneer and Pauper have an extensive card pool, and competitive metas where the Reserved List has little-to-no influence. These factors make speculating on cards for these sets more difficult since any given card could be reprinted at any given time (in theory). 

So what makes speculation today different than five years ago for these formats? Simple, the levels of product saturation are unprecedented. Many sources in the MTG finance community have shown how dramatic the product saturation uptick has been just since Covid-19 alone. Clearly, demand for Magic: The Gathering products was possibly at its highest during the pandemic, despite heavy restrictions on in-person play. However, as demand has curtailed, the supply continued to grow everso. 

As product print runs and supplemental products flood the market, two things happen: firstly, the amount of individual unique cards on the secondary market grows; and secondly, the individual print runs of the single cards themselves increases. This makes for an interesting dynamic compared to the model from half a decade or so ago.

How does this affect the market? Well, the most obvious impact can be seen in the expected value of new sets. When looking at the set-specific print sheets alone, draft and set booster boxes of recent sets like Strixhaven: School of Mages, The Brothers' War, Phyrexia: All Will Be One, and March of the Machine all have had fairly low expected values upon release relative to many of their predecessors. 

In some ways, the additional bonus print sheets and variant inserts have offset low set expected value of recent booster boxes, creating a dynamic where consumers are buying sealed product for the chance at a full art variant or a foil variant of a reprinted card (the March of the Machine: Multiverse Legends set comes to mind), rather than for the cards from the sets themselves. 

$1.07$1.29

$2.27$2.79

By relying on bonus reprint sheets to augment the print sheets of standard products, there’s a growing reliance on reprinting in the game across booster packs, Secret Lairs, and supplemental Commander products. However, despite this new product strategy in a print-to-demand era, WOTC simply cannot reprint every card from every set. Thus speculation in Modern or Pioneer should consider a strategy of high-potential cards by their probability of being reprinted, in addition to their competitive potential. As a case study, I’ll discuss two specific cards that both have somewhat low reprint probability and modest competitive potential in the Modern format.

Sanctum Weaver

This wouldn’t be a Modern Times article if we didn’t talk about Modern Horizons 2 at least once. Sanctum Weaver is a nice (and niche) rare enchantment creature that is underappreciated and overshadowed by the powerhouses of MH2, including Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer, Fury, Solitude, Grief, and Endurance. However, it has very high potential in Modern. 

In combination with cards like Freed from the Real, Sanctum Weaver has the potential to easily produce infinite mana of any color as early as turn three, making its potential to sneak into the edge of the Modern meta quite promising. Complemented by other “enchantments matter” and Constellation cards like Hall of Heliod's Generosity and Sythis, Harvest's Hand, there’s an argument to be made that enchantment-oriented decks have a potential place in the Modern meta – at least at a low level (especially with cards like Tyvar, Jubilant Brawler that can enable cards like Sanctum Weaver to combo off the turn they come into play). 

Conveniently, a non-foil Sanctum Weaver sits at around $2, and hasn’t moved much (although the value of its foil version seems to be increasing). At the moment, this makes picking up a playset cheap and easy. However, is there a reason one should speculate beyond its competitive potential? Yes. Quite simply, this is not one of the MH2 cards screaming “reprint me!” to WOTC. At the moment, there’s no real reason to believe this will take up a reprint slot in future bonus print sheets, especially since there are no enchantment-oriented sets on the horizon (like Theros). 

While MH2 has an enormous print-run, it has several cards that have no justifiable reason to be reprinted in the near future, making their speculative potential high relative to their in-demand counterparts. Sanctum Weaver is just one such example. 

Sanctum Weaver	CardKingdom $1.99	TCGPlayer $1.04
Sanctum Weaver (Extended Art)	CardKingdom $2.99	TCGPlayer $2.98

Tasha's Hideous Laughter

This also wouldn’t be a Modern Times article if I didn’t subtly mention the word “mill” at some point, too. Nevertheless, as highlighted in my previous article, Mill is picking up steam in Modern, and so too are some of its key pieces. This mild uptick in interest makes mill cards somewhat appealing speculations. However, most key pieces are commons or uncommons, making speculative potential limited to just a small handful of cards. 

Following our criteria outlined earlier, we ask ourselves “which mill cards don’t have a high chance of an immediate reprint?” Simple, Tasha’s Hideous Laughter. Why? Multiple reasons. First, and foremost, much like the Walking Dead Secret Lair, or other Universes Beyond products, D&D sets like Adventures in the Forgotten Realms make reprints thematically awkward and inconsistent in non-D&D sets. 

Most of the D&D-flavored cards from AFR have yet to be reprinted in any way, shape, or form. It would be very tough to reprint “Tasha’s Hideous Laughter” in a set like March of the Machine, unless, of course, a functional reprint was pursued instead of a direct reprint. That being said, functional reprints seem to be fewer and farther between in the past couple years with only a couple exceptions, like… MH2. Furthermore, functional reprints “bend” the rules of deckbuilding by enabling a player to play eight copies of the same functional card, rather than four, which would be dangerous for the Modern format in the case of many of the playable D&D-flavored cards. 

Given that we have a Lord of the Rings-themed Modern set on the books for release this year, I wouldn’t expect any IP crossovers from AFR cards. Furthermore, none of the Standard sets on the docket seem to indicate reprints from sets like AFR either. Overall, Tasha’s Hideous Laughter sits at around $5, and seems to be holding steady. If Mill continues to pick up speed in Modern, I would expect the price for this card to climb considerably as well. Given the buffer it has from being an obvious (or easy) reprint target, I would say it’s an excellent spec!

Tasha's Hideous Laughter	CardKingdom $5.49	TCGPlayer $3.99
Tasha's Hideous Laughter (Extended Art)	CardKingdom $5.49	TCGPlayer $3.49

Concluding Thoughts

Speculating on newer products is becoming increasingly difficult as both the size and scope of each set release seem to be growing exponentially under WOTC’s current model. This makes for highly saturated singles card markets, and relatively low set expected values. However, given that there are practical limitations to just how many cards WOTC can reprint, the growing scope of each set and its unique cards makes for interesting financial speculation. Some cards will simply not be reprinted in the near future for reasons such as their demand relative to the heavy-hitters from their same set, or thematic limitations to reprinting. 

The thematic limitations piece is in-and-of itself interesting, and can be applied to most AFR cards beyond just Tasha’s Hideous Laughter. With The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth, a direct-to-Modern set, releasing next month, there’s a huge amount of speculative potential in play. Simply put, short of a Universes Within reprint (bonus print sheet), there’s very little chance we’d see high-potential cards like The Shire or The One Ring reprinted in Wilds of Eldraine or Lost Caverns of Ixalan. 

$63.99$64.99

Speculating in eternal formats like Modern and Pioneer is challenging. Locally, it’s a coin toss as to whether your LGS has a strong Modern crowd or a strong Pioneer crowd (it’s seldom both), making the average Modern player’s speculative strategies geared towards their local meta, rather than the competitive meta. As a result, most Modern players aren’t buying cards necessarily to flip for a profit. They're doing so to minimize the out-of-pocket costs of buying those same cards in the future for deck building should they spike in value. 

Knowing when to buy is always the question when it comes to deck building or collecting. This timing has been disrupted in large-part by changes to WOTC’s product and print run strategies over the past few years. The hope is that pieces like this provide an additional layer of insight when speculating in formats like Modern and Pioneer – not only to save you some money, but also to keep you ahead of the curve!

Check out these other articles:

History, Restapled - March to the Beats by Steve Heisler

New Horizons: Spring 2023 Secret Lair by Matt Grzechnik

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