Hey All,

I want to share the cards I've picked up recently from Tides of Fate and talk about why I bought them.

The Situation

TLDR: right now the likely most expensive cards look cheap.

Most importantly, some cards are 'purchase only.' This means you can only get them from packs that cost ETH/GODS (crystal packs). You can't earn them via weekend ranked or sealed. When/if people stop buying packs, that's all the supply of those cards there will be.

At the same time, there are some cards that can't be bought and must be earned. This has created an interesting dynamic where (for the next few weeks), the rarest cards look like the least rare. I'll explain with an example:

A Toast to Plunder cannot be bought in packs. Only earned in WR and sealed. Naturally, with the set only live for 2 weeks, there hasn't been enough time to flood the market with cards. There are only 653 on the market. Thermal Power, on the other hand, cannot be earned through sealed/wr but only bought; however, since the start of the set is always accompanied by a massive amount of pack sales, there are already 2,525 on the market.

To find out which cards are which, you can use these resources:

http://pythiasdeckbox.com/packguide
https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vQsMeP9Ts_5S2Qx2N8OkGZ7bBF4Qpym1S8y8BKi83QPwzUYTQ0YR7bYUU-HUjP-vl5ichdBiL9IyQeS/pub

After 30 days, Crystal pack leggy rates drop and then again after 60 days. There are players crunching the numbers on expected value and using that to determine whether or not to buy packs. In 30 days, the EV gets a lot worse and sales are likely to dry up. Even now, many who were going to buy in bulk already have. Pack sales are going to taper off at some point over the next month or two.

Meanwhile, sealed is being farmed every day. Weekend ranked will be farmed as well. Legendary cards are likely safe from being inflated away because of how low a rate Fate packs drop them (and those also get lower in 30/60 days).

So What Did I Buy?

I went through the buy-only cards and bought those that were relatively cheap. Many of the war dragon cards are already crazy expensive (for their rarity), so I passed on those. That deck has been discovered and people rushed to buy up all the copies.

I'm not speculating. I just bought 2x of the cards I thought I might want to play. Speculating on cards is a rat race I'm too tired to play.

Undersea Spellwyrm

Let me start with this one because it is the one exception to my 2x rule. I bought 6x so I could have a shadow. They're dirt cheap. A lot of decks rely on key spells to win. Cut Throat Insight was nerfed not necessarily because it stole the card, but because it removed those key cards from opponent's decks and made winning impossible. Think of an Arcane Burst deck losing Arcane Burst. It's not that deception will use it to win, but that magic can't win without it.

Spellwyrm does that. I think it's more balanced than the old CTI. It gives your opponent a Spellwyrm of their own, and they can use it to punish you. However, just like with mythic cards, we can build our deck to not rely heavily on spells. We can also choose when to play this card. Make sure our critical spells have been played, for example.

Charm, Arcane Burst, Arcane Fabrication, Apocalypse Now, Unbound Flames, etc. These are all incredibly powerful spells, and removing them can decide the game.

Nature isn't in a great spot at the moment, but I grabbed my copies anyway.

Diffusion

Dirt cheap and seems like a solid card for an Atlantean deck.

Death Dragons

All pretty much the same justification. Dirt cheap. Can only be earned through paid packs. No one has dominated the death dragon archetype well yet. That may be because it's terrible, but if it's good (or is buffed during balancing), you can be sure that everyone will rush to buy 100x copies and the price spikes.

Omenseed actually doesn't look half bad. Importantly, they've made 1 HP creatures more viable by reducing ping god powers. It's also an amazing card with Half Life.

I picked up 1x of Incineration. I don't think the value is the burn, but the void manipulation. Instead of triggering a random dragon's afterlife in your void, you play this first and now the one you want is the only one left. I wasn't sure about it, so I only got 1 due to the price (which is down to $1 just a day later lol).

Awakening. I originally didn't get it, but as I was writing this article I talked myself into it. If the archetype works, this is going to be good card. For 60 cents...just get it I decided. That EXACT same log had me pick up these two (not dragon related ofc):

I'm not sure that this deck archetype is going to work. Mainly because the card only starts counting down while in your hand. Plus the payoff isn't "win the game" level of power. This card is probably going down in price, but just in case.

Some War

After initially passing on all the war cards, I came back and realized that two of the cards were super strong for any control deck:

Retaliation is just a better Ray of Disintegration. No downside. Only upside. Claw and Fang is a great removal spell to draw early, but if you draw it late, it gets better.

These are three I missed out on. They are purchase-only, strong, and the dragon War archetype seems awesome. On the other hand, I can't justify dropping almost $60 for cards still in balancing phase that are clearly going to be looked at closely if they continue to perform well. Draconite Shards in particular seem really strong, and even small nerfs to them will have a huge impact on the overall power of the archetype.

Just how overpriced might these cards be? Here's a common that can be earned in sealed/WR:

Yes, this card is awesome (because shards are awesome), but a farmable common is going to be ubiquitous. You'll get your playset just by playing in those modes over time. You'll get tired of seeing them. The most expensive common from MJ is Whitefur Guard at $.20. From divine order is Guild Enforcer at $.25.

Randos

These cards are basically just cheap. The Inkcloud Giant seems like it could be decent in some budget-friendly nature lists. Usually strength-heavy creatures are pretty bad, but the text on this card means that 4/3 is actually how you want it.

Atlant Forager is important for the magic Atlantean archetype and is still cheap. Figured I might as well.

Randos 2

Illusionist Outlaw is 'relatively' pricey at $1.25 - at least compared to the other cards I've shown. In my mind, this is a great card in lots of different decks - not just the new bounce deception archetpe. It's insane value for a midrange deck. I'm thinking a guild midrange with lots of draw would love this card. A control deck with Flip would, too.

More Nature

Vasek Isle is a key card for the manasurge archetype. It's also strong in its own right for healing.

What can I say about Lord of the Reef? It's a 4 mana 4/5, which is already full power. Then it also has overkill, manasurge mechanics, and wild tribe. It may get nerfed, but nature isn't anywhere to be seen on the leaderboards, so it may go unnoticed.

Splurge

I've always liked nature, and this is a cool card. He's perma-hidden, which makes him hard to remove (lightning strike, apoc, etc will do it though). If aggro/midrange nature can get the oomph it needs, this is a great top end card. Also, just based how rare this card is going to be, I can't imagine it staying at $20.

Summary

Total Paid: ~$45

I made sure to include the price I bought each card at. As of writing this article (a day after buying the cards), I'm down on just about all of them except Xansiddion and a few others. However, they are so cheap right now that being 'down' 5 cents on a card is meaningless. Packs are still selling, so supply is still coming to market. The goal isn't to time the bottom perfectly, but to get in at a decent price before it skyrockets out of reach.

On the flip side, I have not bought any of the cards earnable in sealed/WR. You can see their supply growing each day. Those commons/rares/epics will continue to fall in price (barring balance changes and/or new meta). I'm sure some of them are so cheap already that you can grab them, I just exhausted my appetite for researching cards with those above.

Of course, we may all look back at this post in a few months and laugh at how stupid I was. Just like my post from >1 year ago where I tried speculating on gold shiney cards before prices tanked. As I said, this is more a defensive play than trying to turn a profit. I don't want to get priced out of playing the new set, and I'm willing to risk losing 20 cents on a card to make sure I have it before it (maybe) explodes to $10.