Unlocked PRO tRADER: Winners And Losers

You know that article I write every week? Well I’m back with it, and this week I’m doing the this week version of it because, and I promise this is true, THINGS ARE DIFFERENT. Specifically, people are moving on to different top decks on EDHREC. 

Over the past week, these decks have emerged. If you don’t remember what it looked like last week, maybe the monthly trends will be instructive. 

Elshe is getting more popular, as is Kadena. Ghired got very popular, too, and it stands to reason that the kind of try-hards who would make a K’rrik deck will add their list to EDHREC immediately for theorycrafting purposes and the kinds of players who make durdle decks like Ghired wait until they physically have cards. Laugh all you want, Godsire is $30 and nothing from K’rrik has even moved. Well, nothing much, anyway.

This has likely hit its immediate ceiling, but it’s not $5 everywhere, so snap those cheap copies while you can, amigos and amigas (a kind of computer, I think). I think the fact that this is a non-mythic from a recent core set and hasn’t impacted Standard yet may put its ceiling right around 6 or 7 bucks but what do I know? I also think if this drops near rotation, it might rebound a bit, but I think the days of EDH cards tanking at rotation are basically over. That’s a whole different article I’ll write someday soon. 

I think K’rrik might be responsible for some other moves, if Coolstuff Inc (a website that employs me) is to be believed (I think they are).

Gray Merchant in their Top 10 doesn’t feel like an accident. I think Both K’rrik and Chainer decks want Gary. You can loop Gary very easily in Chainer and I’d share my Chainer picks if he were making more of an impact. Read my article from Coolstuff (a website that employs me) this week and check out my list. Probably nothing financially relevant, but I use Chainer with a Goblins theme and it’s pretty strong. Chainer likely overtakes some Core 2020 decks next week so we can talk about it then. 

While we’re on the topic of K’rrik, a topic I didn’t want to get much into, there’s a $6 price gap between Card Kingdom and Strike Zone/TCG Player/Troll and Toad

This is not an $11 card, so act accordingly. 

I wanted to talk about Elsha this week, but it’s probably fine that we spent some ink on K’rrik because what it was moving wasn’t as clear before. Elsha seems… solved. 

The high synergy cards from the deck show it’s a pretty basic spellcaster deck, but I think there are undervalued cards. 

I mention these and cards like them quite a bit but I think there’s something to be said about all of them. I like Helm of Awakening a lot more than most people both as a spec and as a card. I really don’t care if they get a spell reduction in a deck not built to take advantage of it if it means I go off with my deck. My spells costing 1 or 0 is all that matters, I don’t care if they cast a big, dumb blocker a turn earlier. Cloud Key is getting into that “ripe for a reprint” range, but since they don’t seem inclined to print anything that costs more than $7, I am thinking it could just never get touched. Future Sight is a weird set and it has expensive cards in it because of course it does. 

People are all done opening these packs, it’s time to buy a card that’s $2.25 on a buylist and on sale on Coolstuff and Miniature Market for $3. I don’t have much else to say about this card other than that I love it and it rules and it’s the kind of thing I want to be doing in Magic and if I could justify this and Swarm Intelligence and Sunbirds’ Invocation in a deck, I’d play them all. Maybe I can if I play junk like Seething Song… I digress. 

This is legitimately $37 on ABU Games. I don’t think it will stay in the “half of that price” range for long. Usually it’s Card Kingdom who charges the most (they can, it’s fine) but ABU sending a strong signal. In general, stores with very generous buylists will charge more than other sites that pay peanuts and a trade-in bonus can make your hotlist cards essentially the same as cash even with a markup, so watch for deals. $37 isn’t a deal, but you may find yourself in a year wishing you’d paid $22. 

That’s all the news that’s fit to print. We’re in Throne of Eldraine spoiler season already, so check this space for info about that. Until next time!