When to trade standard value for modern staples.
Economics forum
Posted on Feb. 9, 2015, 6:51 a.m. by kbarnhart
I currently play standard, I enjoy the overall "fairness" of the format. But I really do get bothered by not having access to the more efficient removal and creatures.
I have put enough money into both of my standard decks and am going to be very annoyed when Theros rotates. Most of my value will be gone.
So the question is 2 parts. When is the best time to trade / sell my standard stuff for modern staples or cash to buy them.
Basically, most of my play group minus 2 people play modern only. So how can I best position my cards for trade to people who only play modern? And how long can I wait to trade them away before they drop in value or become less desirable. I want to keep playing standard as long as I can but don't want to miss the boat when it comes to trading away for value .
Whenever you can. Some people would never modern for standards, some will. If you r playing them, I would play them, but for the standard cards that will rotate this fall, right now is prob going to be the highest they will be as less people will want to pay high prices for cards that will lose most of their value in less than a year.
February 9, 2015 8:19 a.m.
lemmingllama says... #4
I would trade all of your cards with other standard people, try to get fetches/shocks/modern staples + anything needed for your modern deck. After that, trade those value cards to your modern friends for other modern staples that you can use in your deck.
You could also try selling the entire deck online, or trading it for a set amount of value. Sometimes people will be happier if you offer a discount on cards if they take the entire deck off your hands, since they will get a standard deck and you will get value/money.
February 9, 2015 8:30 a.m.
I like what lemmingllama had to say and second it. As a player who runs both standard and modern you'll never find me trading modern staples for standard but I'll end up trading my standard staples for moderns with the play group that plays mostly standard. Luckily for you return to ravnica block had some notable modern playables (abrupt decay, shocks, voice of resurgence to an extent, and a few others) and that's the set to recently rotate out so any strictly standard players may still have some of those cards for trade. Though I agreed target the shock lands and buddy land fetches for now since long term those will be the most expensive later on.
February 9, 2015 9:28 a.m.
If you don't like the idea of rotation, i think that you should not play standard...
February 9, 2015 10:10 a.m.
mathimus55 says... #7
Now is probably a bad time for trading for a good amount of pieces considering the pro tour just finished this weekend and so lots of pieces are spiking VERY hard.
February 9, 2015 10:20 a.m.
mathimus55 says... #9
Not really. Thoughtseize but that was being played before the reprint. Keranos, God of Storms is the only thing the see much sideboard play, but he's a long term spec, he's bottomed out now and it will take at least a year for him to regain the $20 value he was at for a while. Anger of the Gods sees a little bit of play too but it was in a big set and so it got opened a lot. Eidolon of the Great Revel might see a spike since it's a 4 of in a deck that put 2 people in the top 8 also, but I think people are already high on it so it might not jump too much. Khans has already made a bigger impact on modern than Theros did, which stinks b/c I really liked Theros.
February 9, 2015 10:36 a.m.
The cards from Theros you'd want for Modern:
- Anger of the Gods is a solid red boardwipe and exiling creatures is very relevant.
- Courser of Kruphix is used (albeit in small numbers) in Rock variants.
- Keranos, God of Storms for U/R/x Control.
- Thoughtseize is just a staple in every format.
- Eidolon of the Great Revel for burn.
- Eidolon of Rhetoric for sideboards against combo.
- Spirit of the Labyrinth for hatebears.
- Swan Song for sideboards.
- Sylvan Caryatid (solid mana dork in Gifts Ungiven decks due to hexproof)
- Brimaz, King of Oreskos for Death & Taxes or W/x/x Hatebear variants
- Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver is decent in Modern, but gets outclassed by Liliana of the Veil. I'd probably pick some up if I found some in a good deal or had money lying around.
- Thassa, God of the Sea and Master of Waves for Fish.
The other cards worth mentioning are Ashen Rider and Prophet of Kruphix. Ashen Rider is strictly better than Angel of Despair in Legacy sideboards for the Show and Tell matchup. Prophet of Kruphix is loved by many EDH players.
As far as when to start selling/trading Theros cards, right now is about the time because we're in the second set of the next block. Generally, Standard staples from the previous block start to decline in price due to lack of demand caused by a shifting metagame.
February 9, 2015 4:51 p.m.
Yea, i'm going to reiterate again what some people have said. The majority of modern players are not going to trade modern cards for standard cards. Buying into the modern and legacy format is expensive. And most smart people (and magic players tend to be smart), are going to realize trading expensive cards that don't fluctuate in value much for cards that are going to sink like a rock is a bad idea.
Your best bet, if you really, really dislike the idea of losing value on your cards, is to sell them off on ebay. Starting like now. Just acknowledge that you will probably be playing a lackluster standard deck for the rest of Theros' time in standard, or will be drafting a lot.
If this also doesn't appeal to you, then you probably shouldn't be playing a format where most of your value ends up going kaput. If it helps, think of it this way. You spent however much you spent for a year and a half of entertainment. And when you break it down, hour for hour compared to how much you spent, it really isn't bad at all.
February 9, 2015 11:49 p.m.
mathimus55 says... #12
kyuuri117 pretty much nailed it.
Also, for what it's worth, a couple years ago one of the SCG writers(I think it was Sheldon Menery) wrote an article about the cost of standard vs the cost of non-rotating formats. In less than 2 rotations: one standard season, rotation, and another season you could have built the average cost modern deck. This was also before fetches and I think shocks were reprinted so it was still fairly pricey to get the lands together.
You can try and make the argument about modern bannings an why build a deck when it'll be banned blah blah blah, but if you're smart like most magic players are(or should be anyways) you'll know when something will get banned. Aka, anyone who built delver after November knew their deck would be hit. Long term, it's just cheaper to build a non-standard deck and add a playset Max to the deck each rotation instead of building a whole new deck.
February 10, 2015 12:13 a.m.
One thing I like to do is watch the Pro Tour's on livesteam, especially when they get to the top eight. If a rogue deck starts going up, you usually have a few hours to buy some of the key pieces regularly inexpensively, and then turn them around after the spike. I bought a couple of Azusa's when I saw Bloom Titan hit top eight, and now Azusa's are around fifteen dollars more expensive. Sure, they'll drop in a week when all the stores start undercutting each other and when people realize Bloom Titan is next to impossible to play correctly, but by then i'll have made thirty dollars I can put aside for whatever modern staple I want to buy.
I'm not a business owner or anything like that, nor would I want to be hugely wrong in a suggestion so I don't buy these things in bulk, but every small bit saved up helps.
February 10, 2015 12:19 a.m.
To add to mathimus55's latter point. Even with the concept of building around a ban there are plenty of fun decks that can win small fnm style tourneys that are affordable and will almost never see banning such as Modern Merfolk, tier 2, Soul sisters, bogles if you run it with out the coronets which isn't a huge huge deal, and so on. I believe there's a primer for a lot of the modern decks that a few users set up that covers a lot of popular archetypes both expensive and cheap.
February 10, 2015 12:23 a.m.
Also, keep in mind that many of the staples in any standard format are usually very viable in EDH.
February 10, 2015 12:26 a.m.
mathimus55 says... #16
Also, an easy way to get around trading direct piece for piece is pucatrade. I've acquired nearly all the pieces for my legacy maverick deck trading off standard stuff, saving up points and negotiating down for some LP duals, jitte and other pieces. It's probably the best tool for people in your situation. It takes some time and some effort, but nowhere else will you be able to flip 4 Goblin Rabblemaster into a Savannah
Seraphicate says... #2
Trading standard cards to modern players will be difficult, you can't exactly force someone to WANT something, especially if they're not going to use it, but an easier way to trade would be to look for people who play standard, and trade your value for their modern playables. If you happen to trade for fetches, though, it will take a while for them to go up in price again, so I suggest you hold onto them until they do, and try to get a hold of other staples while you trade.
February 9, 2015 7:40 a.m.