Corbin (@CHosler88) is back in town with DJ (@Rose0fThorns) and Jason (@jasonEalt) to welcome back one of the originals, Marcel (@MarcelMTG), to talk about coverage, modern horizons, and much more!
One of the things I’ve bellyached about before is that since I’m the Friday slot for the site, I sometimes really look silly when big things happen on a Friday, or even when they happen on a Thursday and I don’t have time to think clearly.
I was super-mega-wrong about Modern Horizons, and wowzers is this amazing. We’ve all written about to to some form or another, and today I want to cogitate about things we can expect.
Let’s get into it, shall we?
Modern Horizons is a puzzle itching to be solved. What cards are not good enough to break Modern, plus some all-new cards, and come together to make a good draft set? Will it be tribal, and power up Slivers, Elves, and Goblins? Will it be anywhere near as fun as Ultimate Masters?
What I’m most interested in is the lands we get. At common, we’re likely going to get the one-mana cycling lands, something that a rogue Drake Haven deck would love and who knows, maybe we get Astral Slide + Lightning Rift? Perhaps. That’s a deck I’d like to see in Modern, but once it’s going it’s just brutal.
I also think we get something new and comparable to fetchlands, since we’re not getting fetches in this set. A card in this vein:
It’s a guess, as I’m not a game designer by trade.
In terms of Magic finance, what does this set do to Modern, one of the two pillars of value, the other being Commander? (This philosophy of mine will be expounded upon soon, I promise!)
We know one thing for sure: Masters sets dropped values for a while, but as Modern changes, decks become new, and the format is relatively healthy. Sure, sometimes a card/deck gets overpowering, but Wizards will break out the banhammer.
I have to admit that I’m worried about what’s going to happen to Modern prices. We’ve seen Scalding Tarn come back up to $100, a price it’s been at before. I still can’t believe that MM2017 packs had a $60 card at rare!
Wizards is going to have to reprint some things somehow. Maybe they supercharge the next set of Commander decks. Maybe it’s awesome Event decks. I don’t know, but you can’t grow Modern with a new set like this while letting everything else stay super expensive.
The cards that have become cheap due to a Masters-style reprint are the ones we really need to look at. I’d expect Horizons to bring us new decks in addition to charging up old ones. Staples are my first thought, and let’s glance at things that overlap between ‘printed in last 12 months’ and ‘played quite commonly’ to examine where we should be placing our bets.
Rest in Peace ($12)
Being in Masters 25 hit this pretty hard, but it’s one of the most popular sideboard cards in Modern and that blip was temporary.
There’s a lot of heavy speculation about a good reanimator deck coming into Modern Horizons, and even if that’s not the case, there’s a lot of decks looking to abuse the graveyard. Yes, you’ve got to be playing white to use it, and that rules out a certain percentage of decks. Still, it’s about the best graveyard hoser, even if your own yard is splash damage.
I can see this being $20 before too long, and the new graveyard deck might make it $25 before summer’s over.
Noble Hierarch ($50)
Your time to get one of the most-played creatures in Modern at its lowest price is rapidly running out. There’s an impressive array of decks running this card, and let’s not overlook that the collectors have Ultimate Box Toppers, Pro Tour Promos, and a Judge Promo to choose from. I’d strongly suggest that you get your playset now for about $200, because it won’t be long before you’re spending $300.
Snapcaster Mage ($60)
Another top-five creature in Modern that was deflated in Ultimate Masters and given a Box Topper, Snappy has been $100 before, and was mythic in both Masters set where he was reprinted. There’s also the RPTQ version if you’re feeling spicy, but I would be content to get these now before the climb starts again.
Inquisition of Kozilek ($5) and Thoughtseize ($13)
Yes, Thoughtseize is better, but here’s a line of thought more than one person has expressed this week on Twitter: If the new cards improve decks, those decks will get faster not slower. That means we need cheap interaction, and conveniently, these are a single mana and had reprints not too long ago. Thoughtseize is a solid spec anyway, having once been over $60, but if I’m a Modern player, I want my playsets for both of these locked in for cheap.
Aether Vial ($40)
Gee, you think we’ll get some busted one-drops? I won’t be shocked if Wasteland (or something close to it) is finally Modern legal, and if that’s the case, then Vial gets a lot better. Again, it’s coming off the not-so-Iconic Masters and that served to depress prices nicely for the #1 artifact in Modern. Tribal decks have shown the most interest in Vial, and if Goblins gets a bump then watch out.
Thalia, Guardian of Thraben ($10)
I would not bother with the nonfoil, I’d be all over the Dark Ascension foil at $30 or so. Hatebear Thalia has been one of the most effective cards at slowing some of the biggest threats down, and sometimes just one turn is all you needed.
Even more tempting is the World Magic Cup Qualifier version at about $65. There’s so few cards with this sort of visual impact, zoomed in on the face. Steve Argyle even put a reflection of Avacyn into the reflection in Thalia’s eyes, and that’s a level of detail which can only be called art. If nonfoil can climb to $20, it’s easy for me to imagine this making it to $90 or $100. Even now on TCGPlayer there’s only about 10 NM under $75.
Cliff (@WordOfCommander) has been writing for MTGPrice for five years now, and is an eager Commander player, Draft enthusiast, and Cube fanatic. A high school science teacher by day, he’s also the official substitute teacher of the MTG Fast Finance podcast. If you’re ever at a GP and you see a giant flashing ‘CUBE DRAFT’ sign, go over, say hi, and be ready to draft.
Normally I have a few weeks’ worth of article ideas written out ahead of time but this time of year when there is a stretch between sets and nothing really has impacted EDH or other formats I pay attention to, the well starts to dry up. I’m not going to NOT write an article, so today we’re going to do a bit of housekeeping and get to a few smaller ideas that don’t warrant an entire article but will be nonetheless valuable to you. “Damn.” you’ll say as you finish reading this article. “That was mad valuable.” That’s the kind of thing you say. When you read an article such as this. A valuable one. Let’s get down to it, shall we? First of all, let’s do some pure number crunching with no analysis so I can look smarter than I am.
It’s The Remix To Ignition, Ravnica Mythic Edition
I have heard a lot of people say qualitative things about the planeswalkers from Mythic Edition but I haven’t seen much quantification. With that in mind, I am going to rank the 8 Mythic Edition Planeswalkers, first by the number of decks they are in on EDHREC and then by MTG Top 8. It’s too late to get a set of Mythic Edition but it’s not too late to buy single planeswalkers and you likely haven’t though about the amount of EDH play they get or you guessed at that amount. Here’s some fact action.
EDHREC Rankings
Tamiyo, the Moon Sage (8,350)
Sorin Markov (7,923)
Dack Fayden (6,696)
Ajani, Mentor of Heroes (5,519)
Karn, Scion of Urza (1,238)
Jaya Ballard (971)
Domri, Chaos Bringer (123)
Kaya, Orzhov Usurper (62)
MTG Top 8 Rankings
Dack Fayden (2,647)
Karn, Scion of Urza (1,302)
Tamiyo, the Moon Sage (797)
Ajani, Mentor of Heroes (471)
Sorin Markov (96)
Kaya, Orzhov Usurper (21)
Jaya Ballard (15)
Domri, Chaos Bringer (literally 3)
Average Ranking
Tamiyo, the Moon Sage (2) (tie)
Dack Fayden (2) (tie)
Karn, Scion of Urza (3.5) (tie)
Sorin Markov (3.5) (tie)
Ajani, Mentor of Heroes (4)
Kaya, Orzhov Usurper (7) (tie)
Jaya Ballard (7) (tie)
Domri, Chaos Bringer (7.5)
There are some very clear winners and losers here. It makes sense that two of the bottom-dwellers are the newest walkers – not only have they had the least amount of time to get used in EDHREC decks, Standard players haven’t even had that many events recorded by Top 8. Jaya Ballard is a very clear stinker here with much more time to get her act together.
The clear winners are probably surprising to everyone who assumed Karn would be a clear favorite. He’s used a lot in 60 card formats but his EDH appeal lags behind Sorin Markov, a planeswalker who tied him in the (unweighted, because how even would I begin to figure out how?) average ranking. Tamiyo and Dack are pretty clear favorites across formats and it seems like the 8 cards arranged themselves into tiers of sorts. Strong overall (Tamiyo and Dack), format-specific but quite strong (Karn, Sorin), average af (Ajani), not that useful (Kaya, Domri, Jaya). With 2 great walkers and 2 good ones, I would say it wasn’t a great buy although even with them flooding out copies, people got as many as they wanted people managed to resell later for more and boosters are still a thing. Next year, Hasbro will be avoiding the fustercluck that is their online store and using a special portal for stuff like this so expect it to be smoother. I don’t know if the Mythic Edition will be a buy next set but I do know that I like Dack Fayden’s metrics but not his art and I like Tamiyo’s both. One last thing – here they are ranked by TCG Player price.
Tamiyo ($63.64)
Karn ($56.16)
Dack ($43.43)
Kaya ($39.38)
Sorin ($36.32)
Domri ($31.60)
Ajani ($25.60)
Jaya ($15.39)
Jaya seems correct, Tamiyo seems correct, Karn seems OK, Sorin seems very wrong, Ajani seems pretty wrong, Dack seems pretty wrong, Kaya seems pretty wrong. Those prices are bound to shift some more so do with that info what you will. Tamiyo is also the best-looking card, don’t @ me.
Picks, Kinda
A twitter user who follows me (that helps me feel like answering a finance question) inquired today about Mana Maze – a card that’s in fewer than 500 decks on EDHREC. Don’t know what it does? You probably don’t.
So hey, that’s a pretty punishing card. It likely gets slotted into multicolored decks since you can’t play two Blue spells if you play this so that makes Blue angry, but this has uses. Zedruu, Blind Seer and Zur decks are the primary users of this card. The metrics aren’t great, but this is a hell of a hoser. It made me want to look at a few other cards that I think are underutilized and are in a set where a rare card used in EDH goes for upwards of $5 the way EDH cards from Invasion do if they haven’t been reprinted. These are one appearance on Game Knights away from popping off.
This is a pet card of mine but I think it’s solid. It’s a Bribery half the time and can deprive them of combo pieces or just snag a big mana rock. There are lots of uses for this card and 2,892 is respectable.
Also, this is a thing. The card is like $6 on Card Kingdom and for a promo version, that’s reasonable. The art is better, it’s more rare and it’s a good premium version for people who don’t like foils. It also features Dack Fayden, which people like.
Compare the inclusion numbers on those last two cards to this one. This isn’t played in 60 card formats at all, unless it gets play I haven’t seen in casual Magic but this isn’t a very casual card. For whatever reason, this card is “known” price-wise but cards with similar metrics haven’t popped price-wise yet. It’s a puzzle.
Another card I hadn’t check in on in a few years is Painful Quandary, which is a really brutal card. Since it’s possible to sort by set and inclusion numbers in EDHREC, why not look at the cards next to Mana Maze, Acquire, Overburden and Painful Quandary in their respective sets and see if anything looks “off.”
These are both used less than Mana Maze but are worth more. Also, Tectonic Instability is DIRTY and no one uses it. People don’t like when people mess with mana but the people who mess with mana aren’t really using the tools available to them, which is odd. Anyway, that seemed noteworthy.
Used less than Acquire, has inflated inclusion numbers due to the precon effect and has a reprint. Funny what the Travis Woo effect can do to stupid cards.
The only non-Mythic rare used less than Painful Quandary but worth more in Semblance Anvil and that’s because of Modern. Also, no non-reprinted card used more is worth less. Nothing seems confusing in Scars.
This set sucks, lol. No surprises here, although if you didn’t know Keldon Firebombers was real money and Citadel of Pain is in bulk that gets shipped to you, that’s worth knowing.
You should go through sets on EDHREC yourself and see how many surprises you run across.
That does it for me this week. Join me next week for a complete topic. Until next time!
Late this past week we got our first taste of Modern Horizons. As far as card reveals went, one could apply the word “stingy.” Shown were Cabal Therapist, a card that undoubtedly tickled longtime Legacy players and Arrested Development fans, and Serra the Benevolent, a planeswalker card of Magic icon Serra. You know, from Serra Angel. (I’m admittedly underwhelmed by the card, but at the very least it invalidates the hell out of Worship. Which depicts Serra. Irony, or something.) Neither of these cards confirmed any mechanics, and at best told us two things: there may be a graveyard component to the set, and white has fliers. Difficult to make use of the insight that white will have creatures with flying. Rather, the truly useful information came in some of the other tidbits that were released.
Mox Opal
Price Today: $85 Possible Price: $150
That tidbit is the fact that every single card in Horizons will be new to Modern. It’s the inverse of this that we’re working with; if every card is new to Modern, it means no cards existing in Modern will be in Horizons. Which means no reprints. No reprints of Modern-legal cards in a set likely to inspire more excitement in the format than Modern Masters. Hell, barely less excitement than the announcement of the format itself. Furthermore, this is taking up the summer slot, which means no Battlebond or Conspiracy style set to sneak a few reprints into. Taken collectively, this is making existing Modern cards look real appetizing.
We’re starting with one of the biggest cards in the format, Mox Opal. Is there a card that costs more than Opal in Modern? It looks like just Jace. Liliana is close, but not quite there. Opal is an expensive card. Relative to Legacy it’s peanuts, where several format staples will run you a grand a copy. Still, a tough nut to swallow for aspiring, uhh, modernistas.
Well, I expect it to get worse. With no meaningful reprint venue this year, Opal is already ahead of the pack on dynamism. You’ll find it in both major flavors of affinity, Laternless, and a variety of other fringe strategies. No matter what Modern looks like, someone is going to be shoving a bunch of artifacts in their deck to take advantage of Opal. And now, as everyone gets excited about the format again, it’s likely there will refreshed enthusiasm for one of Modern’s most singularly powerful cards.
Between Scars of Mirrodin and Modern Masters 2017 there’s not a deep supply, and even shallower under $90. You’ll find a few sets, maybe? Then a few more up to $100, and then assorted beyond that. Without additional supply — and where’s it coming from? — Opal is poised to hit $150 this year.
Chalice of the Void
Price Today: $40 Possible Price: $90
Basically take everything I wrote about Opal and read it here too. It’s just short of being the most-played artifact in the format — that distinction is held by Aether Vial — showing up in a wide range of main decks and sideboards. And as the format gets lower, faster, and and more efficient, the value of Chalice rises, as a greater and greater percentage of spells in the format cost one or two, the ‘chalice numbers.’
I especially like Chalice because it’s unlikely Horizons is going to slow down Modern. Why would it? If they printed 250 cards that were a turn and a half slower than the existing format, the format simply wouldn’t change. No, they’re giving us some juice, and unless this release is paired with a B&R update that takes fifteen cards out of the format, it’s only going to pull decks closer to the ground.
Which is a disappointment, really. When Modern began you could attempt some truly ludicrous crap, and it was fine, because everyone was running around trying to win with Endless Whispers or whatever. Those decks were never good, mind you, but at least you could try them and they didn’t seem so offensively bad that you felt the need to use anime sleeves just to draw attention to an even greater atrocity in an attempt to distract from the fact that you were playing a veritable pile. Now, casting a spell that costs three is dangerous. I miss the loose, anything-goes sensation of Modern. I guess I’m just waiting for NuModern at this point.
Anyways, Chalice. Supply is healthy, with printings in Mirrodin, Modern Masters, and Masters 25. We don’t need to drain the supply in order for prices to move though. Once a few sets at $40 start selling it’s likely vendors will begin raising prices.
Fatestitcher
Price Today: $2 Possible Price: $9
I’ll go a slightly different direction for my last card this week. In 14th place of a recent MTGO Modern event was a Jeskai Ascendancy build that utilized, what else, Arclight Phoenix. This build appears to be less all-in than the old builds, which sought to power up a lethal Grapeshot. This build instead utilizes Phoenixes and a few Young Pyromancers to take advantage of a smaller number of Ascendancy triggers, maybe five, to quickly ramp to lethal. I’m amused, and it would be cool to see this become more than a one-event deck.
Those of you that have been around a few years will recognize the name Fatestitcher, and will likely recall Glittering Wish as well. Back when Ascendancy was printed this deck exploded into Modern, with turn two kills theoretically possible. (Back then it played Noble Hierarch to set up a turn three Ascendancy, which could then be activated with the then-legal Gitaxian Probe, which untapped your Hierarch, at which point you went ham. Cool deck.) Fatestitcher got caught up and moved a bunch of copies, and has since trickled back into the market as Ascendancy mostly disappeared. This recent success opens the door to a return of Fatestitcher, and let me tell you, available supply will not support a surge here. There’s maybe 20 playsets on the open market? At $2, this will absolutely disappear if the greater community gets a whiff of it being good. Remember, Fatestitcher has one single printing, which makes it somewhat of a rarity in today’s Magic. Should this deck catch on — which I am by no means implying it will — these will be gone in minutes.
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. [/hide]
MAGIC: THE GATHERING FINANCE ARTICLES AND COMMUNITY
