Category Archives: Watchtower

Watchtower

Pioneer Again

Pioneer is still the hot new thing and it’s still driving prices (crazy), so I’m talking about it more this week!

Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet

Price in Europe: €12 ($13)
Price in US: $15
Possible price: $30

Kalitas has had its fair share of time in the spotlight, from being a Standard powerhouse to a Pioneer workhorse, and even doing some good work in Modern now and again. Back when Pioneer was popular the first time around, Kalitas saw a huge spike from around $10 up to $40, and I think that we could see something similar happen this time – but perhaps even harder and faster due to the much lower supply around now.

Lots of midrange and aggro decks have been picking up Kalitas as both a maindeck and sideboard card, and it does a lot of work against multiple archetypes. The graveyard hate on it is pretty strong, and that coupled with it being a Lifelink brick wall against aggro decks has, somewhat unsurprisingly, made it a popular choice for black decks in the format.

We’ve seen the price tick up very slightly over the past week, but supply on both non-foils and foils is very low now, and I expect to see a hard push on the price over the next couple of weeks. Pick your copies up now if you want to play with or spec on these, because I don’t think non-foils will have too much trouble hitting $30, and foils could also double up to $60. Both versions are available slightly cheaper in Europe if you can get them, but it’s not a huge difference and the $15 copies in the US should still do you just fine. Maybe we’ll even see $40 from Kalitas again if it remains a popular format choice, but that depends on how the meta continues to shake out over the next few weeks, so grab yours now and keep a close eye on the price movement.

Winota, Joiner of Forces

Price in Europe: €12 ($13)
Price in US: $22
Possible price: $30

I hate to do it to you, but the opportunity is just too good (and the previous pick is honestly very nearly as good in the US as it is in Europe, so I’m not counting as a full arbitrage pick) – so here you are, Winota arbitrage (if you’re quick!). Just as it’s had success in Standard and Historic, Winota is here to dominate in another format – Pioneer. The bizarre Human/non-Human tribal card is doing exactly what it’s always done best, putting a silly amount of power into play in a sideways fashion and beating your opponent to death with it. As it happens, the deck works very nicely with the Daybound/Nightbound cards from Midnight Hunt, because Winota enables you to put creatures into play on your turn without casting any spells – you’ve advanced your boardstate but can still flip your Werewolves over in your opponent’s upkeep, making them even more powerful than they were before.

Winota has already seen a price jump in the US due to the reinvigoration of Pioneer, but Europe is still lagging behind a little on this one. There are plenty of €12-13 copies available on CardMarket, which you should be able to flip quite easily for $30 or so once you get them over to the US. If you are on the other side of the pond (the US side that is), then it might still be worth hunting around for any sub-$20 copies you can find, because supply is getting so low on these that I don’t think $40 is out of the question in the near future and so making money on $20 copies isn’t out of the question.

Kroxa, Titan of Death’s Hunger

Price today: $20
Possible price: $40

Not an arbitrage pick! Yay! Rounding things off today we have a card that has been prolific in quite a few formats over the past couple of years, and I’m actually a little surprised that the regular copies can still be had for $20. Kroxa has, and still does, see play in multiple Modern decks (Death’s Shadow, Jund), and appears in multiple top Pioneer decks as well as being a reasonably popular EDH card. Although it might not quite live up to its fallen brother Uro, Kroxa still packs a punch and does have the advantage of not having been banned in multiple formats.

FEAs of this card are hard to find under $100, but non-foil EAs and regular non-foils do seem to be lacking a little in comparison. Regular copies at $20 and EAs at $30 makes me think that they’re primed to be on the move quite soon, especially if we see continued success for the card in Pioneer. I don’t think that it’s in any danger of going the way of the blue-green Titan, but is still of a high enough power level that it should see cross-format play for months and even years to come. There are around 50 regular non-foil listings on TCGPlayer right now, but most of those are singles and no vendor has more than four copies, so it won’t take too much to move the needle on these. I think given 12 months we could see $40 or more on Kroxa.

David Sharman (@accidentprune on Twitter) has been playing Magic since 2013, dabbling in almost all formats but with a main focus on Modern and EDH. Based in the UK, he’s an active MTG finance speculator specialising in cross-border arbitrage.

Watchtower

Pioneer Reborn

I’m writing this article because Jason told me to. Kind of. Look at his tweet, okay?

Pioneer is being brought back into the spotlight with the upcoming Regional Championships featuring the format, and so everyone and their dog has started playing and streaming Pioneer on MTGO again.  So let’s talk Pioneer.

Emergent Ultimatum (FEA)

Price today: $5
Possible price: $20

Hidden Strings has been one of the top Pioneer decks for quite a while now, and I think that it’s a good time to act on some of the cards in it before prices start to move. Emergent Ultimatum has long been a key part of the deck, casting it with your bounty of mana from Lotus Fields to go and find your Fae of Wishes + untap effects etc, and grab your wincon. It sounds a little convoluted but once you see it in action it works pretty well, and the only real disruption you can hit it with is counterspells (or you know, killing your opponent before they can go off).

The best decks against Hidden Strings are either hard aggro or hard control, both of which are a reasonable part of the meta at the moment but still can’t quite topple the king. Mono-red likely stands the best chance of being the top deck in the weeks to come, as a cheap and accessible deck that a lot of newer players (to the game or the format) can easily pick up, so we will be taking a look at those cards too.

I’m almost surprised that Emergent Ultimatum is still as cheap as it is, because it’s seen moderate EDH play along with its Pioneer prowess and copies have started to dry up. Only 29 listings left on TCGPlayer and not many around the $5 mark before it’s closer to $10, so I think this is prime time to grab a few of these before the cheaper copies are gone. A $10 floor is very soon in this card’s future, and $15-20 really won’t be too far off either.

Chandra, Dressed to Kill

Price in Europe: €8 ($9)
Price in US: $15+
Possible price: $25

As mentioned in the previous section, I’m looking at the mono-red deck. It’s a very streamlined, hardline aggro deck that plays 8 one-drops, four Eidolon of the Great Revel, and a bunch of burn spells (including Bonecrusher Giant which is obviously serving double duty). Chandra, Dressed to Kill really isn’t playing games (ironically?), with almost all the decks playing four copies and a few on three, and it seems like she’s the real deal.

Three mana for three loyalty is pretty standard, but Chandra comes equipped with two different +1 abilities that give you mana and burn (but not mana burn) or card advantage, and an ultimate that is certain to end the game very quickly if you ever get it off. I expect this card to be a mainstay in Pioneer, and might even get tested in Modern (although likely won’t make it very far), but either way people are all over this card right now and copies are getting hard to find.

They’ve pretty much vanished from TCGPlayer, with only nineteen listings across foil and non-foil, and the major vendors have very few copies (and they’re expensive). Over in Europe, however, the market is lagging a little bit and you can still get quite a few around the €8 mark on CardMarket. I don’t think that those copies are going to last very long at all, so pick them up whilst you can – and if you can find any in the US around $12-15 then I think they’re still a decent buy too. Supply on this mythic isn’t high enough to meet the new demand at the moment, so for the time being it’s going to be a scarcity and could easily crest $25 and keep going up if its popularity continues.

Greasefang, Okiba Boss (Showcase Foil)

Price today: $4
Possible price: $10

Now onto a completely new deck on the scene (as far as I can tell), with Mardu Greasefang. This is a deck that pivots around Greasefang, Okiba Boss, Parhelion II, and discard/mill effects. The deck’s been doing pretty well over the past few days, with a bunch of 5-0 Leagues from different players and some strong finishes in the Pioneer Challenges (including a win). I really like the look of this deck, and its strong synergy backed up by some generally powerful cards makes for a promising future.

As the name suggests, Greasefang is a key component to this deck, and until it finds a copy the deck can’t really ‘do its thing’. The fact that the Vehicle comes back to your hand instead of getting exiled is huge when you’ve got so many discard effects in the deck; it means you can just keep repeating again and again. I expect to see a few different variants of this deck pop up over the next couple of weeks, and wouldn’t be surprised if it were a major player at the Regional Championships.

Foil Showcase copies are currently available for around $4 on TCGPlayer, and I think are the best version to go for if you’re looking to spec on this card. 48 TCG listings but most are single copies with no major walls (actually nothing past 3 copies), so once demand picks up a little bit these are going to disappear pretty quickly. If you want to play this deck with foils then I’d grab these quickly, and I think it’s a really solid spec too.

David Sharman (@accidentprune on Twitter) has been playing Magic since 2013, dabbling in almost all formats but with a main focus on Modern and EDH. Based in the UK, he’s an active MTG finance speculator specialising in cross-border arbitrage.

Watchtower

Crimson Commander

I don’t think I’ve written specifically about Innistrad: Crimson Vow in relation to EDH since the set was first released, around four months ago. I think it’s time to go back and see how the set has done since then, and which cards might yet have a bright future ahead of them.

Toxrill, the Corrosive

Price in Europe: €9 ($10)
Price in US: $12
Possible price: $25

Aside from being the most popular commander from the set, Toxrill has proven to be a solid card in its own right as well – 2200 as a commander and 4200 as a card. I think that it would be far more popular than that even if not for one tiny little blue mana symbol in the textbox, which is holding it back from being in all those mono-black and black/X decks that don’t include blue.

A 7/7 for 7 certainly isn’t the best rate going when it comes to pure stats, but that’s not what this card is about. The first line of text is the most important here, because it says at the beginning of each end step – that means four times for each go around your normal EDH table, and those slime counters are going on every creature you don’t control. That’s pretty strong if you ask me, and the fact that Toxrill has a card draw engine attached to it on top of that is just even sweeter. This works equally well either as a commander or part of the 99, and I honestly think that it would already be a $20 card if it were mono-black.

Prices in Europe are, as expected, a little lower for this EDH-only card, and so if you have access to that market then I’d grab some copies under and around $10 there. Over on TCGPlayer you’ll be paying a little more at $12, but I think that’s still a reasonable price to pay for what I think should be a $25 card in the not-too-distant future. There are also the Showcase variants at around the same price, but I think those arts were a swing and a miss. The Double Feature versions are…fine? but not worth paying the extra $4 if you ask me; the regular copies should do well here. If you do want to gamble on some extra arbitrage, there are €55 Double Feature foils on CardMarket – a card which is over $200 on TCGPlayer (last sold copies around $120). I won’t be taking that bet, but if you’re feeling lucky…

Edgar, Charmed Groom (Double Feature Foil)

Price in Europe: €7 ($8)
Price in US: $13
Possible price: $25-50

Now onto a Double Feature foil that I do think is worth it: Edgar, Charmed Groom. I’m nearly surprised at how few Edgar decks have actually been built, but when you have the opportunity to play Edgar Markov as your commander instead then there’s really no competition. Nevertheless, the Charmed Groom has found a nice home in the 99 of lots of Vampire tribal decks, and for good reason. This card is going to be so annoying for anyone else to deal with unless they can just straight-up exile it, because otherwise it’s just going to keep flipping and making tokens and buffing your Vampires and flipping and…yeah, you get the idea.

There are five different versions of this card out there, and so I think the play is to look at the ones with low supply: Double Feature foils. There are only six listings on TCGPlayer and not many more elsewhere, so they’re already getting difficult to pick up. Europe has a few more but not many, albeit at a cheaper price point. We’ve already seen some of the more popular Double Feature foils hit sky high prices (mythics over $200 etc), and I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect Edgar to be pushing $50 before too long. People that want the most premium version of this card are going to pay for it, so make sure you’re going to be the one selling it to them!

David Sharman (@accidentprune on Twitter) has been playing Magic since 2013, dabbling in almost all formats but with a main focus on Modern and EDH. Based in the UK, he’s an active MTG finance speculator specialising in cross-border arbitrage.

Watchtower

Uncut Gems

Two weeks on from the Lurrus ban in Modern and the meta seems in reasonable shape, with plenty of different decks running around in the format and many different viable strategies. Today I want to take a look at some of the undervalued cards from these top decks, and what I think their futures have in store.

Unsettled Mariner (Foil)

Price in Europe: €5 ($5.50)
Price in US: $11
Possible price: $20

Unsettled Mariner isn’t much talked about any more; it used to be a very useful tool for the UW and Bant Spirits decks in Modern, as well as often appearing as a favourite for Humans decks. Those archetypes aren’t particularly prevalent in Modern at the moment, but another deck has picked up the slack and you can instead find the five colour Elementals deck playing a couple of copies of the Changeling. That’s what brought it to my attention, and a little look at the stock levels across Europe and the US showed that foils are in a nice position right now if you can grab some from CardMarket.

Mariner may not be in all the top tier Modern decks, but that’s the point of today’s article – cards that you might not look twice at normally. With the medium amount of play it sees in Modern plus a reasonable 6330 EDH decks on EDHREC, foils are in a good spot to make some solid gains over the next few months.

With foils sitting at around $11 on TCGPlayer, that’s not a bad price if you’re just looking to pick up some personal copies, but if you want to spec on these then I suggest hunting across the water. CardMarket in Europe has them available from around €5 ($5.50), and with supply as low as it is right now I think this card should be set to hit $20 before too long. Only 33 listings on TCGPlayer (almost all single copies) isn’t many, and I wouldn’t expect a reprint any time soon – the number of times we’ve seen Changelings printed is few and far between, so another foil of this card might not be on the cards for a little while yet.

Memory Deluge (FEA)

Price today: $11
Possible price: $25-30

UW Control has been seeing more and more play as a top deck in Modern over the past couple of weeks; whether that’s a product of the Lurrus banning or not, it means we’ve got some more cards to look at. March of Otherworldly Light is still going strong in the deck (I hope you bought some when I told you to a few weeks ago), and another card seeing a reasonable amount of success in the deck is Memory Deluge.

Dig Through Time this card is not, but honestly I think it comes closer than you’d guess at first glance. Both the normal casting cost and the flashback are fairly reasonable, but the instant speed of the card means that it’s a fantastic option to cast either early or late in the game at the end of your opponent’s turn to dig for an answer to something or just more card advantage. I think it’s the best four mana card draw engine that the archetype has at the moment, because of the added flexibility with the Flashback, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see it remain a staple in the deck for a while to come.

I’m inclined to look to Shark Typhoon as a comparison for Memory Deluge – a card that was a big part of Standard when it was in rotation, and has since been a staple as a one/two-of in Modern control builds. FEAs of that card are now around $45 (having been even higher previous to that), and I don’t see much reason why Deluge shouldn’t follow a similar path. It might not prove to be quite as popular as Typhoon in EDH, but at around 2500 decks listed on EDHREC it’s certainly not doing too badly and should continue to see a decent amount of play in that format. It’s also a popular choice for control decks in Pioneer for what that’s worth, which should help to drive the price at least a little.

Otawara, Soaring City (FEA)

Price today: $15
Possible price: $30

Otawara, Soaring City might not be the first land from Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty that you think of; it might not even be the second one either – but it’s definitely worth taking a closer look at. All the hype so far has been around Boseiju, Who Endures, and that’s definitely not been misplaced – Boseiju has been showing up in a lot of Modern decks since it came out, most notably in the Amulet Titan and Omnath decks. Otawara, however, has also proven to be a very popular choice as a one/two-of in quite a lot of decks…and I mean quite a lot. Murktide, UW Control, Living End, Omnath and Crashing Footfalls decks – to name but a few – have all been playing a copy or two in their lists, and I think that Otawara is here to stay as a flexible land choice in Modern.

I spoke about Takenuma a couple of weeks ago and the same logic applies here – this is a land that comes in untapped without restriction, taps for coloured mana and has a strong ability tacked onto it – what’s not to love? You can play around with this bouncing your opponent’s threats in a control shell, or your own haymakers in Elementals and Omnath decks.

Foil extended arts of this card are much cheaper than the Borderless foils, (almost half the price in fact) and I really quite like the look of them. I think that the art is much better than the Borderless version, and supply is currently a little lower on top of that, so it seems like a win/win to me. With continued Modern play and as the second most popular EDH card from the set (nearly 8000 decks on EDHREC already), this should be an easy win to double up in the next 12 months or so.

David Sharman (@accidentprune on Twitter) has been playing Magic since 2013, dabbling in almost all formats but with a main focus on Modern and EDH. Based in the UK, he’s an active MTG finance speculator specialising in cross-border arbitrage.