For this article, I decided to sit down with our very own Hans Höh who is helping me with the coverage this weekend. There are a number of reasons for that and I'm just gonna list them here for you:

  • We've seen a large number of price shifts this weekend thanks to the Pro Tour
  • Hans was able to correctly predict these changes on Friday morning
  • … and quite a few players have approached me and asked how that was possible

The answer to (almost) all of the above is MKM Insight, a financial blog that is being written by Hans and in it, he's sharing his findings what's going to happen on the “Magic financial market” with the rest of the community. Now, with that out of the way, let's delve a little back in ancient history and tell you all about how I first met Hans.

I first met Hans many years ago when he was dominating the VS. System TCG tournament scene. It was quite the sight, like a “card game Jesus” tearing through the field. At the time, I was still working for Upper Deck and therefore responsible for organizing larger events (and often also doing coverage).
We kept running into each other on various occasions, especially at events of the World of Warcraft TCG, which I started playing (somewhat successfully) myself after I left Upper Deck. Hans put together another phenomenal string of tournament successes at that game, including winning the World Championship. After acquiring his Ph.D. in philosophy, Hans has now cut back on playing, but he is still heavily involved in the TCG industry, providing coverage and creating financial content for MKM Insight like I mentioned above. Here's his official definition:

“Insight is a financial blog, created to save you a lot of time and money by informing you about recent and interesting trends on the Magic single card market. You can then use that information however you see fit, whether you want to buy in for short or long term resale value, just get your own playset before a price spikes, or sell your copies during a hype.”

 

A Glimpse into the Future

That sounded almost too good to be true, but Hans is a man of his word. Here is a quick excerpt from one of his most recent articles Value Distribution Oath of the Gatewatch, in which he suggested buying Eldrazi Mimics, while they were available in large numbers for 0,50 € (!) per copy:

“I would suggest buying Eldrazi Mimic, as it is great in multiples with Eye of Ugin and the archetype desperately needs some early game. If you are on an aggressive game plan, which Thought-Knot Seer and Reality Smasher are suggesting anyway, it doesn't matter that the mimic is only big on your turn and therefore bad at blocking. It will see more play than its price is suggesting at the moment. Once players have seen the light, aka been attacked for 12 damage on turn 2 by three Eldrazi Mimics the price will “sky-rocket” as much as a rare from this set can. This specific scenario is obviously highly unlikely, but mimic is an early drop that will scale well into the late game very often.”

The prices of many of the cards that Hans recommended have spiked this weekend!

He's a bit of a modern day Nostradamus as you can tell…
In other words: Fast forward two weeks and the Pro Tour has proven what Hans was claiming, the card is now being sold for 4 €, and likely to trend upwards even further. If you had taken Hans's advice, you could have saved 14 € on your Mimic playset. Now imagine you had bought some additional copies, or foil Mimics instead…

The value of his advice can help you save a lot of money while completing your decks, add a lot of value to your trade binder or outright make you money if you are a professional vendor. I suggest giving MKM Insight a try, you won't regret it.