By: Travis Allen
@wizardbumpin
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If you blinked, you would have missed it — Inventions have been eaten up all over the place. It’s a fevered madness right now; even Planar Bridges are selling for nearly $100. And I don’t mean copies are listed for $100, I mean they’re selling for $100. If there are any Masterpieces you wanted that you haven’t acquired yet, stop waiting. I’m not promising that they’re all going to skyrocket in price, but I can promise that they’re not getting any cheaper.
Other than that, we’re all hanging around waiting for Dominaria’s prerelease this coming weekend. I wouldn’t be surprised to see it break sales records, with many long-time players that are partially retired thinking about re-entering the fray. It’s basically Time Spiral 2, and nostalgia is a powerful motivating factor.
Courser of Kruphix (Foil)
Price Today: $6
Possible Price: $20
Courser is well understood by now, even if he was missed as hard as a card can be missed when he first came around. After shaping Standard for awhile he was called up to the big leagues, and is now a prominent feature in both Modern and EDH. In the former he’s a mainstay in value decks, with the latest iteration popularized by Todd Stevens. Meanwhile Gabe Nassif is on Twitter posting a similar style deck and calling it the best of the format.
Masters 25 brought a Courser reprint, adding a fresh chunk of foils to the supply. Not too many though, it would seem. There are only about twenty foil M25 copies available on TCG right now. There’s a few less BOG copies than that, and maybe thirty of the promo available. Consider what we know of the demand. It’s all coming from EDH (12,000+ decks) and Modern. Both formats are packed with fans of foils. Pair that with the Modern decks’ relatively inexpensive card set, and foiling out Value Town is more appealing than it may be if you’re playing something like Jund, or anything with Jace in it.
Foil prices depend on which edition you’re looking at, with the cheapest around $6. BOG foils are the most expensive right now (which is unsurprising). Promo foils are still quite cheap, and probably my favorite of the three. They’ve got different art, and are a better card stock than the M25 copies.
Krark-Clan Ironworks
Price Today: $10
Possible Price: $25
This is hardly going to strike anyone as a novel concept, given that the deck won the GP yesterday, but Krark-Clan Ironworks should be on your radar. Supply was low before, and as of this morning it doesn’t appear there’s been too deep a run on it yet. There’s maybe 15 copies on TCG right now, which I don’t think is much less than there was on Friday.
We’ve learned several times that weird Modern decks have trouble keeping prices up on key pieces (think Ad Nauseam). As such, I don’t expect Ironworks to spike and stay spiked after this weekend. However, that doesn’t mean we should discount it entirely. In Aether Revolt the deck picked up Scrap Trawler, which is an important inclusion. There’s now a demonstrable loop for basically infinite mana and card draw, which helps make piloting the deck a lot more manageable.
Another wrinkle is that this is basically the first time we’ve seen Ironworks hammer home an event, and part of that is because the deck is nigh unpilotable on MODO. People try, but I’m told it takes Conley around twenty minutes to execute. Given how unwieldly it is online, it’s remained a much larger question mark, since it can’t be put through the grinder in the space of a few weeks in the same way that most other lists can. Maybe the deck is insane and broken, and we just haven’t been able to get the reps in to figure that out yet?
That’s the angle for Ironworks, basically. That it’s actually busted, and is going to keep succeeding, and we just haven’t known about it because it’s too hard to play on MODO. A few more good placements and then people will start to pay attention, and prices will follow.
Mox Amber
Price Today: $30
Possible Price: $50
I don’t get much more speculative than this. Preorders for the new mythic Mox — the first since Mox Opal in Scars of Mirrodin, nearly eight years ago — are hanging around $25 to $30. That’s definitely a price point that offers the possibility of real returns.
While I’m not positive, I suspect Amber is going to be similar to Opal in the long run. It’s easy to quickly come to the conclusion that it’s too difficult to make use of. “How will you get three artifacts in play before turn three?” wasn’t an uncommon question back in the SOM days. Yet here we are, with Opal being one of the cards closest to the ban list in Modern.
Late last night a list (thanks Liz) popped up in my feed of a Standard combo deck using Paradoxical Outcome, Aetherflux Reservoir, Paradoxical Engine, Mox Amber, Baral, and some other artifacts. That’s the type of strategy that can potentially abuse the heck out of Mox Amber. And it’s definitely not something people were weighing the possibility of when they were complaining about the card four hours after it was spoiled.
Am I recommending you spec at $30? No. I’m not buying any yet myself. Be aware of it though, as it could go from zero to sixty real quick.
Travis Allen has been playing Magic: The Gathering since 1994, mostly in upstate New York. Ever since his first FNM he’s been trying to make playing Magic cheaper, and he first brought his perspective to MTGPrice in 2012. You can find his articles there weekly, as well as on the podcast MTG Fast Finance.