Going Mad

Going Mad – Grand Prix Indianapolis and Things

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By: Derek Madlem

Did I say Grand Prix? Sorry, that probably should have been “Bland Prix”, or just “Prix”. Indianapolis has a storied history of players just not showing up to Pastimes events and throwing yet another Grand Prix on yet another holiday weekend didn’t seem to alter any timelines. With less than 1100 players participating in the main event for a constructed tournament, we have to ask what’s wrong with this picture and is it significant going forward?

The easiest thing to do is blame Pastimes. The hardest thing to do is narrow down a specific reason to blame Pastimes outside of the $70 entry fee to the main event. I thought long and hard this weekend about why exactly so many players in the Midwest hate Pastimes with an irrational passion and I honestly can’t put my finger on it.

Their judge staff is basically interchangeable with the judge staff of any other event east of the Rocky Mountains…because it’s basically the same core of judges across many of these events. They hardly ever have to manually pair entire tournaments anymore, so that can’t be it. They even spread out prizes in Win-A-Box events to the top four players and there’s more than a box worth of prizes. It’s evident that they’re trying, even if that effort is only to line their own pockets.

The empty tables were plentiful Saturday
The empty tables were plentiful Saturday

$70 Entry Fee & $700 Decks

The most telling thing for me as an Indianapolis Magic player is that so few of the local players even attend home town events. It’s a Friday night and there are a million side events occurring at the Grand Prix and the local player base would rather attend an FNM, the baseline for Magic events. If a company is doing a decent job running Magic events, you’d expect to see local players showing up all weekend long, but you just don’t get that with Pastimes events in Indy.

A non-zero amount of players didn’t play in the Grand Prix simply because it was a holiday weekend, but that’s no reason to see HALF the attendance you would expect for a city that only exists because it is at the nexus of every other major city in the Midwest. Add in a Regional Pro Tour Qualifier on Friday and you’ve got a recipe for what should be a decent turnout.

We might have hit the breaking point for what players are willing to spend to play this game. There is a mile difference between a $50 entry fee and a $70 entry fee for the average player, you can almost justify playing a sub-optimal deck in a $50 tournament…you’re getting a sweet promo and a playmat out of the deal, but you can’t justify skimping on the Gideon, Ally of Zendikars and Jace, Vryn’s Prodigys when you’re shelling out $70 just to sit down. Add in a couple meals from Noodles & Company and parking and you’re at $100 for the weekend for one event when this was traditionally a failed attempt at a Grand Prix and a couple drafts or Win-A-Boxes.

Unfortunately, we’re probably not going to get another US Standard Grand Prix before Oath of the Gatewatch to determine whether it’s card prices or the Tournament Organizer that stifled attendance but Grand Prix attendance will have an effect on card prices if it continues to fall.

Weekend’s Winners

The story of the weekend (according to the top 8 deck lists) seems to be all about Abzan coming out on top, Dark Jeskai not quite living up to it’s “next Caw-Blade” hype, and Dromoka’s Command still being a good card. Beyond that there was another story looming in the wings casting shadows over the rest of the tournament. If you look at the decks that won grinders you’ll see two things:

  1. There weren’t very many grinders
  2. Big dumb Eldrazi won two out of the four events.

If you had the the misfortune of attending Grand Prix Indy and took a look around at the room’s hot lists you’d also have noticed that there was some very small spreads on Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger and Ugin, the Spirit Dragon.

 

Ulamog was selling for as low as $12 and appearing on buy lists as high as $9, a small spread like this is typically a sign that a card is getting ready to move. There were similar spreads around the room for Ugin, I found them for sale as low as $25 while appearing on buylists as high as $23.

“But Derek, the deck didn’t even make Top 8”

I’ll be the first to admit that the Eldrazi ramp deck is not optimized. When looking over lists to throw this deck together for my weekly local, I saw that there’s not consistent numbers on many of the cards. Some run Rattleclaw Mystic and others run Map the Wastes, some run four copies of Hedron Archive while others only run two. In the coming weeks we’ll see this archetype optimized and the deck steam lined and a more cohesive 75 presented.

The deck battles extremely well against Dark Jeskai and may have been the foil that kept it out of the top eight. With a paltry four rounds of piloting it under my belt now it’s pretty easy to see that with a couple slots changed around, it can have a pretty decent match against most decks, thanks heavily to the low threat density in many of Standard’s most popular decks.

As this deck continues to pick up steam (and seemingly gain more cards from Oath of the Gatewatch), I expect both Ulamog and Ugin to continue climbing.

Shadows Over Innistrad

If you’re into vague visuals that give you little more than a name, I’ve got just the trailer for you:

It appears that next spring Wizards is going to leverage one of the most popular planes of all time in an attempt to shift some of our excitement from fall to spring. What do we know so far? Nothing beyond a name, some twisty branches and a feather turning to blood: SPOOKY!!!

You can read the set announcement here.

The set is said to contain 297 cards which is up from the 274 that we saw in Battle for Zendikar, this likely means that they’re counting both sides of some flip cards as individual cards…so if you’re into that kind of thing, you’ll have that to look forward to. I wouldn’t place any bets on seeing a reprint of any Magic Origins planeswalkers, so you can throw that idea right out the window now to save discussion.

While it would be cool to think that the shadows cast over Innistrad were from the massive floating squid-being Emrakul, we get another hint from this week’s second announcement:

Duel Deck: Blessed vs. Cursed

For the past few years we’ve seen the spring edition of the duel deck series featuring planeswalkers. Many of us thought we were a lock for seeing Ugin vs. ______, but instead they decided to give us another deck introducing the block we’re about to visit and there’s a good chance that’s what we’re going to see this in duel decks for the foreseeable future as it makes for a more cohesive marketing strategy.

You can read the announcement here. 

Instead of Eldrazi, you can see that it’s just a lot of demons flying around causing a ruckus, a problem caused by Liliana destroying the Helvault the last time we visited Innistrad. Thanks Liliana.

Ugin’s absence is another reason I think the card is a great pick up long term, as there’s no player in Magic that Ugin doesn’t appeal to, from the kitchen table to Commander to Modern to Standard…the card is just sweet. The new block structure makes it even harder to reprint a planeswalker with the Core Set option off the table, so it’s going to be much harder for Wizards to give us a reprint outside of a Modern Masters III.

Commander 2015…

…or 2016, whatever they want to call it, is also in Spoiler Season starting this week. At this point we’re well past these decks being worth any money and while there’s probably one that you’ll be able to crack and make $5 selling off it’s contents, there’s little to get excited about financially other than the prospect that a number of your spec targets get reprinted into oblivion, totally ruining your profits – sorry bro.

There’s still a possibility that these two color decks feature the enemy fetch lands, but Wizards is conscious about how much reprint equity they throw into their products and the fetches will sell a large set on their own, so there’s no reason to waste it on Commander decks.

I’ll go more into depth on the price death spirals these decks initiate in the comings weeks as there’s not really a lot of say other than “hey this card is kinda neat” followed by ignoring it completely for two to three years. Print-on-demand prepackage singles are no longer hot investments.

The Death of Legacy

The Death of Legacy™ has been an ongoing #mtgfinance saga for a couple years now, and the Illuminati are trying their hardest to kill it off completely. SCG announced this week (in the middle of me writing this article) that they were changing the format of their open series to be a $20k tournament followed by two glorified side events on Sunday rather than two $5k events. Now Legacy players will show up to win sweet prize wall tickets that will be redeemable for mis-priced garbage that Legacy players probably don’t want to own.

While this doesn’t outright kill Legacy, it does take much of the wind out of it’s sails and probably stagnates growth on many of these cards in the US for a very long time. Is it time to panic sell? If you feel so inclined, there’s likely to be an above average number of people dumping cards in the coming weeks because this is the “last straw” and their fed up with straws. Here’s the reasons why I’m not selling into the dystopia:

  1. Most people were playing Legacy to play Legacy, not for the prizes.
  2. There will still be some number of Opens featuring Legacy as the main event
  3. Legacy still happens around the world and they never had SCG Opens
  4. If a novelty format like 93/94 can take hold, then Legacy still has a future

I’m not going to consider Legacy a great “investment” going forward as there’s better places to park your money, but it is still the best format in the game and almost anyone that’s played it will agree. I’m sure this is a topic we’ll cover in more depth as we see how this shakes out in the coming months, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t at least mention it here.

Questions

While I generally have little trouble writing about what I want to write about (one of the benefits of being overly opinionated), I don’t always write about what YOU want to read about. So this is my call for questions you want answered or topics you want discussed in future columns. Leave your requests in the comments below and we’ll see what we can cover.

 

City of Traders, ProTrader

PROTRADER: Modern at the Edges

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By: Travis Allen

Did everyone enjoy their Halloween? We had our eighth annual house party, and it was the biggest yet, a fact that surprised us considerably given that A. it fell on Halloween itself and B. we didn’t think our parties were very fun. We had assumed that there would be a wealth of options available to people Saturday night, and that as a result, our guest list would be fragmented across various activities. Normally, we shoot for an off day so as not to compete with going downtown, other house parties, etc. We also were under the impression that everyone thought our parties were fairly boring and lame. It’s been two or three years since someone threw up in the kitchen sink, nobody hooks up, and while it’s a gender-diverse event, there are nearly no single women. The biggest attraction is that Dance Dance Revolution is inevitably set up.

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I’m sure you’ve mostly all seen the news that we’re returning to Innistrad next block. We have no spoilers, or even substantive art that includes any sort of organic figure. All we’re given is a sense that the good of Innistrad has been distorted in some way, evidenced by the symbol of Avacyn contorting itself to stock suspenseful music. I’ll let others elaborate about what we can and can’t expect, though I’ll make one quick note: we’re not getting Snapcaster Mage and Liliana of the Veil back.

The rest of this content is only visible to ProTrader members.

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ProTrader: Magic doesn’t have to be expensive.

Jason Alt

The Rising Tide’s First Wave

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Readers,

You knew I was going to address the Commander 2015 spoilers. With a lot of spoilers condensed into a few weeks, I’m going to have to basically address every card I can each week, since there is a lot to go over in a short time.

I’m potentially going to mention cards I’ve mentioned before in previous articles, but unlike previous articles, which highlighted archetypes that could emerge, these predictions are predicated on actual spoiled cards and there’s likely to be a lot more pressure on the cards due to the impending printing of new stuff.

I am going to talk exclusively about the five legendary creatures spoiled today, because all of them have the potential to launch new archetypes or replace older cards within their particular archetypes, and I think they will have the most profound effect on prices. This will be less in-depth  than the other articles about these color combinations, but while those were speculative based on the abilities typically given to cards in those combinations, this is predicated on the actual, spoiled cards. There’s a lot to go over, so let’s get down to it.

Daxos the Returned

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Potentially the best card spoiled so far with experience counters, this guy can get out of control very quickly. I have talked about enchantment-based decks before, with creatures like Heliod at the helm, but this guy is perfect. Are there cards we’re going to want to jam in a deck with Daxos as the commander?

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This seems like a shoo-in. Before, I discussed how good this was with a commander like Heliod, and while that meant this was likely to experience some growth eventually, I think Daxos as a commander is going to put pressure on this card right away. Every time you make another enchantment creature with Daxos’s ability, this taps for more mana. That alone is stupid. Using a ton of mana to pump out more tokens means you get out of control quickly. Black and white are great colors for enchantments as it is, and Theros block gave us a ton of exciting permanents that are enchantments in addition to their other types. Spear of Heliod is a great way to give yourself an experience counter then buff the creatures you throw out with Daxos.

Serra’s Sanctum itself is just dumb. While it doesn’t get the love in Legacy that Gaea’s Cradle does, this is just as good in some EDH decks and everything that made Cradle seem like a solid investment applies here. This card is on the Reserved List, and unlike Gaea’s Cradle which had extra copies due to the premium printing, all we have are regular Sanctums. This is a $30 card that could easily hit $50 and is never going to be bad in EDH or get reprinted. This seems like a no-brainer to me. The odds of this being in the Commander 2015 precon are zero percent.

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This is just going to shrug off reprints for days. With five printings and a nearly $10 price tag, this is an EDH staple. This s a very, very good card and it is very good in a deck like Daxos. Drawing cards is never bad, losing a life isn’t too arduous in a 40-life format, and playing this to give yourself an experience counter feels great to me. I don’t think this will go down a ton for very long if it is in the Daxos deck because it’s so ubiquitous in EDH, the price is trending upward, and we could see the Wurmcoil effect we saw with the mono-red deck from last time repeated here. I would call the odds this is in the precon less than 25 percent, and I don’t even think the reprinting would be that bad. If it is reprinted and the price tanks, buy these at its price floor. It absolutely will recover.

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This is very expensive and is only getting expensiver. If you’re not inclined to shell out $15 for a card with growth this flat, just remember this is going to get a boost from people building around Daxos. If this isn’t in the deck, and I don’t think it will be, the price has upward pressure. A reprinting would be brutal, but I think it’s a less than 35-percent chance. I would buy any copies I want for personal use now before the price goes up with  65-percent confidence. There is no pressure to reprint this for Modern, and it’s pretty expensive to jam in the precon. A card that soaks up that much of the value should really make the deck win, and this doesn’t help the precon beat other precons. If you buy one for your deck, buy two and put one in a box.

Also watch: Debtors’ Knell, Necropotence, Painful Quandary, Humility, Black Market, Land Tax.

Mizzix of the Izmagnus

mizzixoftheizmagnus

This card is basically what I imagined it would be, although it has an interesting caveat that I hadn’t anticipated. I knew just straight, “When you cast an instant or sorcery, get an experience counter,” would be too good and they got around that nicely by forcing you to play bigger and bigger spells to keep getting the cost reduction. Luckily, there are some great spells for that in Izzet.

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At $1.50 in foil, this is great in the deck but not super relevant financially. Still, I like how this plays with the new commander. You won’t lose money if it’s reprinted in the deck, and if you buy the foils you won’t gain a ton of money necessarily, either. Dealers aren’t super jazzed about this card—yet.

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At $9.50, this foil has upside from new decks and no downside from a potential reprinting. I don’t like the non-foils at $1.50 due to reprint risk and limited upside.

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This foil is pretty saucy under $3 also. There is real upside here and it won’t be reprinted in foil.

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This guy is to Storm as Animar is to morph decks and Mind’s Desire is going to get bugnutty. At $12.50, the foils are a bit pricey and the non-foils at $1 suffer from a lack of upside and a somewhat decent reprint risk, but this card is going to go in a lot of the new Mizzix decks. Is Mizzix better than Melek is for storm? Hard to say. But X spells in general are going to be insane.

Also watch: Inexorable Tide, Blue Sun’s Zenith, Flash of Insight, Omniscience, Contagion Engine, Prosperity.

Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest

mazirekkrauldeathpriest

It seems unlikely that the Golgari card that gives you experience counters will be better than this, but you never know. What I do know is that this card is stupid, especially with creatures that have persist plus sacrifice outlets. Two persist creatures and a sac outlet gets dumb, quickly. This card is dumb.

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You might want to build a Ghave deck just so you can put Mazirek in it and start cheating at Magic.

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Modern Masters made this card stop being $15. Mazirek could make it $15 again, but not this year. Still, this isn’t a $4 card anymore.

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Prossh and the printing of Dictate of Erebos brought this staple down from its all-time high of $14, but it could get up there again.

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This personal Fecundity is pretty good, but I don’t think it is at its bottom yet, nor do I think the non-foil can be pushed much.

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This personal Fecundity is a $6 foil and I think this deck gives it upside, and the fact that it’s uncommon means the non-foil is irrelevant.

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Skullbriar could get some upside as a deck as well as Ghave. Mazirek will be a fine commander but it can also bolster some older decks people may have forgotten about.

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Greater Good is unlikely to be in the deck, but a sacrifice outlet is essential, and this is one of the best ones you can buy. This price has been flat for a while, but it has demonstrated the ability to be more than it is now. Renewed interest in sacrificing things will shine a new light on this.

Watch also: Prossh, Skyraider of Kher, Dictate of Erebos, Miren, the Moaning Well.

Kaseto, Orochi Archmage

kasetoorochiarchmage

I’m not super jazzed about this, as Ezuri is much better, but since this is in the deck, we’re likely to see snakes happen, so let’s look at any snakes that get better with this guy at the helm since EDH players love to build tribal.

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The Duel Deck printing pulled this card’s pants down. I’m not sure I think the upside from the potential snake tribal deck makes me want to pay $12.50 for the foil, but the risk of reprint there is lower. This is a snake I want to make unblockable or leave on defense with the ability to pump up at will.

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This is under $3 in foil and is absolutely going places. The non-foil could be in the deck but I like the foils.

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This card was going places already. You’re not buying in at the floor, but with a combination of new landfall cards and this card’s inherent unfairness with fetch lands, a new crop of which is in the hands of players and a new cycle of which is legal in Modern, this particular snake is gas.

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At under $3 in foil and close to bulk for a mythic, I don’t leave a single one of these in a binder if I can avoid it. This is a snake that makes smaller snakes. Seems fine.

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This gets a lot better when your commander can make it unblockable, and it’s cheap even in foil. If snake tribal is a thing, this is in the deck.

Also watch: Nature’s Will, Sasaya, Orochi Ascendant, Coat of Arms.

Ezuri, Claw of Progress

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Wow. I was hoping the Simic experience counter guy wouldn’t suck and this doesn’t. At all. It’s irresponsibly good. This makes too many cards good to even list.

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Can you get to five experience counters on Ezuri? What if you’re proliferating? I’d guess $5 for a foil Sage of Hours is going to seem very reasonable in a week.

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Hnnnnnnng. This is a bit of a nonbo if you’re trying to put more counters on your commander, but just be good at Magic and don’t sequence your cards terribly, and all of a sudden you can start dumping counters on Biomancer every turn and every creature you play is nuts.

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How good is this with Ezuri? Ugh. So good, that’s how.

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Yo, dawg, I hear you like triggers, so I made your triggers trigger your triggers. Imagine all the experience counters you will get playing this then something like Coiling Oracle. This is stupid. It’s stupid how much better Ezuri is than every other card they’ve spoiled.

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This is cheating. This is just absolute cheating. Mycoloth shrugged off a reprint and is headed for the stratosphere as it is and I can’t imagine a ridiculous commander like Ezuri doesn’t put a ton of upward pressure on this already decent price. This card is insane with Ezuri. I’m brewing a deck just by making a list of insane cards.

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I don’t know how much money you make buying this promo at $1, I just wanted to point out how insane this card is in an Ezuri deck. Jesus.

Also watch: Every hydra, Gilder Bairn, Doubling Season, Hardened Scales, Primal Vigor, Intruder Alarm, Cloudstone Curio, Inexorable Tide, Contagion Engine, Thrummingbird, basically every Simic card.

Why doesn’t this card say “non-token” so you can’t get 100 experience counters with a single Avenger of Zendikar? Why?

We’re seeing some pretty good cards and there are a lot of older cards identified here that I’m very confident about the upside on. A lot of decks are about to be built, and the cards in those decks that didn’t get reprinted have a lot of upside in their futures. Look what Nekusar did to wheel effects to see what kind of upside we’re talking about for the best cards in these decks. EDH is a serious price driver, and we’re about to see a lot of building going on.

I’m not super happy about getting EDH sealed product every year since it feels like too much to keep up with, but as long as I write for MTGPrice, I’m going to be on top of it and do the analysis so you don’t have to.

We’re going to get some new spoilers as the days go on, so check out MTGPrice for coverage and my weekly article series. Until next week!

Spoiler Coverage

Commander 2015 Spoiler Coverage

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Welcome back, readers!

Spoilers for Commander 2015 are already upon us and you know that that means! Not as many new cards as were in Battle for Zendikar, but while it won’t mean much to predict the prices of cards that will be in Sealed product, it will be useful to predict which deck could be above MSRP in value and which older cards will be boosted by the new printings. Yes, this is very similar to my weekly column, which you should also read. Let’s get into it!

Daxos the Returned

This card is very, very good. I wrote in-depth about the cards I think could be boosted by this in my weekly article this week which will be published for everyone to read tomorrow, but, briefly, I think Serra’s Sanctum is a slam dunk. It scales very well with this card and is one the Reserved List. Heliod scales with it nicely as well, and with the option to play both, BW tokens/pillow fort could be very nasty. Daxos is very, very good, easy to trigger and cheap to play and activate. I have more picks in my article, but take a look at Serra’s Sanctum. It has a high buy-in but Gaea’s Cradle shows us how high it could theoretically get (not that a card that is multiples in Legacy is comparable in demand to an EDH card, though there are fewer Sanctums than Cradles). This card is nuts and I hope the rest of the deck has slick new enchantments.

Mizzix of the Izmagnus

I think a lot of the obvious cards bolstered by this are inexpensive right now. Again, I covered this in depth in my article, but I will say that we could see renewed interest in Storm since this lets you play bigger spells than a Melek deck and theoretically makes Mind’s Desire a big player without you having to run mana-generating spells. This is harder to scale than the other experience counter generals but it’s worth it. Playing a very cheap Enter the Infinite or 11 point Blue Sun’s Zenith or Epic Experiment is going to feel very good, though there aren’t a ton of expensive rares that this grants upside.

Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest

I have a sneaking suspicion that this will be much better than the experience counter commander in Golgari. This is savage and gives a lot of cards already popular in Prossh deck some upside. This will likely get jammed in Prossh, Ghave and Skullbriar decks as well as being a good commander in its own right. Greater Good and Grave Pact are cards I’m watching, but the list of potential upside targets is a long one.

Kalemne, Disciple of Iroas

Angels are going to get quite a boost from this guy as well as cheap cards like Boros Battleshaper. This is going to make Sunforger a card as well, if you ask me. Big, durdly creatures are key here and I think that’s the way you build around this guy which is good since Boros is traditionally about tokens and small creatures. Sun and Inferno Titan are printed into powder but will get a second look, and Sunforger, down from a reprinting and Tiny Leaders turning out to be a total bust could get some upside, especially in foil. You kill them very quickly with a Sunforger on this double striking creature, after all, and grabbing a Ghostway or Master Warcraft as a combat trick wins games.

Kaseto, Orochi Archmage

This isn’t the most exciting Simic Legendary creature, but that’s OK with me. People will absolutely build snake tribal and there are a lot of cool snakes, especially legendary ones from Kamigawa block. A lot of the snakes do stuff when they deal damage and with the ability to make the creatures unblockable is underrated, currently. Nature’s Will isn’t a snake but it’s snake-flavored and it has real upside as well as Lotus Cobra and a few Legendary snakes, Time of Need and cards like Ohran Viper. Even Mystic Snake is great in a deck with this. Tribal staples will get another bump as people with tribal decks build yet another one.

Ezuri, Claw of Progress

This card is insane. I have written about a lot of the cards that get upside here and I don’t want to rehash too much of the article I wrote this week here, but the list of cards that get upside from this guy are almost too many to name. This doesn’t say “non-token” or “cast” and I think it’s actually irresponsibly good. Dumping the counters on a Master Biomancer to make everything huge, or taking infinite turns with Sage of Hours or going to Hydra town – this guy does it all. I plan to brew a deck with this in my Gathering Magic column this week and the cards in that deck are all likely getting upside. This card is insane.

Command Beacon

Depending on how many of the decks this is in, this has very limited upside, but what it does do is make people take a second look at Phage, the Untouchable as a Commander which I think is worth doing.

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At $15 in foil and $2 in non-foil, though this has had a few printings, I bet this gets a second look. If this goes up, it likely brings Torpor Orb along with it, and Torpor Orb is a card that’s going up eventually anyway. I’m surprised it’s still so cheap. Torpor Orb is literally my only “want” card on PucaTrade, that’s how many of them I want.

 Dread Summons

This is very good in Sidisi decks and milling out your opponents is non-trivial. Getting a ton of tokens for hurting their strategy is saucy, and Doubling Season, Primal Vigor and even Parallel Lives could be impacted. This card is likely not going to see much play, ultimately, but I like it in a few decks.

Blade of Selves

Ultimately, the list of cards affected by this is too long to name. Any creature with an ETB trigger is savage with this. I would focus on equipment tutors if we’re trying to home in on cards with upside granted by this card. This could ultimately be a bust, but it just seems so, so good primae facie and I think ultimately having a bunch of extra copies of utility creatures come into play when you attack is going to win games. Imagine you put this on a Woodfall Primus or Frost Titan.  This card is a player.

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Who wants to pay 2 extra mana for a worse Quietus Spike?

Meren of Clan Nel Toth

Remember I said a few places I figured Mazirek was so good it would be better than the Golgari experience counter card? My first thought looking at this card was complete incredulity. This card would be ridiculous without the whole “otherwise put it in your hand” caveat. This card is stupid good. It’s likely to grant upside to all of the same cards that Mazirek does as well as financially-irrelevant cards like Fleshbag Marauder. Sac outlets are especially juicy with this card. I’d watch Black Market, High Market, Greater Good, Miren, the Moaning Well and foil Perilous Forays.

Anya, Merciless Angel

It’s too bad this has no black in it. Imagine this in a deck with Sorin Markov, Sorin’s Vengeance and Magister Sphinx. Still, this dirty angel does some work. I don’t think you want this as your commander, but I’d say jamming this in a Gisela deck would be sweet. I don’t think this is good enough to make Kaalia of the Vast move on its own, but between FTV angels and the Gisela reprint in C15, I think we will see Kaalia move organically. Angels are popular and while this isn’t an impetus, it’s weight on the scale and that matters, too.

Mizzik’s Mastery

I predicted that we would get a card that was a new card that could get played in Legacy and that would be responsible for a lot of the value in the Izzet deck. I think this is it. If you play enough mana-generating spells and cantrips, this card lets you replay all of them and storm out. This is better than Ill-Gotten Gains and Past in Flames combined. This is Legacy Storm ready and it’s very good. How much money this ends up being worth, I can’t say, but this is going to help sell Izzet decks.

Magus of the Wheel

Nekusar decks gets a boost from this but that’s about all.  I don’t see this pushing anything up a ton since all of the Nekusar cards already spiked. This is just a less reliable Wheel of Fortune. Could it be part of a cycle of awesome Magi imbued with sweet spell power? Maybe!

Grasp of Fate

This is a good rate for Oblivion Ring universe. This will be an EDH staple and I bet it’s going in the Black-White deck which means it’s a reason to buy that deck. This seems like a $5 card in the short term.

Synthetic Destiny

The same CMC as Mass Polymorph but playable at instant speed? Count me in! This card is absurd. Will it be financially relevant? Look at Mass Polymorph for the answer to that question.

Aethersnatch

Instant
Gain control of target spell. You may choose new targets for that spell. If that spell is a permanent, that permanent enters the battlefield under your control.

This card is stupid good. It’s a better Commandeer if you’re OK paying the mana cost, a better Desertion, a better Spelljack. This card is what EDH players have always wanted. I imagine if people are overly excited about Mizzik’s Mastery, it could push the cost of this spell to about $1. If it does, I’m all in.

Gigantoplasm

Clone is playable in EDH and this is better. Unfortunately, cards like this are role players. They’re not going to push anything up but they will be worth money and any time there is an impetus for speculators to buy these sets because a card in them is selling for more than the MSRP of the deck, the other cards in them get pushed to nothing and that’s a good time to buy. This will be worth more than bulk and that’s the price I want to buy these at. This will never be Phyrexian Metamorph money, however, so don’t go too deep on these. It’s just a better clone.

Karlov of the Ghost Council

This is pretty balanced, unfortunately. If this is your commander, the only way to cheat counters onto him is to proliferate with artifacts. Of course you could always do things the hard way and play a lot of lifegain. Making tokens with Soul Wardens out is one way to do it. Still, I’m not impressed with this creature. I imagine the fact that we’re getting cards like Black Market in the Daxos deck is going to crush mediocre cards into powder and I expect Karlov to be among the casualties. He’s good, but fair. Too fair.

Righteous Confluence

This is garbage.

Verdant Confluence

This is better than the white one, but not great. This is a bulk rare most likely.  I love 6 mana ramp spells to really help me get over the hump.

Mystic Confluence

Even though you can use this to draw three cards, I’m not sure the lack of a “tap all of your opponent’s creatures” mode won’t keep this from seeing play in a Universe where we have access to Cryptic Command. People anticipated this card would be legacy-playable and they are likely pretty disappointed. This card is fine, but Cryptic Command is much better and I don’t see playing both. Are you already playing Jace’s Ingenuity? Congrats,  they printed a rare version that’s a little better.

Bloodspore Thrinax

This card is legitimately very exciting. Master Biomancer that doesn’t require you to play blue? This is going to be a card that people want multiple copies of for multiple decks right out of the gate and I could see it being worth a few bucks. This card is stupid and though it won’t replace Master Biomancer in my Vorel deck, it will supplement it.

Bastion Protector

This card is very exciting to people with vulnerable, low-toughness Commanders like Gaddock Teeg, Rubinia Soulsinger and Geist of St. Traft. I imagine this becomes somewhat of a staple initially, but I don’t know that it will play as well as everyone hopes. Still, expect this to be money for a minute.

Arachnogenesis

Not every Fog gives you a ton of creatures and a ton of experience counters on Ezuri. This is powerful and narrow, a perfect recipe for not much money now and some money potentially later. Let this hit bulk.

Ezuri’s Predation

If EDH decks could have sideboards, this would be a sideboard card. This is a green wrath of God or a way to spend 8 mana and watch a bunch of 4/4 creatures die. If you can benefit from that situation with a Fecundity or something, go for it, but this seems like it’s hard to benefit from and 8 mana spells better win the game almost on their own.

Deadly Tempest

This is so much better against some decks than others, this also feels like a sideboard card. I don’t see a reason to play this over Decree of Pain.

Awaken the Sky Tyrant

This could easily have been uncommon.

Dream Pillager

Creature – Dragon
Flying

Whenever Dream Pillager deals combat damage to a player, exile that many cards from the top of your library. Until end of turn, you may play nonland cards exiled this way.

Meh. I’m not super stoked about this since you have to pay the mana costs and it’s tougher to serve than you might think starting around turn 7. There aren’t a ton of dragon slots in most decks and I’d much rather steal all of their artifacts if I hit them with a dragon.

Centaur Vinecrasher

I’m not sure this was made for EDH. This seems like a card that players are going to try out in Legacy, either in a New Horizons variant or dredge or some new kind of deck. This could potentially be a lot of money if people want it for Legacy, but with its place in the meta being unclear and SCG withdrawing support for Legacy as a format, its future is pretty murky. Ultimately, in a Titania deck this could thrive but it’s narrow although powerful. I like the idea of playing it and saccing it to Greater Good only to make it larger and larger as you discard cards.

Ajrun, the Shifting Flame

I am not so sure I want my flames shifting this often. Teferi’s Puzzle Box is cool because it screws up your oppponents’ plans and forces them to draw a ton of cards and take a ton of damage from Nekusar. This messes with you alone and also sometimes helps you take a ton of damage from their Nekusar or fuels their Consecrated Sphinx. Someone explain to me how this isn’t all downside.

Daxos’ Torment

Constellation – Whenever Daxos’ Torment or another enchantment enters the battlefield under your control, Daxos’ Torment becomes a 5/5 demon with flying and haste until end of turn in addition to it’s other types.

Eh. I’m not thrilled by this at all. I feel  Daxos’ pain every time I find this in my hand instead of a card that affects the board. 4 mana is not a good rate for a sometimes 5/5 flier. It’s better than Awaken the Sky Tyrant, but that’s damnation by faint praise considering so are some of the commons in this set.

Scourge of Nel Toth

I could see looping this with something like Tooth and Claw and Parallel Lives but you also need a way to benefit. Getting back a generic 6/6 for 2 tokens can be OK but I think this feels a little to balanced for you to trifle with. This is a good card if you’re playing the precon against another precon, but this seems like trash to me and a bulk rare unless I’m missing something huge.

Seal of the Guildpact

I think the best thing about this card is the art, even though the wrong guild is illuminated. EDH players love cost reduction, and the chance to reduce their gold spells by 2 colorless will appeal to people a ton. I could see this climbing to a few bucks over the long term but getting crushed to powder in the short term. There may be opportunity here.

 

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