Can you believe it? It’s been like a week since they fully spoiled Conspiracy and already they’re inundating us with Kaladesh spoilers. Well, no rest for the weary. It’s time to see if we can’t figure out if some of these cards won’t be going for more money than they are pre-selling for if there is otherwise some money to be made, or at least not lost, for my readers.

9/16/16

The set is fully spoiled! Expect Commander 2016 spoiler season to start tomorrow. Either that or they’ll keep outsourcing their printing jobs to total scumbags and someone will post grainy cellphone pics of all 5 decks. Either way, keep your eyes glued to MTG Price for a financial review!

Deadlock Trap

Anyone who remembers Tumble Magnet is excited for this card. Unlike Tumble Magnet, you can find ways to add more energy and use this every turn, which will get annoying for sure. This costs 3 and comes down tapped which is probably necessary since you could use this to shut down their best creature or ‘walker indefinitely and that’s very strong. I expect this to see some play if a control deck materializes, which would make this a buck or two, though the ceiling is low because this won’t be a 4-of regardless.

Fateful Showdown

Red decks often struggle with the question of what to do with excess land drawn late. This solves the problem quite nicely, doming the opponent and filling your hand up with gas. I don’t know that this is playable in Standard and it’s likely going to end up not seeing play. EDH doesn’t usually want a wheel effect that doesn’t force your opponents to draw and thus is good in Nekusar. This isn’t good enough for Legacy or Modern. Who wants this card? Likely nobody.

Sequestered Stash

I imagine this gets play in a lot of different formats. I don’t know if this is good enough for dredge, but this and Life from the Loam together seem potent. This will do work in a lot of graveyard-based EDH decks. This could potentially help you cut quickly to an important artifact. In short, this land is destined to be a few bucks, foils even more. This seems like a candidate for FNM foil if this is as impactful as it seems like it could be. I’m snagging all of these out of draft chaff and I’m gunning for cheap foils. This is a card.

Confiscation Coup

“Should we print Confiscate in this set?”

“It’s probably too slow for Standard.”

“What if we made it 5 mana?”

“Then you’d have to make it like, way worse.”

“What if we made it way, way worse?”

“Then you’d have to also make it a rare”

9/15/16

Restoration Gearsmith

No, this is not a rare but this is bugnutty and if you like making money from EDH cards the way I do, snag a pile of these. You can probably get these for free out of draft chaff or trade a bulk rare for a playset. Foils will be initially cheap and expensive later. This is a card to watch.

“Master of Marionettes” 

Fabricate 3

Whenever an artifact you control is put into a graveyard from the battlefield, target opponent loses life equal to Master of Marionettes power.

This seems silly. I don’t know if it’s too slow to impact Standard or not, but this will for sure murder people in EDH. Shattergang Brothers, Glissa, Sharuum – This will murder people. I don’t think it’s going to be worth above bulk for a while, though. I hate telling people not to bother buying cards I like, but that’s reality.

Insidious Will

Wow. Again, I don’t know if Standard wants this (It very well might because there aren’t really many good counters right now, as clunky as it is to hold up 4 mana) but I know for sure EDH wants this. It’s 3 spells in one and the sheer flexibility makes it a shoo-in for a lot of decks. I don’t know if the price will be above bulk initially, but I expect this to impact EDH long-term. It takes a minute for those cards to go up, but that’s good since we want time to pick up a lot of them.

Spikey players are as unenthusiastic about this for Standard as I am.

Syndicate Trafficker

This is a pretty straightforward durdly card that I expect will be a bulk rare, but Spikey players are pretty excited about this, though their enthusiasm borders on the kind of “Magic Christmas land” scenarios that are the hallmark of /r/magictcg. This pairs well with Tireless Tracker, I guess. I think non-mythic rares will have to be pretty exceptional to stand out in this block and I don’t think this gets there.

Fumigate

The lifegain clause may make this card comparable to Wrath of God because the lifegain could offset the extra turn you get beat in the dome by red creatures while you wait for 5 mana. This is certainly a contender for the coveted “5 mana wrath” EDH spot and could vie for inclusion with the 5 mana wrath they put in every block.

Then again, a 4-mana wrath wouldn’t necessarily be that good right now. It would get countered by Spell Queller, not affect vehicles, get Stymied by Mausoleum Wanderer or just get countered. Supreme Verdict was very fair. I don’t think we need a 5 mana wrath with upside, we need a 4 mana Wrath, maybe. I’m not sure this is what Standard players are clamoring for and it seems like there are more ways than ever to deal with this spell. Still, the lifegain makes this pretty saucy so as long as you have an alternate plan for spirits, this is likely a $3 or $4 Standard wrath.

9/14/16

Oviya Pashiri, Sage Lifecrafter 

It’s hard to imagine you want this to be your commander in a universe where Rhys, the Redeemed exists. Having access to white in a token deck is sort of a big deal. You probably jam this in the 99 of a lot of decks, though. I don’t think this can impact Standard or Modern but EDH is likely interested in some small capacity and a non-zero number of people will brew with this. I think the sheer number of cards that deal with tokens and counters means you take a look at Parallel Lives, Hardened Scales, Doubling Season and Primal Vigor. This is likely a bulk rare, likely with a high foil multiplier, and this likely moves a lot of cards, but not its own price. Cathar’s Crusade just got reprinted and is ready to rebound, also and this may remind some people to build Rhys.

Captured by the Consulate

This is not a good card. The creature can still block and use its activated abilities making this pale in comparison to cards like Arrest. Also, them having to aim their removal at this creature is good unless that removal says “Target creature an opponent controls” or they just block with this and the creature dies. I don’t want to pay 4 mana for an Arrest. Standard might use this because better options don’t exist, but Standard doesn’t need removal like this, especially at 4 mana. I think this is a bulk rare.

Padeem, Consul of Innovation

This is ready to slot into a lot of EDH decks right now and start drawing you all of the cards. I don’t know if you want this as your Commander, but you probably want this in quite a few decks. That said, this would have to be exceptionally good to be worth money as a non-mythic in a set with masterpieces, so I’m inclined to call this a bulk rare which will have a high foil multiplier and maybe get there eventually.

Aethersquall Ancient

This is a Limited bomb that is probably too slow for Standard. I think EDH could use it but probably not and even if they did it would be in quantities too small to matter. It takes a lot for a rare not to be bulk, and being a maybe, sometimes 1-of won’t get there. Good card, though.

Metalwork Colossus 

I have a feeling this can be a buck or two and I also think that this has a value beyond money. Casual players love cards like this. I’m talking extreme casuals. I used to go around to all of the cafeterias at local community colleges and trade with those players and they love cards like this. I never sit on big, durdly monsters long since they trade out so well. If this does end up bulk, grab a big old pile of them and go binder grinding. Other than that, if a dedicated build based on this card doesn’t emerge in some format, I think this is likely not that interesting to non-casual players.

9/13/16 Spoilers

Eliminate the Competition 

It’s cool, I don’t want to eliminate the competition THAT badly. Bulk.

Verdant Crescendo

This card is only as good as Nissa, and then even if she is good, kind of a weird and clunky card to play. I really can’t see this being worth more than a buck or two unless Nissa is in every green deck and they all want to play a mana ramp spell at 4 mana. I wish this got any planeswalker named Nissa so it would be relevant outside of Standard. I can’t imagine I want to preorder this.

Liberating Combustion

This is even worse. Dealing 5 to a creature is cool when you want that, but you rarely care about that as a red deck. Oh, and you can’t tutor for your Chandra unless there is a creature to target? Get out of here with this bulk rare.

“Consul’s Power”

Enchantment
Creatures your opponents control enter the battlefield tapped.

Whenever a creature enters the battlefield under an opponents control, you gain 1 life.

This is pretty solid. It’s a punisher for a deck that doesn’t exist anymore, which feels bad, but it’s also a good way to slow them down and make sure your creatures are more likely to connect. I don’t think this will be worth much money for a while, but this does two things white wants to do and that makes it a pretty likely candidate for future sideboard consideration.

Bomat Courier

This card is really bad. It’s a 1/1 with no evasion, you could just as easily strand your gas as you could cut to it faster and you have no idea if you even want the cards stranded outside the game. When is this good? When you’re a fast red deck who depletes its hand quickly and want to refill it with a card for each time you swung with a 1/1 that you hope stays alive. This card seems really bad to me. I’m calling this a bulk rare.

Scrapheap Scrounger

This is very good. Dredge has always been a good deck and this does the kind of thing you want to do in those decks – mill yourself with abandon and then get creatures out of your yard for free or cheap and attack with them. This is also a great card to recursively sacrifice to various effects and bring back. People are going to brew with this for sure. I think this will likely follow the price trajectory of Prized Amalgam, though – a good card that no one is quite sure what to do with outside of maybe one deck.

Dovin Baan

This card is very good. In fact, there is so much good in the set that I feel like any borderline playable bulk rare is getting smashed down to the level of true bulk just by virtue of box prices and redemption enforcing a total cost of the set that this set might exceed on merit. I think this is almost certainly not worth preordering for this reason. The total cost of a preordered set will exceed the cost of a full set at redemption which means a lot of cards will go down. Since a card or two will emerge as much better than we thought and the set value will go down, a lot of value has to get trimmed elsewhere, and bloated presale cards like planeswalkers tend to pay the price. Ray Perez is going to poop when he sees another sick Esper Planeswalker, especially one that shuts down the few creatures they manage to play through your wall of permission and removal.

9/10-9/12/16 Spoilers

Not much action over the weekend, but I like a few of these cards.

“Toolshaper Paradigm”

At the begining of your combat step, if you control an artifact “Toolshaper Paradigm” gains +2/+1 until end of turn. If you control at least 3 artifacts, it also gains first strike until end of turn.

This is pretty good at crewing stuff. Clearly you’re expected to serve with him or crew with him because leaving him untapped does little good – he’s a 1/1 on their turn. I think this can be aggressive and it kind of reminds me of Court Homonculus, but this is obviously better. I don’t think this is good in affinity or anything like that, but this could get above bulk and that’s nothing to sneeze at if you look at the small number of rares from Innistrad block which are above bulk.

Electrostatic Pummeler

When people heard there was going to be an artifact block, a lot of people on twitter touted Sigarda’s Aid, a card I called a long-term pickup. I said Kaladesh was unlikely to move the needle on Sigarda’s Aid at all. As the set gets spoiled, I was feeling good about the lack of equipment, at least until I saw this guy. 3 mana for a 1/1 that takes a lot of work to even make a 2/2 is absurd. Energy is harder to come by than mana (though you can bank it, unlike mana, I guess) so it’s weird that this isn’t more pushed than creatures with similar effects that were printed at common in the past. This feels like a common.

Combustible Gearhulk

I see a lot of people dumping on this card and a lot of people dumping on the people dumping on this card. I am in the “this card will underperform” camp, but if you pair this with Eldrazi Displacer, this may be the most brutal of all of the cards in the cycle. There is even a blink card in the set to give you the hint. 6 mana is maybe a little late to do anything in Standard, is my worry. Drawing cards or doming them when you’re on death’s door may not be good enough. I only avoid giving the same criticism to the green one because you are probably playing it before turn 6. The white and black ones keep you alive very well – 6 mana Elspeth was thought to be too slow for Standard until it proved how it wasn’t and the black and white one solve problems like she did. The blue one is played in blue and you can get back removal or just bask in the knowledge that you’re a blue deck and probably have the board clamped down. This one feels the least like it does what you need at the moment, and that’s not just because it’s a punisher card. If the decision is tough for them, you’re already in great shape. If it’s easy for them to decide, this won’t get you back in the game, I fear. This is a good effect but I feel like this card may not get there all the same.

9/9/16 Spoilers

“Dynavolt Tower”

Whenever you cast an instant or sorcery spell, get EE (two energy counters).

T, Pay EEEEE: Dynavolt Tower deals 3 damage to target creature or player.

This seems pretty good, though maybe not for its intended purpose. I just see this as something that can bank you energy to use for other spells. I’m not thrilled with its second ability, forcing you to spend 5 energy to do 3 damage. That seems inefficient, although it is a way for burn decks to get extra reach and deal with crap like Forge-Tender and Firewalker. This seems like a bulk rare to me but we’ll see where SCG puts it.

“Night Owl”

Enchantment
“Night Owl” enters the battlefield with 7 time counters.

At the beginning of your draw step, you draw additional one card, remove two time counters from “Night Owl.”

Your maximum hand size is equal to the number of time counters on “Night Owl.”

Whenever you discard a card, you lose 1 life.

Hey guys, we made a terrible Phyrexian Arena that hurts you, a lot.

This is a weird card and I am not sure what to make of it. Someone is probably going to make some weird combo deck with it, or just donate it to opponents once it’s got 4 or 5 counters missing. This can get you to hellbent, I guess. I don’t know what to make of this, exactly, but a lot of people online seem to be OK with the downside, which says a lot for how Standard is going right now. Don’t people already have like 4 different Sign in Blood variants they’re not playing?

Dubious Challenge

People on reddit are calling this a “cheaper Tooth and Nail in a Roon deck” which makes me question whether they read the card. Sure, if you have Roon or Mistmeadow Witch or Eldrazi Displacer or Homeward Path, you get the creature back. You know, after your opponent gets whatever ETB effects are on the creature. You’re playing Roon, right? Then you have ETB effects. Oh, and you’re blind flipping and don’t get to pick the creatures like you do with Tooth and Nail. Oh, and you get the worse of the two creatures. Play Summoning Trap or something, this card is not what you want to be doing, and $1 is not what I want to be paying.

Smuggler’s Copter

A plane for smugglers even though it looks more like Slave One than it does the Millennium Falcon. Sometimes the best car is a plane, am I right, guys?

Real talk, this is actually a pretty good card. I might even see my way clear to playing this in Constructed Magic. A 3/3 looter for 2 mana seems like a mistake, even if you have to crew it. There are plenty of creatures you don’t always want to serve with and crewing this should be easy, especially with Servo creatures running around. I could see this seeing play. Could you? At $1.50 this is a relatively low-risk buy-in, but the upside is a bit limited given its non-Mythic status. I could see this hitting $4-$5.

Unlicensed Disintegration 

This will see play and it will be worth a buck or two. Grab these out of chaff while you can.

9/8/16 Spoilers

Key to the City

The chatter I saw about this card on the EDH subreddit confused me. A lot of people were saying “If you want to loot, run Jace or Merfolk Looter and if you want to make a creature unblockable, run Rogue’s Passage.” Well, yeah. But now you can either run both or have both of those effects in one card. This is stupid in so many EDH decks. I love this effect a ton and I expect to see this see play, though not enough to make the non-foil creep up initially. As with a lot of obvious EDH picks, first we’ll see the foil price diverge and in a year or two the non-foil will catch up. Wait for these to hit bulk and then get them as throw-ins on trades. Get foils while they’re cheap if you can do it in trade, but I am not sure about cash for them as they may go down before they go up.

Angel of Invention

Wowzers. This is either a nice imitation of a Baneslayer or it’s 6 power worth of beatface and a good commander of your army to boot. I don’t know why this is pre-selling for $5. Am I the worst evaluator of card prices in history? Does this not seem really amazing to anyone else? It’s mythic, it has lifelink, it’s an angel, it buffs everything else, it can make servos so it’s worth blinking to save it from death/get advantage… Someone tell me why this is $5. I feel like I’m taking crazy pills.

“Cultivator’s Caravan”

Artifact – Vehicle
T: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool.

Crew 3

This seems good in EDH. It’s a Manalith with upside and that makes it non-useless when drawn late. A lot of decks run 3 mana rocks with upside and this has the kind of upside some decks want, especially ones that don’t attack with their commander or some other utility creature that could crew this beast. I haven’t seen a price on this, but it’s too high unless it’s $0.99, so wait on these. I think I like this more as a player than financier, so it’s possible modest EDH demand won’t even put a dent in the supply.

“Wild Dreams”

Which decks want this? At X=1 it’s a bad Eternal Witness and at X=2 it’s Restock. This is worth playing over those cards when X=3 or more. Which decks want that? Isn’t being able to loop Eternal Witness better than getting one extra card for every two mana you spend and never using the card again? I don’t know that this will find a home which is a shame since it’s a powerful effect.

Kambal, Consul of Allocation

This card is a trap. How good it is in EDH both as a commander and inclusion in the 99 makes it an obvious pick, right? Well, not exactly.

Ayli is also a mere $3.50 in foil despite being one of the more popular EDH commanders. This card is stupid but it is going to go down before it goes up and you have the luxury of waiting on it unless you want it to play with right away, something I can’t fault you for.

Lost Legacy

The comments on this card on Mythic Spoiler are really funny because no one read the card carefully enough to see that you only draw cards to replace the ones you were forced to discard, not the ones taken out of the library. No, this does not break Magic if you play it in Ripple Rats. Reading is tech.

Bulk rare.

Aether Hub

Suck it, Tendo Ice Bridge. You’re Tendo Ass Bridge, now.

Don’t buy these, get them for free laying on the table after people draft.

9/7/16 Spoilers

Paradoxical Outcome

I have seen some chatter about this card being playable in decks like Vintage storm, which is probably true but not that relevant to its price. I can’t think of a format other than Vintage where you have enough permanents that you can bounce and replay profitably. This is certainly nuts in any deck that’s playing Retract since it refills your hand, so maybe Modern? Some sort of eggs deck where you don’t sac the eggs? I don’t know. I don’t predict enough adoption to get the price up on the non-foil, so we may see a crazy like 12x multiplier because pimp formats want this but no one else does. I am not excited.

Aetherflux Reservoir

As if you needed another reason to hate Oloro players. There isn’t much to say about this card other than that it’s stupid, there are a dozen EDH decks it’s ready to slot into and we can guess its price trajectory fairly easily.

Bristling Hydra

Does this seem really bad to anyone else? I realize a 5/4 for 4 that can get hexproof as a combat trick is probably fine for Standard and being able to use those 3 energy elsewhere is useful. I think my mind has warped too much toward EDH and wanting a Hydra to double every counter on every permanent otherwise I think it sucks. This is probably fine. I don’t know if it’s good enough to see play, but I think its stats are pretty good. I just wish you didn’t have to consume all of the energy it gives you in one shot.

Noxious Gearhulk

This is likely too expensive for the formats where it’s going to have the biggest impact. If Standard slows enough, this could make it miserable to try and win with creatures, especially since I know everyone is going to say “pairing this with Eldrazi Displacer is too cute” and then Todd Andersen will do it on camera at the PT. I will say if this ends up a 2-of in a deck or two, this could be $15-$20, so we’re gambling. EDH demand won’t affect its price until it drops below its presale price, so the real question is whether to pre-order this and that’s only a yes if this will impact Standard. You may need to sleeve up a proxy deck, and try to race a deck with a bunch of burn spells and Lathnu Hellions. This is obviously stupid in EDH, but that’s a format where your first play of the game is a 6-drop, not a format where you’re at 4 life facing down 3 creatures on turn 5. At $6 pre-sale, I think you have as many chances to lose money as make it.

9/6/16 Spoilers

Lathnu Hellion

This is pretty good, actually. It seems a little durdly on first viewing, but this is a 4/4 haste for 3 mana. If you can manage to generate some energy, you can keep it around indefinitely, which makes this quite a bit better than your typical card people will want to compare to Ball Lightning. This is very aggressive and with all of the crap in this set costing 5 or 6 mana, this could be quite a clock. This is pre-selling for $1 and I’m over here remembering Hellrider. This is pre-selling for bulk which makes it low risk. I am going to trust the people I know who love red and say this could be underpriced.

Madcap Experiment

I only know two things. One is that this card sucks. The other is that someone is going to make me regret saying that. Seriously, though, this is a bad Shape Anew and Shape Anew is a bulk rare.

Animation Module

This is better than anyone thinks. Not only does this combo nicely with the other modules at uncommon, meaning there is a non-zero chance of assembling the combo or part of it in Limited (remember the throne, crown, scepter nonsense?) this is also bonkers in EDH. This gives you chumps when you place counters AND this can give a player or permanent ANY KIND OF COUNTER? You can proliferate poison, kill them with Goblin Bomb, add counters to Luminarch Ascension, Azor’s Elecutors or a Planeswalker? This card is stupid. $3 is probably too much since it won’t likely impact Standard, but $6 foils are a snap buy IMO. Then again, why not wait a bit? EDH demand is slow to kick in and maybe the price tanks and you scoop cheap foils later. People will sleep on this and I’m just waiting for it.

Torrential Gearhulk

At $6, SCG doesn’t have much faith in this card. It’s hard to judge whether only being able to play Instants is worth it. It’s hard to know if we’ll mostly be casting spells under 4 mana where this is worse than Snapcaster. It’s hard to know if the body will be relevant. So many unknowns here. I personally think this could be quite good but I also can’t name an Instant I particularly care about copying with this. $6 is right if this is in one deck as a 2-of. Do you think it will see more play than that? Buy. Less? Pass. That’s how I see it.

Nissa, Vital Force

This is even harder to evaluate than Chandra. I imagine this won’t sell out at $30, $35, $40, $40, $40 and finally go for $50 the way Chandra did, but I also think it’s quite good. You can ultimate it two turns after you play it and draw hella cards. You can also beat face with it. Getting back dead creatures is potent. It’s hard to say what Standard’s needs will be. This feels like an $18 Planeswalker to me. I have no idea how to back that up with numbers and if the rest of the set is good, it will be tough to maitain that, especially as nutty as Chandra is. Worse planeswalkers have been $20+ though, so I guess buy this if you want it to play with and you probably won’t lose a ton of money. I hope. I also don’t know what SCG is going to presell this for, yet, so I will come back and edit this when I do know.

9/5/16 Spoilers

Harnessed Lightning

This is pretty sweet. You can bank 3 energy from this, channel extra energy to deal extra damage meaning this can kill big creatures for 1R or you can just Lightning Strike something. That something has to be a creature, though. Lightning Strike hit faces and that mattered. I think this may be a bit overrated, but being able to kill a  or 2 toughness dude and bank energy could be a really clutch play soon, we don’t know. This could be one of those uncommons you pull out of chaff and end up making money off of.

Metallurgic Summons

Which deck wants this? Is it the Sharuum deck that is desperate to get back all of its instants? The Mizzix deck with its many artifacts? The Legacy storm deck replacing Past in Flames and playing eggs now? I don’t know who or what can play this. I can think of EDH decks that would be happy with either mode but I can’t think of a deck that can really benefit from both modes without being built around it. I can’t see a deck for this and that makes it hard to tell people they should buy it.

Chandra, Torch of Defiance

I am literally the worst at evaluating Planeswalkers. I never know how to do it. I am wrong an awful lot when it comes to Planeswalkers. That said, this looks an awful lot like a red Jace the Mind Sculptor. It’s a 4 drop with 4 abilities. The emblem is pretty stupid (though nowhere near as stupid as JTMS). It has a card advantage first ability. It has built-in removal (though at quite a steep cost). I don’t think this will get the play outside of Standard JTMS does, but I think this is very powerful and they let it get that way. This will likely presell for way too much and unless the rest of the set is trash, this probably can’t maintain its hype value and will sink. I am saying wait on this. I am also saying I’m trash at evaluating Planeswalkers. I don’t know man. This set has boats and cars and shit, I don’t know how anyone expects me to be in the right frame of mind to evaluate cards.

Aerial Responder

We’re about to learn a painful lesson titled “No, Vigilance really isn’t as good as Deathtouch”

Ceremonious Rejection

People are really excited for this because I guess they forgot Steel Sabotage was both a card and also unplayed. There is a decent-sized list of spells that this counters and Steel Sabotage does not (specifically in Modern which is basically the only place where this card might matter) and maybe that’s enough to have this see some play, but I’m doubtful. I like this and it’s good in Vintage potentially, but I don’t think it’s as splashy as people think. This stops Karn, Ugin, hard-cast Eldrazi (who’s doing that?) and a few other things and isn’t useless against Affinity but I think this is overrated.

“Cataclysmic Gearhulk”

Vigilance

When Cataclysmic Gearhulk enters the battlefield, each player chooses from among the non-land permanents he or she controls an artifact, a creature, an enchantment, and a planeswalker, then sacrifices the rest.

This isn’t Cataclysm. Cataclysm destroys lands, that’s why it’s broken. That said, there’s no reason this can’t terrorize people in EDH, especially paired with blink effects to keep them from accumulating anything but land. I think it’s too cute for Modern, not repeatable in Standard and too slow for Legacy. This is probably going to underperform. People sure do want to Displacer this in Standard, though.

Multiform Wonder

This seems like a build-a-budget-Baneslayer. If you can keep him fed, he’s a 5/1 flying lifelink and that’s pretty boss. Can you keep him fed? I think there are various ways to get energy counters, some of them harder than others and that’s a problem. It’s hard to evaluate this before we know whether energy counters are a big part of the set or a little one. This has potential, but it’s a lot of work for a Baneslayer.

See what reddit spikes are saying, which isn’t much.

Pia Nalaar

Ready to be sad? Look in her hand.

In fact, while we’re comparing this card to Pia and Kiran in terms of the art to see where those goggles came from, let’s compare the two cards to each other and be sad again. This is less than half as good as Pia and Kiran.

“Trinket Mastercraft”

Creature – Dwarf Artificer
Servo and thopter creatures you control get +1/+1.

3W: Create a 1/1 colorless Servo artifact creature token.

This is really slow, but maybe the rest of the block will be, too? I don’t know, I’m inclined to file this under “more cute than good” and leave it at that. This is certainly going to get out of hand if they don’t deal with it and you have a decent amount of mana, so it really remains to be seen whether the new Standard will be slow enough for you to overwhelm them with 2/2 servo creatures. Also, this is good in multiples which means you can load up on copies which may help its price. That said, a non-mythic rare needs to get quite a bit of play to get above a buck or two and I don’t think this has the goods. I sure like it, though. As a side note, it buffs all thopters which is relevant in EDH for sets going all the way back to Alara block.

9/3/16 Spoilers

There’s gold in them thar spoilers!

Fleetwheel Cruiser

I think that how stupid and ridiculous I think having cars in the set is going to make it tough for me to objectively review these. This is a 5/3 haste trample for 4 mana and can go in any deck. That seems good, although continuing to swing with it means you have to keep some stuff back to watch. This would have been good if Pain Seer were still around. I am not sure if this is going up based on a presale price of $3 (SCG left for the weekend so we’re stuck with eBay which is $12 for a playset of these across the board) but it could.

Skyship Stalker

This is pre-ordering for $2 just like the Roc. This feels less exciting to me despite having more abilities. Everyone is turning their nose up at Roc for being a 4 mana X/3 so I can’t imagine this won’t attract equal disdain. This is awkward to give haste to since that makes it a 5 mana 3/3. First Strike and Firebreathing could be relevant if they have big fliers later, but all in all this seems too slow for what red wants to do.

Cultivator of Blades

Fabricate means he can either come into play as a 3/3 or as a 1/1 with 2 1/1 servo tokens. The article announcing the mechanic wasn’t clear on whether you could make this a 2/2 with 1 servo token so I don’t know. I looked for a while then gave up. This feels clumsy and we have seen creatures like this in the past go nowhere price-wise. I am not excited for this, especially pre-selling at $2.50. If we get some ways to buff his power easily and we get some token producers, though, this could deal Craterhoof amounts of damage, albeit not out of nowhere like with Craterhoof.

Verdurous Gearhulk

This is good. This can make itself an 8/8 Trample for 5. This can buff a ton of tokens. This can permanently Wolfir Silverheart something else. If you get something for having +1/+1 counters on a creature this can grant that up to 4 times. All in all I am pretty excited for how simple but pushed this is. This is a $12 preorder and that feels about right. It could get a bit above that if it really catches on, and a LOT about that if it REALLY catches on. This has the capacity to his $25 if there isn’t much help from the rest of the set. I can’t call it yet since I’d need to see the rest of the set, but I feel like there are more scenarios where you lose money or break even than when you double up on this card. I’m hesitant.

Filigree Familiar

 

When Filigree Familiar enters the battlefield, you gain 2 life.

When Filigree Familiar dies, draw a card.

This is very good and I think this may be underappreciated at first. Foils of this are a buy if they are below a 5X multiplier, which seems iffy. Pull these out of draft chaff and stick them in a box. If these aren’t a $4 Standard uncommon they will get near that high in time unless they’re reprinted aggressively.

“Territorial Devourer”

Trample

Whenever you gain one or more E (one energy counter), Territorial Devourer gets +2/+2 until end of turn.

I have no idea how good this is going to be, but I am inclined to say this could be better than prowess in some decks. I have to imagine red is going to have a creature that gives you an energy counter whenever you play an instant or sorcery, there is one that triggers off of landfall, there is one that triggers off a creature dying, etc. If we get a card that gives you an energy counter when a creature attacks, this could be potent. If not, this is clunky and overcosted. I think this will probably be bad, but how can I really evaluate it before we see all of the energy counter stuff we’re getting?

“Demon of Shady Schemes”

Flying

When Demon of Shady Schemes enters the battlefield, all other creatures get -2/-2 until the end of turn.

Whenever another creature dies, gain E (one energy counter).

2B, pay EEEE: Put target creature card from a graveyard onto the battlefiend tapped under your control.

So Massacre Wurm is back, it flies and it gives you energy counters. The reanimator ability is going to be ridiculous late in the game and you will not lose wars of attrition with this out. This is a finisher that brings back dead finishers, ruins combat for them or wipes their board and beats for 5. This is a $10 preorder and I think if it’s played as a 2-of in a deck or two that’s right on the money. I love this card but I don’t know there are scenarios where you wish you’d bought several playsets at $40 a set. This does have juice longterm, though.

Ghirapur Orrery

NEKUSAR!

I think this card is a little too symmetrical to be able to take advantage of how good it is for Standard. Forcing them to draw if you made them discard their hand, though? There are a few EDH decks where you can take advantage of this. Also, you can jam this in Leovold and draw 3 while they draw 1.  Being able to ramp your land out faster is a nice bonus. All in all this is to suspiciously good to ignore and I feel like EDH will unlock its full potential, meaning it will be cheap while Standard players discard it as a bulk rare and let the rest of us sock these away in a box. I thought that about Pyromancer’s Goggles, though, didn’t I? Sometimes a card is so powerful even Standard can’t ignore it. This is preordering for $6 and I have to imagine it drops.

Panharmonicon

This is even better in EDH than Orrery but I feel like it’s so good that Standard has to take notice. This can go in any EDH deck. This has Standard implications. This is preordering for $3. If foils are $6 buy all of them. This is Doubling Season good.

 

Concealed Courtyard

We’re getting enemy “fastlands” or whatever people called these. Tango lands? Checkity check lands? These got expensive in Standard, some of them. Everyone remembers how much. $5 each seems pretty reasonable on these and some dude on eBay is enforcing that price pretty hard for the time being and also tracking them all down for you. These could get above $5 long-term but I don’t know if they’ll all get much cheaper so I think if you pay $100 for the set and don’t have to worry about it you have a chance to make money later if any of them take off in Modern like I think the UR one will. All in all, there isn’t much money to be made here for a while and these are just the lands we get and we’ll use them because we used worse lands.

9/2/16 Spoilers

Saheeli’s Artistry

They spoiled this bad boy a week or so ago but I was still trying to digest Conspiracy at that time and one card wasn’t worth speculating about anything over. We know that artifacts matter based on this card but we knew that before. We’re no longer “Putting into play” our tokens but rather we are “Creating” them. That caused a lot of people to speculate that this image was fake. What a clunky card to fake! This is EDH gold, obviously, but it remains to be seen whether Standard will be slow enough for this to matter. 6 mana wants to go a long way toward winning the game in Standard and this doesn’t. This seems like a bulk rare to me, and SCG agrees.

Innovator’s Fair

This card I can get behind. I think Lantern Control has discussed wanting this in Modern and possibly Affinity, but I doubt the second one slightly. A dozen EDH decks want this right off the bat and that could give the foils upside. Here’s a price trajectory of a card with more EDH and Modern demand than this card. Even though $2 pre-order price seems risky.

Bear that in mind when you consider investing. Investor’s Fair would have to over-perform in Standard to buck these trends. Do you anticipate that?

Aetherworks Marvel

I am not jazzed about this in EDH. Lots of cards do this better and you can’t use any enchantments to double the number of energy counters you get to cheat with this, making it very, very slow. If you can make a lot of permanents go away, though, this could tutor for you turn after turn and with no way yet for your opponents to drain your energy counters, this could get there. I just think this is a very slow way to do things spells already did in Theros block to moderate success. This is OK but I don’t think it will ever break $5. I don’t know if I want to pre-order this for $4.

Architect of the Untamed

All of the cards that grant you energy counters and spend them need a lot of energy counters to work and this is much slower than Marvel in Standard but faster in EDH where you’re generally playing more land. The 6/6 beast isn’t great, though. I could see this being part of a deck that created lots of energy counters for its first ability but maybe not its second. I don’t know enough about how many energy counter cards there will be to say this is trash, but I’m not excited for now. This is preselling for bulk.

Ovalchase Dragster

Cars? Really?

Gonti, Lord of Luxury

I am pretty jazzed about using this outside of Standard. If there are more Aetherborn, this could impact Standard but I’m not ready to say it will, yet. For EDH, though, this is solid. It could be its own commander or just go in a deck like Sen Triplets. Erin Campbell saw this art and speculated that Ashiok could pop up in this block. There’s so much to look at here, but this also feels a bit like a bulk rare. However,  casuals like casting their spells so this could be a player in FNM-tier decks and let’s not pretend that can’t make this $5-$8 in the short term and maybe the longer term again, also. I like this card, but me liking a card doesn’t always mean it won’t be a bulk rare. SCG has this at bulk and that could end up being a mistake on their part.

Skysovereign, Consul Flagship

This is probably a bulk mythic but I can see people wanting to try and make this work in Standard. It’s certainly big and scary and deals with their creatures. I don’t think coughing up 3 power worth of creatures to crew this will be that tough, especially with all of the tokens we’ll see floating around. If this does see play in midrange type decks, this could be $10. Scg is pre-selling this for $4 and it’s not selling out, but this could end up being $20 if it’s the next Dragonlord finisher in a control deck. This isn’t as good as the Dragonlords, though, and $4 may even be too high for this.

Aetherstorm Roc

This is a little more oppressive than it looks at first glance. If we get any cards that synergize with this and give us energy counters, this creature is going to ruin their life. Growing while tapping their blockers is exactly what white creatures that impact Standard end up doing. If you’re getting energy counters for doing other things like playing lands, you may end up able to activate this every time you attack and that is a lot of advantage in combat. I think the $1 the is pre-selling for is too cheap.

Saheeli Rai

I like this card less every time I look at it. 3 mana Planeswalkers have to be good and this doesn’t protect itself well at all. This ultimate is obviously good, but you shouldn’t evaluate a Planeswalker based on that, especially on that needs 4 turns to get there and can’t protect itself. Scry is silly and pinging them is non-trivial but the -2 making a temporary copy and the starting loyalty being so low makes me think this will be played less than people hope. It’s only pre-selling for $20 which is a bad sign for a Planeswalker.

Rashmi, Eternities Crafter

I am in love. This seems like a card that is a little slow, a little hard to build around and hard to benefit from with a small card pool to impact Standard, which relegates this to EDH where a lot of demand will be needed to move the needle on its price. This is Momir Vig good. This is “They literally couldn’t print this without ruining EDH forever if Prophet of Kruphix were legal” good. I’m writing my article this week about how many prices of how many cards this is going to spike this month. Ugh. This card is killer. It’s $6 which may be just about right. But why speculate on this and whether the foil will be $50 when you can just buy all the other cards that will go in this deck? Seriously, this and Leovold in the same month? I live for cards like this.