Monthly Archives: April 2019

Jason Alt, Unlocked ProTrader

Unlocked Pro Trader – War of the Spark Surprises

Readers,

There have been a few surprises gleaned from the (admittedly preliminary) data from EDHREC. Things you may not have predicted have panned out and it’s worth exploring things we might not have considered. For example, if I asked you to, without scrolling down, name the Top 3 commanders on EDHREC based on the first few hundred decks with War of the Spark cards submitted, I’m confident you’d get at least 1 if not two wrong. The obvious cards have popped already but there is stuff no one is even thinking about except for people building decks. Got your Top 3 in your head? Here’s the big reveal

 

 

 

 

 

 

Surprised? Yeah, you’re surprised. You probably nailed Feather – it’s #1 with a bullet. Niv you maybe got. But Tolsimir in the Top 3? Above Ilharg, Roalesk, Massacre Girl, Krenko, Fblthp, Oketra and Kefnet? There’s no way you guessed that. But if Tolsimir is going to be a Top 5 commander in the set, built half as much as Niv-Mizzet and twice as much as Oketra if current trends hold true, we should take a look at what’s in the deck because there could be some cards to get no play that are about to see some.

Here’s the page for all of War of the Spark ranked by raw number of inclusions. If you want to learn to find it yourself, go to EDHREC’s homepage, click on “sets” up top and select War of the Spark from the dropdown. You can also click on the full list to bring up a page with every set. You should take an hour to look at every single set some day to see which cards are used more or less than you thought. Everyone makes assumptions based on their limited experience, their own playgroup and their biases, but having data to re-center your point of view is useful and we’d be silly to ignore it. The War of the Spark page tells you the commanders with the most decks as well as how many decks each card is in as a part of the 99. As more data comes in, the picture will become clearer but for right now, let’s focus on Tolsimir decks and what go in them.

 Tolsimir Deets

I’m not super impressed with how everyone is building these decks and that’s likely a result of only casuals building the decks. That said, casuals tend to shop at Card Kingdom and if the cards sell out at Card Kingdom, they’ll raise their buylist price so it’s worth it to pull out any of these wolves you have in bulk or especially bulk rares. You were lucky to get a dime for Wolfbriar Elemental last week but if CK sells out at $0.35 or whatever they’re charging now, they’re cranking the price to $2 and they’ll be buying for $0.50 so it’s worth it to yank all bulk wolves and set them aside to see what happens to to them. Per the decklists I’m seeing, I’d yank the following bulk cards.

Commons

Rot Wolf (this shouldn’t be in your bulk, anyway, it has infect)

Young Wolf

Sacred Wolf

Nyxborn Wolf

Darkthicket Wolf

Uncommon

Wolfir Avenger

Watchwolf (FNM promos aren’t in bulk but have upside)

Briarpack Alpha

Fang of the Pack

Pack Guardian

Wolf-Skull Shaman

Raised by Wolves

Howl of the Night Pack

Bulk Rares

Wolfcaller’s Howl

Silverfur Partisan

Feed the Pack

Kessig Cagebreakers

Wolfir Silverheart

Wolfbriar Elemental

Spirit of the Hunt

Tolsimir Wolfblood

Wren’s Run Packmaster

Witchstalker

Skalla Wolf

If Tolsimir gets played as much as early data indicates, this stuff won’t be bulk in a while. Tribal decks are a draw for casual players and the deck is surprisingly potent, especially if you Ghostway your whole team in response to some removal and it all comes back and fights everything that survived.

I said I wasn’t too impressed with the builds because people aren’t trying to flicker their wolves, preferring to go heavy into tokens. I think tokens are pretty good because Green and White are the two colors that benefit the most with their Annointed Processions and their Cathar’s Crusades. There’s another reason it’s good to be in White if you’re both creating a lot of medium creatures and fighting a lot. You don’t have to fight fair.

Mark is a card that is on a second spike, a concept I talk about a lot. It means that the first time it spiked, rather than pay the new retail, people were able to find old copies at the old price at their LGS or trade them from people or just find them in their bulk rares. The market ferreted out all of the hidden copies and people buylisted them or sold them to players. When the card goes up again, there won’t be loose copies to satiate the sudden demand and people will have no choice but to pay retail, which will go up harder and faster. It’s a concept we see play out often, and given how brutal Mark is with Tolsimir, I expect this card to be tied to Tolsimir’s trajectory. You win every fight with Mark in play and that’s basically cheating.

Foils are below their historic high as well. The buylist is pretty funky-looking which happens when someone spikes the buy price to restock then drops it again when they get enough copies. I think both the foil and non-foils are a play because here at MTG Price, we like EDH foils. I think they’re a pain and take too long to sell, but if you’re dealing with 10 copies, you should have a fairly easy time outing 10 copies. Besides, the buylist price at one point got to what the retail price is today and if these go up again, you could make a few bucks per copy just selling them back to the buylist. I’m not touching foils but if you’re into that, these are like $4, which is basically what the non-foil spiked to.

Obelisk has been holding steady for a while and I think it’s due for a bump. Tolsimir is a pretty good deck for Obelisk – you don’t mind tapping tokens to cast it, your tokens power and toughness matter more than in most decks since they’ll be fighting the second they come in and it’s likely a budget deck so this is going to get the nod over more expensive buffs. This is also a 5 year old card at this point, is tough to reprint given its convoke ability and it’s an artifact which means it can go in any color tribal deck in the future. That’s all a recipe for decent value. I like this as a pickup now, especially if you trade for it.

Look at this crazy graph. Not only that, look at the fact that Door is like $5.50 on TCG Player. Want to know what’s almost $5.50?

Card Kingdom’s buy price. CK has these at $9, Strike Zone (yellow line on the graph) has them at $10, TCG Player has them  for basically CK’s buy price. If that doesn’t scream “impending price correction” I don’t know what does. I think if TCG Player sells out of Door, it gets relisted at $8.50-$9, which means CK sells out next and then the buy price goes up even more. If you’re into CK credit, I bet you can arb these pretty soon. I mean, you ALMOST can right now.

You know what almost never happens? This.

Do you see it? Keep looking until you see what I see. Give up?

It’s cheaper on Card Kingdom than it is on TCG Player. That’s weird. I checked – it’s legit.

It’s rare that this happens and hard to know why it happened or what to do about it. The Guild Kits were cracked to a much greater extent by people on TCG Player than by CK. I think the prices will converge but I don’t know which will change. All I know is that this card was printed 3 times and it’s still approaching $2 and that’s worth knowing about. If you’re heavy on tokens (and you likely are if you’re abusing Voja’s CIP ability with token doublers to KO a 12 toughness creature or 4 3/3s when you summon Tolsimir), this is a wrath that basically wins you the game. It also basically costs 3 mana if you have tokens galore, so remember that.

Tolsimir being in the Top 3 was a surprise and even if it doesn’t hold, it helped us identify a few cards that we should be thinking about and reminded us to yank wolves out of our bulk, so that’s a worthwhile endeavor to be sure. Keep checking EDHREC and stores like Card Kingdom which has a price integration deal with EDHREC so that people can buy directly from the site with one click for more price discrepancies like these.  Until next time!

Watchtower

The Watchtower 4/29/19 for ProTraders – Plan Your Specs

By: Travis Allen
@wizardbumpin

Don’t miss this week’s installment of the MTG Fast Finance podcast, an on-topic, no-nonsense tour through the week’s most important changes in the Magic economy.

With MFLondon in the books, we have a clearer view of the London mulligan rule than we did a week prior. Conclusively, the result is “inconclusive.” While it didn’t appear to have a major impact on the decks at the top tables, with a familiar pack spearheading the best performing decks of the weekend, there was plenty of input from pros that it had impacts even before sitting down to the tables. These included main deck and sideboard choices, which some felt was inappropriate for the mulligan rule to inform. At the same time, it also reduced variance and made for more repetition in game states, as you less commonly had to skillfully navigate out of mana issues. My guess is that we won’t see the mulligan rule implemented as-is across all formats.

Cavern of Souls


 

Price Today: $60
Possible Price: $90

As I mentioned a paragraph ago, the top decks of London were a familiar group. Right there among them, with I believe the most successful archetype by raw match points, was Humans. Not only did it have the most pilots with 24 points or more (excluding Limited results), it put three into the top 8, including the eventual winner. Overall, one would have a difficult time making the point that Humans didn’t have a good weekend.

Front and central of Humans is one of the key lands that makes the machine work; Cavern of Souls. Cavern makes any color of mana, allowing the Humans player to slot in any meatsack they so choose, prevents said human from getting countered, and even has the courtesy to tap for a colorless mana should you need to cast something less fleshy, such as an Aether Vial. And, should the day ever come, it will even tap for Eldrazi.

Cavern was an excellent pick-up roughly eight or nine months ago. Basically right before Ultimate Masters was revealed, and its contents shown to include Cavern. (On that note, I should mention I own several copies of Cavern.) UMA’s reprinting slowed down Cavern considerably, to no surprise. Supply had juuuuust dwindled down to maybe a playset or two, and whammo, here’s another several hundred copies on TCGPlayer.

Here we are roughly six months later, and the numbers are getting lower again. They’re not low low, with maybe 200 NM copies between Avacyn Restored, Modern Masters 2017, and Ultimate Masters. Supply is shrinking though, and while prices debuted close to $50, there’s a small number available at $60 before climbing to $70. With Modern Horizons unlikely to make Humans any less relevant, no chance for a reprint in the set, and the possibility of support for additional tribes appearing, now seems as good a time as any to begin sneaking $60 Caverns into your carts in anticipation.

Requiem Angel (Foil)

Price Today: $1
Possible Price: $5

As Modern prepares for a big shakeup, EDH keeps on trucking along, same as it has for years. Feather is War of the Spark’s biggest name in the Commander world. The rest of Ravnica’s generals haven’t been sleeping though, and Teysa remains, and is set to remain, with no other generals providing as clear a path as Teysa does, remarkably popular.

One of the most popular cards in Teysa is undoubtedly Requiem Angel. After all, making a new body — and ideally two — as you march your legions of disposable creatures into the meat grinder for profit is one of the best things you can be doing. It replaces a blocker and provides additional food for whatever ability is next on the list. So long as players are building Teysa, they’ll be building Requiem Angel.

Angel has seen a single reprint since her initial run in Dark Ascension, and that reprint was in a Commander product. With only foils from Dark Ascension on the market, it’s a small wonder these aren’t cleaned out already. I know I’ve put together EDH lists that made use of her before, so she isn’t without utility. Overall demand today is still mild I guess, with about 3500 reported decks making use. Still, there’s less than 50 NM copies on TCG right now, and fewer still at $1 or less. You’re not going to get to charge $9 a copy here anytime soon, but getting in at $1 will give you chances to sell singletons on TCG at $5 or buylist a pile at $2 or $3 each, likely this year.

 

The Gitrog Monster (Foil)

Price Today: $22
Possible Price: $40

Everyone’s favorite frog (I suspect, anyways) isn’t any less popular than he was when Shadows Over Innistrad rolled out. You’ll find Kermit here headlining nearly 2,000 EDH decks, and finding room in another 5,000 more. More are added daily as well, with Lord Windgrace having taken a top seat in the “Top Commanders of the Month” group for quite some time now. The long and short of it is, if you’re going to seek to do heavy duty with your lands in EDH, you’re going to be hard pressed to put together a deck that doesn’t want to find room for Gitrog.

You won’t be the only one going down that path, which is obvious when you take a look at the supply numbers. There’s six — yes, six — prerelease copies out there, and barely more than twice that in pack foils. Other than that, there’s no other supply, and as a named character from Innistrad, with rumors of Theros on the horizon, he’s not looking to see many more copies in the near future.

Prices spiked on Gitrog from $10 to $20 right around this time last year, I believe due to Lord Windgrace’s spoiling. (Or at least the theme.) I’m not anticipating a major increase again in the next three weeks as a result of any particular announcement. I think instead that copies are going to continue to be bought, supply is going to continue to wane, and with so few copies on the market as it is, with most already over $25, it won’t be long before it will be forty dollars a frog.

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.

 

Brainstorm Brewery

Brainstorm Brewery #336 War of the Spark Set Review

 

DJ (@Rose0fThorns) and Jason (@jasonEalt) are ready to tackle this war of the spark set review and replacing Corbin (@CHosler88) for this episode is returning fan favorite and magic pro Kat Light (@HellKatMTG).

Make sure to check us out on Youtube because everything is better with video. https://www.youtube.com/user/BrainstormBrewery

TeeSpring:https://teespring.com/shop/bsbTshirt18?aid=marketplace&tsmac=marketplace&tsmic=search#pid=2&cid=2397&sid=front

Need to contact us? Hit up BrainstormBrew@gmail.com
Casual Fridays

Prerelease Pricing

Here we are it’s War of the Spark prerelease weekend!

It’s also a Mythic Championship!

It’s also a Grand Prix-level Prerelease event!

The set was released on MTGO and Arena on Wednesday!

How many exclamation points can one writer use!

Preorder prices have settled down, and while there is some movement, there’s already a couple of cards that reek of value…and some that reek of overpriced hype. Let’s get in there!

Dreadhorde Invasion ($3) – Underpriced

Bitterblossom it ain’t, but this is a better card than it looks. I liked it even more earlier this week when it could be had for $2 on eBay, and at $3 I’m still interested. It’s a card that will be played as a four-of in the decks that want it. I like this to have an early bounce above $5, so if you want to play with it while the format is young, get it now. The price will come back down slowly, but I hate that feeling of “This playset was $10 cheaper last week, why didn’t I buy it?”

Dreadhorde Arcanist ($5) – Overpriced

I’ve been trying to find someone who plays a lot of Delver or Shadow in Legacy or Modern who likes this card, and I can’t find those people. Those seem like the best home for this card, so that cantrips can be reused or you can Thoughtseize again, but no one is impressed. I feel like it should be good. It ought to be good. It’s oh-so-tempting in assorted Phoenix decks. I’m staying away and if my pals are wrong they are gonna hear it from me.

Liliana, Dreadhorde General ($20) – Properly Priced

I can’t argue with this, because I love everything about this card for Standard and for Commander. I’m quite relieved that she’s not in the Mythic Edition that’ll be released on the first of May, that would be another $100 card in that set.

It’s been a while since we had a six-drop planeswalker that dominated Standard. In a lot of ways, this Liliana is a weaker Elspeth, Sun’s Champion. Sure, Esper Control decks are going to add one or two copies, but that’ll be it.

Tamiyo, Collector of Tales ($2) – Underpriced

Tamiyo’s ability is predicated on searching for one specific card that you really need, a card that will get you out of the situation you’re in, a card that is more likely to be present the less cards you have. So what could she be looking for?

Oh, right.

I don’t think this is a deck that’s going to set the world on fire but I do think it’s going to be a hot hot flavor of the week at some point. A surprising number of decks have a key card to look for, and she digs like hell for it.

God-Eternal Rhonas ($7) – Overpriced

It’s possible that this is as close to Overrun as we’re ever going to get, but this doesn’t boost toughness and your stuff still dies. Yes, you leave a big deathtoucher behind and five mana for a 5/5 is never something you’re sad to do, but the disappointment factor is high. This will come down.

Nissa, Who Shakes the World ($4) – Underpriced

I’m feeling pretty good about this card. I am not sure if it’ll happen right away or in a couple of weeks, but this level of mana acceleration is just a thing of beauty. Do note that her plus ability untaps the now-animated land, so it’s good for mana too.

What I’m not sure about is what these decks want to ramp into. Maybe just all the green monsters? Also, keep in mind that her bonus mana works with green shocklands, since the word ‘basic’ is quite noticeably missing from the static ability.

Someone’s going to do really well with a ramp deck on camera or at some event, and Nissa will jump to $10+. Hopefully you lock in your copies before then.

Jace, Wielder of Mysteries ($3) – Underpriced

Considering that there’s now eight ways to win the game by having an empty library, I’m surprised at this price. Laboratory Maniac got shifted down to uncommon in UMA, so that price is doomed forever, but Jace is impressively cheap to buy right now.

I feel like this is a $5 card in time, but that time isn’t now. While you could make a small profit by getting in now, you’re better off waiting. He’ll trickle down to $1-2 and that’s when you want to vacuum up loose copies.

Narset’s Reversal ($3) – Overpriced

While I’m super in love with this for Commander, I am going to be patient on this card. Foils are preselling in the $12 range on TCG and that’s a very reasonable number. Commander players are the ones who cast Genesis Wave for ten, or Insurrection, or a mega Decree of Justice. I would love to see this popping up in control decks, or even Modern, where you can hit Cryptic Command with it and feel quite on top of the world.

Spoiler alert: I’m going to add this to every Commander deck I can, and I’ll be content to copy a Cultivate, stoked to cast my own Demonic Tutor, and just in heaven when I hit a Blatant Thievery.

Sarkhan the Masterless ($2.25) – Underpriced

Finally, the true answer for the question that all superfriend decks ask: How am I going to win, now that I’ve sucked the life out of everyone else?

I don’t think Sarkhan is going to make more than an occasional appearance in Standard, but he’ll be impressive on a 3-4-5 curve of planeswalkers. I think he’s a slam duck in the decks that are Deploying the Gatewatch at every opportunity and I welcome that. Watching people play with six dice on five planeswalkers gets old fast, and each one hitting for four damage is an awesome and fun way to answer other planeswalkers! It’s a win all around!

Cliff (@WordOfCommander) has been writing for MTGPrice since 2013, 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.