Eternal Masters Spoiler Coverage

Eternal Masters 

Release Date: June 17, 2016

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This promises to be another small print-run set that makes cards a little more available for a little while if not more affordable in the long run. With boosters costing an awful lot and the draftability of the set unclear, this may end up doing little more than offering foils of cards that haven’t been foil before. That’s not that much of a problem, frankly, if it means people can get $100+ cards for the price of a booster and have copies of cards they want for legacy and EDH without wrecking prices. Modern Masters and Modern Masters 2 impacted prices, but they weren’t enough to keep them down forever. Here’s everything in those sets that ended up more than the projected $10-$15 per booster pack.

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People who are worried about Force of Will should have some perspective. Tarmogoyf is lower than it would have been without intervention but that doesn’t mean it’s a lot lower than it ever was. Printed in both Modern Masters sets, Tarmogoyf is a 4-of in a lot of decks and that means demand will never really be soaked up.

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It isn’t the big money cards we need to worry about losing our investments in, so don’t sell those Force of Wills, unless you like the new art better because you’re wrong.

We had most of the cards anyone is going to care about spoiled in one shot, so let’s talk about it.

Force of Will

Jason Alt – This is currently $80 and it’s predominantly played in Legacy and Vintage, formats no one seems to want to play these days. This was the first Mythic spoiled but it isn’t the most expensive mythic in the set. I imagine this set will have a small, marginal impact on price. I don’t think the art is that great, but it’s better than the judge foils, which are the real losers here. If you have Forces, probably save them because they’ll recover, especially since the old art is better.  This is this set’s Dark Confidant or V. Clique.

Mana Crypt

Jason Alt –  The book promo is $200 and the judge foil is $225. That’s a difference of $25, $25 being the amount I sold my Mana Crypt for in 2004. Daggers.

This is this set’s Tarmogoyf for sure. So many EDH and Vintage players want these that I can’t imagine demand won’t soak up supply. However, the media promo and judge reward foil are the only way to get these currently. Will the set foil be $200 or will the set non-foil? Star City is betting the non-foil will be $80. Having an inexpensive basic set version should help shelter the value of the media promo and judge foil. The judge foil should also enforce somewhat of a ceiling on the set foil since there are so few judge foils. It’s going to be weird to see what happens, here. Will the flood of cheaper non-foils pull down the price of the media promo, or will the more “pimp,” rarer version maintain value?. I personally think there won’t be enough Eternal Masters copies to crater the price of the older promos. Still, with more people jamming Mana Crypt, the rules committee is going to take a second look at this card, now, and an EDH ban would hurt the price a ton. It’s already restricted in EDH, after all.

Sneak Attack 

Jason Alt – Pre-selling for $30 on SCG, Sneak Attack likely loses some value even at mythic. It will probably recover from where it ends up, especially given that copies disappear 4-at-a-time for Legacy and EDH players want this card and will now be able to get it more affordably. The older copies should be able to maintain $45 in the face of the reprinting. A comparable card from Modern Masters is Sword of Fire and Ice in my opinion. That had a set printing, a judge foil and a Modern Masters printing and its growth stopped but it mostly maintained its price. Sword appeals more broadly but I think the price trajectories are a good corollary if not the prices themselves. Let’s look at just the Modern Masters printing.

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Supply never ends up enough to satisfy demand on Masters-set mythics.

Necropotence 

Jason Alt – This is mythic because it would ruin Limited otherwise. It’s powerful enough, sure, but it’s not expensive enough to be mythic. This probably will drive the already-reasonable price of Necropotence down, which is fine, but the price was never a barrier to begin with seeing as how there were plenty of Ice age and 5th Edition copies easily accessible. This “feels” mythic but doesn’t do much to sell $15 booster packs. SCG wants $10 for these despite Ice Age copies which look cooler being that price. This was already on a downward trajectory before the reprinting, Legacy can’t play this and not all EDH decks want this. I bet this loses money.

Balance

Jason Alt – Who is playing Balance? This is a $4 mythic at pre-order and I don’t even know if it will maintain that. This needs to be mythic for its power level, but this certainly wasn’t reprinted for availability purposes. The set needs cheap mythics and it’s getting them.

Dack Fayden

Jason Alt – This is a great reprint. This all but rules it out of Conspiracy 2, which is fine. Vintage and EDH players alike love this card and this is a chance for more foils to hit the market, lowering the barrier to jamming a foil one in your cube. The non-foils are $25 and that seems about right. They are $35 now but are on a downward trajectory. I think this is the kind of card you want in this set.

Karakas

Jason Alt – Craig Wescoe spoiled this card because of course he did. This is a reprint everyone saw coming. Legacy demand for a while saw this sit at $30-$50 until everyone realized you didn’t autolose to Emrakul if you had this. Knight of the Reliquary decks used this to great effect, putting Knight in with Show and Tell and then using Knight to get Karakas before they could untap and swing with Emrakul. Currently almost $200, Legends Karakas should take a bit of a hit. Demand is 100% Legacy and Vintage (mostly Legacy) due to how banned this is in EDH. The judge foils should take a bit of a hit due to competition from set foils, but not too much of a hit. This is pre-selling for $80, which is less than half of its current retail. I expect that to be a bit too low, but not enough that I’m a buyer at $80. I think even at mythic, this should do a decent job of satisfying current demand, especially since it isn’t run much as a multiple the way Goyf is. This is good news for people who want to run Mangara D&T I guess.

 

Chrome Mox 

Jason Alt – The Modern banning really hurt the price of this card. Despite being very solid and having the word “mox” in the title, this is a mere $20 due to its unavailability for use in Modern. This isn’t used much in EDH. Legacy combo uses this but Mox Diamond probably gets roughly the same amount of Legacy use and this also has to compete with Mox Opal. Mythic rarity will help the price sliding too much but this is pretty inexpensive for a reason.

Worldgorger Dragon

Jason Alt – Every set needs a Comet Storm, I guess. Not sure why it’s always red that gets it. Prepare to lose a portion of the $2.50 you have invested in this card.

Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Jason Alt – Star City wants $80 for this and that seems reasonable. I imagine this follows the price trajectory of Vendillion Clique or Dark Confidant. If this is ever unbanned in Modern, I expect this to follow the price trajectory of Dark Confidant when they announced Modern and go nuts. I’m not buying an $80 lottery ticket and betting on an unban, but this is Jace and more printings slow his growth but that’s mostly all. This is OK in EDH, it’s in a few Legacy decks and it’s banned in Modern. The price is still nuts because this is one of the most iconic Magic cards of the modern era and the price is always going to be higher than we can justify with mere data. I am not worried about this tanking the current value.

Vampiric Tutor 

Jason Alt – Vampiric Tutor is sicko in EDH but being printed at mythic means we won’t get as many copies as we need. Currently a little under $40 for the Visions version, the real loser here is the $100 judge foil. Either the set foil ends up way higher than the judge foil, or this gets pushed to around $20-$25 in the short term. Either way, I’m hoping this gets cheap enough to actually help EDH out.

Enlightened Tutor

Jason Alt – Currently at $16 as a Mirage uncommon and pre-selling for that much on SCG, I think this is due to fall more than SCG predicts, or they’re hoping they can pre-sell a bunch before the price drops. However, I think this could recover. Kira, Great Glass Spinner was about $15 before Modern Masters reprinted it and after spending some time around $9, it’s $15 again.  It’s hard to guess if there are more copies of Kira as a rare in Betrayers of Kamigawa or of Tutor as an uncommon in Mirage and 6th Edition. What I do know is that I expect the price of this to come back to where it is now, or close to it. This will only help availability without hurting price. I like it.

Sylvan Library 

Jason Alt – I think this should bring down 4th and 5th Edition versions and maybe impact the Commander’s Arsenal foils a small amount in the short term. ’93/’94 is what’s propping up the Legends version and this won’t affect that at all. This is a good reprint and putting it a rare means it will make it widely available for EDH to snatch up all of these copies and Legacy to take the rest. SCG wants basically current retail for pre-orders and I expect that it can get back to that price soon.

Control Magic

Jason Alt – This art is great, which won’t take the sting out of opening a card that should be an uncommon in the booster your LGS charged you $20 for. The set needs bulk rares and this is a P1P1 in Limited, so I guess we all understand why this is in here. I’ll be replacing my current versions with this because of the art.

Entomb

Jason Alt – SCG wants $16 for this and they’ll probably get it. Entomb has shrugged off quite a few reprintings but this may be the one that does it in. Odyssey versions are twice what SCG wants for this version. I half expect it to go up from $16, but the Graveborn foil hurts the upside for set foils, and I don’t know if this can climb to $30+ or if the Odyssey versions can maintain that price. You certainly don’t have to worry about counterfeiting with the new versions, and the art is better. We’ll see what happens. If this goes down in the short term, I may look at it because the pre-order price is half of current retail and that’s not the case for the rest of these cards.

Toxic Deluge

Jason Alt – There is no question this brings the price down even more and SCG agrees, pre-selling for a mere $6. The only real question is what will the foil settle at? I have some Deluges so I’m eating it on this reprint, but I guess I don’t hate to see it. Commander 2014 had some real gas in it.

Diminishing Returns

Jason Alt – An example of diminishing returns is paying over $10 for a booster pack and getting a bulk rare.

Maze of Ith 

Jason Alt – This likely won’t stay at the $20 SCG is asking for it. This card is too good in both EDH and Legacy to be $20, though the downtick in popularity of Knight of the Reliquary decks in Legacy has caused the card to lose value over time even before this reprinting. Foils will compete with the judge foils, but honestly this is a card that could go up a tad, but will need a change in the Legacy paradigm to do so.

Gamble

Jason Alt – I expect this card to go down in price significantly. This isn’t bought as a 4-of the way Sneak Attack is and it’s not at mythic in this set. This should satisfy a lot of the demand for this wacky card, although the old art is probably going to be more popular. Pre-order is down to $10, and that just might hold.

Deathrite Shaman

Jason Alt – I have a big box of these and I was waiting for Legacy and EDH demand to help the price recover after the Modern banning. The SCG pre-order price of $5 makes me sad, but it’s probably accurate. There is little demand for this card compared to a few years ago. Legacy elves loves it and EDH probably uses it less than it should. I hate to see this reprinted before I could recoup my investment. Luckily, when Shaman first spiked, I sold enough copies to break even so all the copies I’m sitting on were free, but I’d rather get $10 for them than $3. Them’s the breaks.

Sensei’s Divining Top

Jason Alt – If being uncommon in a fairly recent set and being in a $12 precon weren’t enough to keep this card under $25, hopefully the few extra copies this adds to the market can bring it down a smidge. Still, despite EDH wanting these one at a time, Legacy wants these 2-4 at a time and that’s going to mean that we need to cough up 2-4 copies or every one new deck built. This shouldn’t hurt the price too much, but the old art is way better. This needed to be rare.

Wasteland

Jason Alt – One of the first cards spoiled, we’ve had a lot of time to debate the effect of the reprinting on the price of Wasteland. Pretty good in EDH, a staple in Legacy and Vintage and printed originally at uncommon, Wasteland is pre-selling for $60 on SCG. That seems a tab high, but with boxes at $250, maybe not. Every new Legacy deck will eat multiple copies meaning demand is likely poised to soak a ton of the supply up. $60 is higher than the current retail for the Tempest version, though, so I’m not sure what SCG is banking on. With judge foils, expeditions and other ways to get this foil, the set foils will likely be just another version, and probably the least popular of all of them. I think there’s downside at $60.

Goblin Charbelcher

Jason Alt – Not all of them have to be gems. This won’t be that good in Limited, and price wasn’t the reason to reprint this nor was availability. This gives us more foils, I guess, but all this did was stop the older version from inching up in price the way a card you invested in does, ideally. This is fine but I’m not a buyer, even at $3.

5/25/16

They haven’t let up on revealing cards since yesterday and there are a ton of them. I sort of hate them making us twiddle our thumbs for the months since they spoiled Force and Wasteland and then vomiting everything on us in 72 hours, but what do I know?

Maelstrom Wanderer

Jason Alt – I think this actually will affect prices and here’s why. The Commander’s Arsenal foils are trash. It’s a different foiling process and it sucks. I hated my foil Commander’s Arsenal Maelstrom Wanderer so much that I switched to non-foil Japanese and the rest of the deck is foil, that’s how much screw that foiling process. This gives us a shot at nicer-looking foils. If this doesn’t drag the price of Commander’s Arsenal foils down, what will happen is we’ll see a big divergence in price as people want these overwhelmingly. The art’s even way better. I feel like these are factors that people busting foils of this won’t take into account and I like these foils if they end up being priced beneath the price of Commander’s Arsenal foils initially.

Baleful Strix

Jason Alt – Foils of this are likely to exceed $50 which is pretty crazy. This didn’t need another reprint, per se, but I’m fine with it getting one and getting copies into the hands of players. The dip from WotC having to overprint Mind Seize decks has mostly ironed out and we could use some more supply. This is good in some EDH decks as well as quite a few Legacy decks and it’s a card we want in players’ hands. Having a chance to get these in foil is all upside.

Shardless Agent

Jason Alt – Well, this burns. I have been socking away Japanese copies because those were the best you could get and now you can get Japanese foils. I’m likely to lose  bit of value, but I think the price will recover mostly. This is a very good card in Legacy. It’s not as great in EDH but I still jam it in my Maelstrom Wanderer deck for some reason. I always end up hitting a mana rock, but every once in a while I’ll Maelstrom into Etherium-Horn Sorcerer into Bloodbraid into Shardless Agent into Coiling Oracle. I call it the Temur Ultimatum. Foils of this are likely to be pretty close to what they are for Baleful Strix and that price is likely to climb over time, so maybe trade for those foils if you can.

Nevinyrral’s Disk

Jason Alt – This gets a non-zero amount of use in EDH, but this won’t bring prices down. Alpha, Beta and Unlimited copies are still run in ’93/’94 and are still old so this will just crater the 4th edition copies and such, which is fine since now people can have a good-looking foil copy because that FTV copy is trash, and only $7.

Ichorid

Jason Alt – They really want reanimator and possibly dredge (it looks like the black/green archetype will be elves, though) to work in Limited. Ichorid is a sweet card and this is a chance to get more foils of it, so that’s cool. Ichorid is currently about $12, down from its historical high of $30+ and I can see this slipping down a bit more. This is exactly the price Divinity of Pride was and that’s now $3, though a second reprinting may be what’s kept it down. Still, now it’s Divinity of the Fall and Modern Masters was all it took to drive its price into the dirt. Will Ichorid fall as far as fast? Doubtful because every new deck needs 2-4 copies vs. every new EDH deck only needing one Divinity of Pride. Demand will soak up copies much faster. We’ll see what happens, but I think he $5 SCG wants right now is pretty close.

Hymn to Tourach

Jason Alt – Foil Hymn is going to be a very sexy prospect. This shouldn’t hurt the already dirt-cheap Fallen Empires copies but the prospect of getting foil copies is exciting. This is the same art as FTV:20 but better foiling process. I expect these to potentially stay close to the $7 the FTV copies are.

Regal Force

Jason Alt – This is a sicko card-drawing machine and EDH and Elf decks have made this a $15 card, a price SCG expects to be cut in half by this set. I could see this slowly climbing, but it’s not a 4-of in Legacy like Ichorid which means I expect it to end up below where Ichorid ends up despite having EDH applicability that Ichorid doesn’t have.

Unexpectedly Absent

Jason Alt – SCG only wants $1 for this guy, which is all the old copy went for. This is a good card but it’s also played in about 600 of the 21,000 white decks on EDHREC. This seems too powerful to be a bulk rare, but them’s the times we live in.

Dualcaster Mage

Jason Alt – This card is fetch. As in, I wish they’d stop trying to make it happen. They decide which cards become judge foils long before players start playing with the cards so they made Dualcaster Mage hoping people would play it in Legacy and EDH and pair it with cards like Heat Shimmer and there were no takers. This seems to be in a cycle of Commander set reprints and Toxic Deluge is basically the only one we’ve seen so far (unless you count Baleful Strix, which I don’t) which isn’t a bulk rare. Oh well.

Chain Lightning

Jason Alt – This is a great example of a reprint that will enfranchise players. The Reserved List isn’t going away. You can whine about how you can’t afford Volcanic Island or you can build burn and play Legacy until you can trade into the deck you want. This was basically the only thing in a serviceable burn list that cost anything unless you’re playing with Goblin Guides. This also gives us better-looking foils which should stay around the $15 people want for the ugly Premium deck version.

Cabal Therapy

Jason Alt – Basically everything that was true of Chain Lightning is also true of this, except Cabal Therapy doesn’t really slot into any reasonable Legacy decks. Nic Fit and Sam Black’s Zombardment are both decks I’ve run in Legacy and gotten away with cheaply(ish) but that was because I had dual lands from 2004. This isn’t going to enfranchise people to the same extent that a cheap Chain Lightning is, and Cabal Therapy has a lot more printings and yet is almost the same price, meaning there is a lot more demand which should help stabilize the price. I think this will diverge in price from Chain Lightning a bit, but there’s no real need to go that in depth on an uncommon that has foil printings already, including a sexy set foil.

Rorix Bladewing

Jason Alt – And you worried they wouldn’t have anything to pair with Sneak Attack in Limited. Bulk rare.

Vindicate

Jason Alt – I went over what would happen to the price if this ended up in Commander 2015 and I think what I said then applies now. Vindicate has been seeing a decline in demand of late and EDH hasn’t fully picked up the slack. SCG wants $10 here and I have an odd feeling that $10 is too much for Vindicate. It used to be much better than it is.

Bloodbraid Elf

Jason Alt – Something is keeping this at $3 despite being banned in Modern. Will that same thing keep this above $3 going forward? I expect it to dip in the short term and I’m not touching them at the bottom, but you can if you think these can hit $3 again. Don’t pre-order them from SCG or you’ll only save a cent.

Mystical Tutor

Jason Alt – This is currently $8 and a big reason why is a Legacy ban. This is a chance to get foil copies that aren’t the ugly FTV foiling, but those are only $20ish so there isn’t even a ton of upside on the foils. This is just going to get more copies into the hands of EDH players, which is fine with me.

5/26/16

Void

Jason Alt- Sets need bulk rares. This bulk rare happens to win games in Limited. I actually wonder why I have never tried to play this in EDH… It doesn’t matter, this is so cheap already that the reprint is almost an insult. It sure will be fun to draft, though. Ideally you take a $75 foil rare and someone passes this to you.

Wrath of God

Jason Alt – Half of the people think this means Damnation is definitely in the set, the other half think this means Damnation is definitely not in the set. Seriously, if they don’t print Damnation here, where even can they do it? They have to know that EDH needs Damnation to be affordable. If you have Damnations, I’d say to sell them, but I don’t think we’re ever going to get that reprint.

I almost forgot to talk about Wrath. Um, it’s been printed a lot. Now it will be cheaper.

Call the Skybreaker

Jason Alt – I remember that Standard RW splashing GBU deck called “Spanish Inquisition” that ran this as a finisher. Good times. That wasn’t enough to make its price high enough that a Commander 2015 reprinting didn’t make it bulk. This doesn’t help, but I want to play this in Limited.

Giant Solifuge

Jason Alt – This card is better than you think it is. It’s a bulk rare, though.

Natural Order

Jason Alt – This is the kind of reprint I was waiting for Green to get. Very cool. Mythic rarity means it likely recovers from its price dip, but lower demand than we used to see could mean that this will shatter the illusion cast by price memory and price this card more “fairly” which wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest. I could see this getting cheaper, but at a certain point, that activates new demand from people who had previously considered this unreasonably expensive which likely buoys the price a bit. We’ll see where it equilibrates.

Green Sun’s Zenith

Jason Alt – Weird to see both Natural Order and Green Sun’s Zenith in a set where there are no real good targets, yet. Emperor Crocodile, I guess. Regal Force? Craterhoof reprint incoming? Who knows. What I do know is that it was silly for this card to be $9 last week and it will be even sillier next week. Expect a drop.

Sinkhole

Jason Alt- Normally I hate rarity changes, but good on them for not making this common. These will get soaked up four-at-a-time by Legacy which should help its price from sliding down too much, but this can’t soak up such a high percentage of the value in the set so we could see this get pushed way down, at least initially. Someone wants me to make Deadguy Ale, it would seem. I don’t expect this card to hold $30+ and we could see the price, well, sink.

Isochron Scepter

Jason Alt – This is a good card and more players should play it if they want to, but it wasn’t exactly super scarce, having been printed at uncommon and not exactly being a staple the way Sensei’s Top is. Still, $6 for an uncommon that was in a duel deck shows how popular this is. I love this card in EDH and I even toyed with trying to make this work in Modern. Research//Development, yo! Ultimately, this could be fun in Limited but it requires them to print really good cards at uncommon and common, which they might do. I could see this shedding a few bucks off of its price, but price reductions for this card tend not to stick. Maybe trade for these when you’re convinced they’re done losing.

Karmic Guide

Jason Alt – This is a fine reprint. It’s a card that used to be ridiculously expensive due to the set it was in and that has been controlled by reprinting. This could bring the foil price down a bit since there aren’t many foils from Urza’s Legacy and judge foils don’t add many copies, either. I expect the non-foil price to be mostly fine and I expect foils to take a pretty sizeable hit, although Legacy foils are still way hotter. The first reprinting of a card always hurts more than subsequent ones and we’re used to seeing this get reprinted and it’s like $3 right now so who even cares?

Price of Progress

Jason Alt – I expect the price of Price of Progress to take a hit. This will give us better foils, so the Premium series printings should take a hit in price since these are better foiling (although worse art, mostly) and being uncommon should squash prices for at least a year, if not forever. Good reprint – Legacy burn should be dirt cheap so people stop whining about the Reserved List and just sleeve up a deck to go jam with.

Goblin Trenches

Jason Alt – I can dig bulk rares that absolutely turn Limited into a 1-sided bloodbath. I used to play this in Extended and it’s a beating. It’s also a bulk rare, so that’s a thing.

Argothian Enchantress

Jason Alt- Shroud means this is the gold standard for enchantresses. Scarcity means it’s worth its weight in gold. This has been $15-$20 basically forever. New foils means the judge foils lose value. New non-foil copies at Mythic might not be the beating to the price that we may think. It all depends, though. I think people are ready to soak up every Force of Will. I’m not so convinced about people being poised for every copy of this card. Legacy Enchantress wants multiple copies, but I think most of this will be EDH decks taking 1 copy at a time and that will be slow. I think the price sinks and may never recover.

Sulfuric Vortex

Jason Alt – Pulling pants down with this in Extended a few short years ago (Like 6 or whatever, but, give me a break, I’ve been playing since 1996) makes me wish we could use this in Modern. Not sure this can even go down much from $1.50, but it’s going to try.

Winter Orb

Jason Alt – So they re-added the “if it’s untapped” clause. This isn’t just card face errata, this is functionality errata. They are changing how the card works back. That’s amazing. This is also like a $5 card before the reprinting. However, this is the first opportunity (unless I missed something) for this to be foil, which means the market could dictate something crazy for the foil. I think if this dips to like $3.50 and someone wants a 2x multiplier, I’m a buyer.

5/27/16 – This is the end

Mother of Runes

Jason Alt – This is a chance to get these foil and the fact that this was switched to rare means it won’t mess up the price too much. This is a staple and I like the new art (albeit less than last time) so foils of this are welcome. The FNM foil with the old art is $30 and this should drag that down a bit, although not a ton necessarily.  This is welcome and with the non-foil around $5, printing this at rare means it should hold or at least rebound. Good news all around.

Swords to Plowshares

Jason Alt – I expect this to basically follow the same trajectory as Hymn to Tourach with respect to foils. I think these foils will be desired above the weird FTV foils so there is upside here since the FTV price will inform the market but preference will diverge the prices.

Brago, King Eternal

Jason Alt – An EDH staple, foils are a mere $15 on this guy and that would be gone up over time, but this should make the price plateau for a while if not go down. This is a bulk rare with a $15 foil but this signals that Brago is truly dead by the time Conspiracy 2 rolls around. If we do get Brago in Conspiracy 2, it will be a new Brago with new abilities, which would be sweet. This is a popular commander and foils will start at $15 but they had upside before at that price and will again, unless he gets reprinted with regularity, which would keep his price down. I am all about enfranchising EDH players, but foils should be expensive and a $1 card with a $15 foil is everything and EDH-playing financier like me could ever ask for.

Heritage Druid

Jason Alt – At $40, this foil is more expensive than a lot of the rares in the set. Opting not to put this in Commander 2014 in the elf deck made this hit $10. Reprinting this at not rare is going to make this very reasonable, both in foil and non-foil. This reprint is going to do what reprints should, and not putting it in a commander precon means the foil price won’t diverge out of control. All in all, this is what this set should do.

Eight-and-a-half Tails

Jason Alt – Quick, without looking, how much is this card? Now check. Surprised? I wasn’t, but I play EDH. Champions of Kamigawa was widely regarded as one of the worst sets ever, but that whole block gave EDH and casual so many staples it isn’t funny. This guy hit $7 with a $24 foil and those prices are going to be impacted for sure. Good reprint for enfranchising EDH, I guess.

Jareth, Leonine Titan

Jason Alt – The commander reprint made this a bulk rare but left the Onslaught version around $2. All this will do is pull the $12 foil down, but only by a bit. This is fine.

Wall of Omens

Jason Alt – Some cards shrug off reprint after reprint and then, one day, a reprint pulls the card’s pants down and it never recovers. This may not be what does Wall of Omens in, but we have to be getting close. This should drag the $20 foils down less than it drags down the $7 non-foils, despite a commander and duel deck printing. This is just good all around.

Arcanis the Omnipotent

Jason Alt – This guy is like $4 despite multiple reprintings and with good reason. He’s bonkers. This likely won’t destroy his price but it’s the third time this was printed in foil and it likely can’t hold $20 after this.

Future Sight 

Jason Alt – Bummer. This means we get this art in foil and the duel deck printing meant my Onslaught foils maintained their value. I didn’t see this coming and it feels bad, but if you wanted this in your EDH deck and wanted it in foil, this should be a bit more affordable, now. The non-foil price was like $1 so this is just getting more foils in people’s hands.

Inkwell Leviathan

This is a $1 card with a $2 premium deck series foil and a $5 set foil because this block did those all-foil packs for less than a booster of EMA costs. No financial relevance here

Phyrexian Ingester

Jason Alt – Underrated EDH card I had in foil because a Commander reprinting wouldn’t touch it gets crushed by a rarity shift. Why, cruel fate? Why?

Serendib Efreet

Jason Alt – This is a good card in Legacy Sea Stompy, which could be a good way to get into Legacy for cheap since the most expensive card would be a sword or jitte if you build it mono-blue with no Force of Will. Sea Drake is down, Illusory Angel is bulk, etc. This won’t affect prices because this is a bulk rare in Revised despite being misprinted and it’s a $4 FTV foil already. Still, this has no real financial impact except it gives us non-terrible foils.

Braids, Cabal Minion

Jason Alt – Banned in EDH, this is still a $35 foil. That will most likely change.

Blood Artist

Jason Alt – This was pulling away from Zulaport Cutthroat, but this should tamp the price back down. A commander precon printing would have preserved the foil multiplier, but I’m not unhappy with this.

Malicious Affliction

Jason Alt – Good news! Now we have a foil version of a bulk rare from C14 I’ve never seen anyone cast. This is better in EDH than it gets credit for, but I still don’t see foils going above $5.

Visara the Dreadful

Jason Alt- This has been printed 3 times and in foil twice already. The $6 FTV foil cut the $20 set foil in half already so this card was already tanking. This is whatever at this point.

Beetleback Chief

Jason Alt – Remember when the reddit crew bought all of these and it hit $15 and now it’s like $0.50? Good times. This is the first chance to get these in foil, but I don’t know that anyone cares. This is fun in Limited, though.

Crater Hellion

Jason Alt – A bulk rare seeing its first foil printing, but a bulk rare all the same.

Siege-Gang Commander

Jason Alt – Bulk rare with a $6 foil likely becomes a bulk rare with a $5 foil.

Tooth and Claw

Jason Alt – Basically just played in Prossh, I still think foils have upside here, but very long-term. I’m just saying don’t bulk out the foils if you get them.

Imperious Perfect

Jason Alt – I don’t know if this will bring down the $3 non-foil price more than other reprints, but like I said about Wall of Omens, this could be the one that does it. The $9 Lorwyn foil could be impacted but the $12 full-art Champs versions are likely safe. This is fine and should be rare because Limited shouldn’t make you said.

Silvos, Rogue Elemental

Jason Alt – $2 rare with a $7 foil becomes a bulk rare with a $4 foil

Xantid Swarm

Jason Alt – This is a $4 card with a $24 foil despite losing a lot of ground due to its falling out of favor in Legacy. This basically stopped seeing play when they banned Mystical Tutor. This is still good in VIntage, but low demand means the price is in danger.

Duplicant

Jason Alt – This is a card that has seen less and less play in EDH lately, but which is still solid and this should bring the price down a bit. Cards under $10 usually take big hits because there wasn’t pressure on them to take up any of the value of the set in the first place, that falls on the cards over $50. With boxes of Modern Masters 1 still only like $350, there isn’t much pressure on $6 cards like Duplicant to do any work for a while and this could end up very cheap, especially if demand continues to wane. This is the first decent foil printing of this art, if that matters.

Relic of Progenitus

Jason Alt – Daggers

Worn Powerstone

Jason Alt – Double Daggers. I was holding onto Saga versions since it seemed unlikely it would be in a set where it could be foil. Now it’s going to be foil, and it could be a $7-$10 foil at that.

Sphinx of the Steel Wind

Jason Alt – Somehow the set foil is $9 despite those foil packs and the Premium series foils being like $2. This should bring that down quite a bit. This is a bulk mythic otherwise.

Glare of Subdual

Jason Alt – Bulk rare with a $5 foil becomes a bulk rare with a $3 foil

There were some very notable exclusions including Worldly Tutor, Damnation, Flusterstorm and Show and Tell. Where will those cards go? It’s hard to say, but those exclusions here could bode very well for Conspiracy 2 later on. Stay tuned when those cards start to come in!

 

 

15 thoughts on “Eternal Masters Spoiler Coverage”

  1. When reviewing a lot of cards like this, it’d be nice to see a list near the end of the post like this; TCG median prices on OG copies:

    Card / new copy price / old copy price / reccomendation
    —————–
    FoW / 80$ / $78 / buy old copies now
    Mana Crypt / $80 / $200 / Wait for EDH rules committee
    Sneak Attack / $30 / $40 (saga) / buy now, price will recover
    Necro / $10 / $9 / stay away, old art is better
    Balance / $4 / $1.50 (Rev. ed.) / stay away, has no home
    Dack / $25 / $33 / pick up new set foils ?
    Karakas / $80 / $145 / stay away, only played as a 1 or 2 of
    Chrome Mox / $15 / $16 / stay away, 3 of in legacy belcher
    W.G.Dragon / $3 / $2.50 / stay away
    Jace / $70 / $90 / pick up new set foils ?
    Vampiric / $30 / $29 / pick up new set foils ?
    Enlightened / $12 / $15 / pick up new set foils ?
    Sylvan Lib / $20 / $23 (4th ed.) / pick up new set foils ?
    Control Magic / $1 / $~1 / stay away, new art is dope
    Entomb / $16 / $30 / watch this card
    Toxic Deluge / $6 / $14 / pick up new set foils ?
    Dim. Returns / $1 / $0.50 / stay away
    Maze of Ith / $20 / $23 / pick up at $20, pick up new set foils ?
    Gamble/ $10 / $30 / pick up new set foils ?
    DRS / $5 / $7 / stay away
    Top / $25 / $28 / pick up new set foils ?
    Wasteland / $60 / $55 / pick up new set foils ?
    Goblin Charbelcher / $3 / $6 / stay away

    Cards you haven’t talked about:
    ——————–
    Dualcaster Mage / $1 / $1.50 / pick up new set foils ?
    Wirewood Symb / $2 / $2.25 / stay away
    Animate Dead / $1.25 / $1 / pick up new set foils ? (new art is sick)
    Daze / $3 / $3 / pick up new set foils ?
    Mishra’s Factory / $2 / $1.50 (4th ed.) / pick up new set foils ?
    Bloodbraid elf / new art, stay away, pick up new set foils ?
    Shaman of the pack / new art, stay away
    Nimble Mongoose / pick up new set foils ?
    Werebear / stay away
    Timberwatch elves / stay away
    Giant tortoise / stay away
    shaman of the pack / stay away

    ————————————–

    Notes:
    “pick up new set foils ?” means I don’t know what to do with this card.

    Gamble is a 4 of in Legacy Lands, a very popular but very expensive deck (see Tabernacle). This card is also the best tutor in mono-red commander decks.

    FoW is the 2nd MOST PLAYED CARD in legacy
    Top is the 7th
    Daze is the 12th
    Jace is the 14th

    Deathrite Shamane is the #1 most played CREATURE in legacy
    Wirewood Symbiote is #38

    Sylvan Library is the #35 most played SPELL in legacy
    sneak attack is #43
    toxic deluge is #49

    Wasteland is the #2 most played LAND in legacy
    karakas is #22
    mishra’s factory is #23
    maze of ith is #40

    Speculation:
    Chrome mox might jump because it’s a 3-of in legacy belcher, one of legacy’s cheapest decks.

    Pick up eidolon of the great revel (if no reprint), burn is one of legacy’s cheapest decks

    Pick up Cabal Therapy (if no reprint), it’s used in many legacy decks including the cheapest of legacy decks.

    1. I wish I could edit my comments:
      the “new art” shaman of the pack is supposed to read: control magic.

      1. baleful strix / $? / $6 / pick up foils ?
        regal force / stay away, great green commander card draw

    2. I don’t hate that idea summarizing all of the prices and brief recommendations at the end, but I worry that people would skip to it and miss justification for those recommendations.

      1. You’re right. I think summarizing the prices has merit, but I’m really sorry I did it. I should have just let you know that I was interested. My apologies; I shouldn’t have posted this.

  2. Mana Crypt banned in EDH? I’d be very surprised. Mishra’s Factory would get the foam hammer first.

    1. That wasn’t baseless speculation – the RC hasn’t taken a hard look at Crypt because it is prohibitively-expensive now. If more people play it, more people will complain about it and we’ve seen complaints take cards down. I think it’s fine, but I got kicked off the RC for the damage I did in the break room when I lost the vote to unban Prophet of Kruphix

      1. Honestly I’m pretty sick of EDH RC banning things (and keeping things banned) because of their expense. It’s a singleton format, so freaking what if Tom wants throw his mox in there, is getting a creature out a turn earlier than everyone else on the table REALLY going to impact the game?

        You know what happens when people play with power in games like that? People freak out. We did it when I was 14 years old, and our friend (whose collection sold for $5500 in 1997, with plenty of alpha power, duals, etc, to give you an idea how valuable it would be today) would whip out his “good deck” in a multiplayer game… he got jumped on. By everyone. 40 life doesn’t last long when people will sack their Shivan and 2 cloned Shivans just to get one of them through to do 13 firebreathing damage to you. And the next guy does the same.

      2. The format is billed as “casual” and the rules committee has said that some cards are banned for reasons of cost. This is supposed to keep the format accessible for a casual crowd. Assuming that’s why mox’s and other expensive broken cards are banned while “cheap” broken cards like tooth and nail etc. aren’t means that a ~150 dollar card like Mana Vault should be on the ban list. It’s better than Sol Ring and goes in EVERY SINGLE DECK, if its as affordable as Sol Ring. It’s arguably better than pieces of the power 9.

      3. Sol Ring would be a $3500 card if it was printed at rare and stopped in unlimited. It’s better than Ancestral Recall often, especially if you consider it’s 1 and not U

  3. Aaand SCG is sold out of Mana Crypt at $90. That seemed way underpriced to me. Karakas is the next card that seems pretty underpriced. They have 39 Jace in stock. They would need a solid 120 boxes to open that many Jace, and maximum allocation for advanced plus stores is 32 boxes. I guess the big players get extra favors.

    1. Yeah, the backdoor dealing sucks. It’s not a level playing field and never will be. Smaller shops just have to suck up the pain of being short-allocated.

    2. Or they have an aggressive buy list to hoover up the singles they need to satisfy pre orders?

  4. Jason you seem really angry and bitter as you review all these cards…u ok?? Mana Crypt started at $50 on SCG and I guess I should have bought in immediately; I believe Star City prices go up as a certain volume of cards get preordered, so when 20 Mana Crypts get bought the price goes up $10 for the next 20 and so on and so forth. I feel this is also what happened with Thing in the Ice. Unfortunately I’ve never seen SCG LOWER the price of preorder cards; I’m sure it’s happened but I haven’t caught it.

    The new Force art isn’t that bad and I can’t wait to get the new Top in Foil cause it looks amazing in the previews (I think you are on crack if you think the old basic top looks better than the new one, but I like flashier things). I think Wasteland looks terrible but it’s a destroyed City of Brass so that’s kinda cute, I still don’t like it much but it’s flavorful.

    I unfortunately think that the new Sylvan Library foils are going to destroy the price of the Commander’s Arsenal ones, like both around $60 and that might be an overestimation. I hope you are right with your prediction cause you don’t view the new set foils to be as detrimental to the CA foil price.

    One thing I want to add, I think there will be a premium on NM copies of older cards like Karakas, Force, Sylvan Library, Wasteland, JTMS, Chain Lightning, etc. A lot of players, including myself, have had to play cards in Legacy that aren’t NM just to afford to play a deck. I know a lot of players at my LGS are interested in “trading up” their OG Force that might be SP or worse to get a new NM/mint EMA Force. Accordingly, I think the price of NON-NM copies of ORIGINAL art versions of EMA cards are going to suffer the most moving forward. This is just an educated guess.

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