Yearly Archives: 2019

Casual Fridays

Seconds-in-Command

Commander 2019 previews have finally finished, and I hope you took my advice and bought plenty of the foils I told you to buy a month ago. 

The headliners for all the decks are three colors each, but one of the odder things about these decks is how the secondary legends can cause spikes all on their own, depending on the mechanic involved. So this week, I want to look at these cards and see what jumps out at me. I wish I could say with confidence that these are all going to go crazy, but at the least, they work well with what each of these Commanders is trying to do.

Greven, Predator Captain is a fun card, very thematic, and someone we ought to hear more from. I like the ability that draws cards and plays into what the deck wants to do. The question is, how can we make this hurt as much as possible? Rakdos cards often focus on the opponent losing life, but there’s a lot of cards that can really pay off for us.

My favorite accessory is even on theme: Hatred. Only costs half your life to kill someone now. Unspeakable Symbol can get you there too, but requires a little more math.

Or, if you’re absolutely sure that no one at the table is playing with Lightning Bolt, then Soulgorger Orgg is your guy. Have a sacrifice outlet ready if you really want to impress. Black and red offer some fun ways to discard/reanimate creatures too, and I will respect you greatly if you pull off the Orgg tricks at instant speed, or even twice in one turn!

Bond of Agony also is good for a laugh, Dire Fleet Ravager says hello, Havoc Festival is truly nutty, and you have both Necrologia and Necropotence to have your life loss lead to more good things. 

Doom Whisperer, Erebos, God of the Dead, Kuro, Pitlord, Vilis, Broker of Blood all have fun effects too. There’s a whole deck to be made out of paying life, just be sure you can do the tricks more than once.

Elsha of the Infinite is a Jeskai card built around noncreature and nonland spells, but what are we going to do that’s better than just plain old Talrand, Sky Summoner plus cantrips and spells?

One way is tokens. Mastery of the Unseen is my favorite way to turn the unneeded lands on top of your library into semi-useful creatures and get them out of the way. Sure, you could play Ghoulcaller’s Bell and other such things to just mill them away, but get your value!

The standbys of Soothsaying and Sensei’s Divining Top are going to be very good here, but let’s really dive in. Think Tank is slow, but it does some work as a backup to the really good effects of this type. You know what’s on top anyway, why not arrange things appropriately? Search for Azcanta is going to draw you a lot more heat but is also good. You’ve got to balance power and efficacy here. Yes, Elsha allows you to cast planeswalkers at instant speed but thankfully, only Teferi, Temporal Archmage allows that to give value. 

The Mirari Conjecture is an excellent way to regain value off of the instants and sorceries you’re casting, and has that 10x foil multiplier that all the Sagas do:

Off the top of the deck for value means Oracle’s Vault has a lot of potential, but it was a promo and all the versions are cheap, so spec carefully. A much better spec card, because it’s on the Reserved List, is Bosium Strip:

Basically, it’s going to give flashback to any instant or sorcery in the yard for three mana. It’s harder to kill, being an artifact, but the buy-in of only $3 is exceedingly tempting and quite safe since it’ll never ever be reprinted.

Tahngarth, First Mate wants to attack. A lot. So how can we make sure he does so safely, or at least hits like a truck? 

Whispersilk Cloak is the clear winner here, but there’s EIGHT printings and four foils. This is going to be hard to make money on, especially because the oldest one comes from a block with crappier foiling. Tahngarth also kicks butt with a Sword of Anything and Anything Else, but I don’t expect those prices to move too much based on his use.

Fireshrieker has potential to kill a lot of players, but at three printings and three foils, big gains are unlikely. Hot Soup, Prowler’s Helm, and Hammer of Nazahn all have potential too, or maybe you want to get galaxy brain and pick up the equipment assistants: Stoneforge Mystic, Steelshaper’s Gift, Stonehewer Giant, and Steelshaper’s Apprentice. 

You’ve got choices when it comes to enchantments too, but I don’t like those as much because of the one-use factor. Wrecking Ogre is particularly hilarious though. Be careful about the instants you select, because sometimes, you won’t have control of Tahngarth and things like Temur Battle Rage might not be game over.

Volrath, the Shapestealer is something that cares about counters and while some of these cards have already gone crazy, having the third color of blue allows for some real shenanigans.

Necrotic Ooze is a pet card of mine. Any time we want to do fun things with abilities, this should come along for the ride. Also fun with Body Double. Crumbling Ashes has spiked more than once and yet hasn’t been reprinted. If Volrath shows up on EDHREC as a top new commander, I’d expect this to blast through $10 and approach $15.

Flourishing Defenses is a lot more mana but free tokens are free tokens, especially when combined with something truly busted like Contagion Engine. Double up on the effect with Nest of Scarabs, and thank me later.

Cytoplast Manipulator and Simic Manipulator are a fun way to go if you want to control things instead of destroy them. Beguiler of Wills can be a very fun thing to copy with Volrath too. Finally, the old standby of Cauldron of Souls is pretty great in a deck where putting those -1/-1 counters can be a benefit. Save all of your things as well as the things you want to copy!

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.

Jason Alt, Unlocked ProTrader

Unlocked Pro Trader: In Defense of Just Buying the Things

Readers!

We’re in the thick of a 4 day “reveal all of the commander decks at once like animals” week and boy has it been a doozy. I’m writing this on Tuesday, when exactly half of the whole decklists have been revealed and people seem pretty upset. Gavin Verhey assured everyone they read everyone’s disappointed reddit posts about the lack of value despite the price of the decks going up $5 and came on Brainstorm Brewery and assured us they would make some changes with the decks going forward. At first blush, they appear to have done… not that.

This looks pretty bad at first. People were expecting a big, flashy reprint, sort of like Wurmcoil Engine, or an obviously busted Legacy crossover card like True-Name Nemesis or Containment Priest. This has neither. The most expensive reprint is Seedborn Muse which is coming off of another recent reprint and is about to get dinged a lot more, currently sitting at about $7.50 for Battlebond copies. Most of the rares and mythics are bulk rares and none of the new cards look like they can soak up all of the value. Worse still, obvious cards like Ixidor and Dream Chisel we omitted from the deck, forcing people to go out and spend even more to make the deck serviceable because of the glaring exclusions. People seem pretty upset online. Are they right?

Let’s look at the list that came out today.

This looks even worse. River Kelpie and Ghostly Prison are about $5 but there is no big, sexy card and cards like Past in Flames were left out.

Is it really as bad as it looks? To answer that question, let’s go back and look at Commander 2018 and see how it looks a year later.

On paper, this looks like trash. Avenger of Zendikar was basically the only money reprint and the new commanders all looked like trash. Obvious reprints like Burgeoning, Exploration or Oracle of Mul Daya were excluded. Cards like Deathreap Ritual, Budoka Gardener, and Sakura-Tribe Elder that were showing signs of growth were going to tank and the new cards are pretty lackluster.

If you add up the current values of all of the cards in this deck, a year later, though, you might be surprised to find that the contents of the deck add up to roughly $80. There are plenty of completed listings on eBay for $60. Whiptongue Hydra, Nesting Dragon and Windgrace’s Judgment are $5 cards. Budoka Gardener climbed back to over $2 and EDH staples like Sakura-Tribe Elder, Sol Ring, Cultivate, and Explosive Vegetation basically shook the reprinting off. At the time, this seemed like the weakest deck but value-wise now, a year later, it’s the second-best (the worst is the Estrid deck, to the surprise of few and the chagrin of many).

How misleading is the “$80” figure? After all, there are 100 cards and if they’re all retailing for 80 cents, that means they’re worthless and won’t buylist for much. Wouldn’t a more fair way to look at it be based on buylist value? We’re not going to buy at retail and sell at buylist on the Commander 2019 products, but it’s still a good idea to look at those values.

If you look at the cards in the morph deck, there is some value there. Some of the cards will obviously tank, but a lot of the good ones will recover in a year and currently the buylist numbers aren’t too bad. If you put the 83 non-new cards into TCG Player and tried to buy them all, it would cost you $100, first of all. That’s not that telling, but it’s worth noting. The number of cards that in the Morph deck that currently buylist for a dollar or more is a staggering (Hooded Hydra, Ixidron, Grim Haruspex, Den Protector, Seedborn Muse, Thelonite Hermit, Great Oak Guardian, Sakura-Tribe Elder, Overwhelming Stampede, Tempt With Discovery, Strionic Resonator, Sol Ring, Thran Dyanmo, Darkwater Catacombs, Exotic Orchard, Llanowar Wastes, Sunken Hollow, Thespian’s Stage, Yavimaya Coast, Ash Barrens, Bojuka Bog, Command Tower, Reliquary Tower). That’s $32 of your $35 right ther, buylist value, excluding the 17 new cards whose values are unknown. Do we expect any of them to be worth anything? Well, historically, the decks will have at least 2 new cards worth $5 (Arixmethes and Estrid’s Invocation, Treasure Nabber and Endless Atlas, Lord Windgrace and Windgrace’s Judgment and Nesting Dragon and Whiptongue Hydra , Aminatou and Yuriko). If you tack on at least another $10, you’re reasonably safe buying at $35, especially if you want any of the cards. If there is a Yuriko this year, which has settled around $15, you’re in even better shape.

Are these a great investment? I don’t know how you feel about buying at $35 to sit on them for a year and sell for $58 BIN on eBay but in the short term, there will be money to be made busting for singles, selling the new, hot cards before they equilibrate down and holding the reprints while they equilibrate up. If you’re a player, absolutely preorder one of each deck at $35 each (you should be able to do better and get a set around $120) and build to your heart’s content.

We haven’t seen the other 2 decks but I’m not sure we need to – I am confident these are a better buy than people think, the value looks a little better than last year with a lot of money in pricey lands like Sunken Hollow and creatures like Seedborn Muse and there are bound to be some sexy, $5-and-up new cards. Here are a few I like.

Old Docksides, as he likes to be called, is pretty punishing in multiplayer. I have heard people talk about using him in Vintage, which probably can’t happen since the decks that let you cash in with him probably have lethal on board or a Mycosynth Lattice and Karn lock. This is nuts, however, in a format where everyone has Sol Rings and Signets. Bring him back over and over with Grenzo, tutor for him with Goblin Recruiter or Matron, blink him with Deadeye Navigator or Conjurer’s Closet or just play him, get a pile of treasure and win with Revel in Riches. This isn’t Smothering Tithe but it sure is close.


This card is stupid. I love it.

Historically, I have said that I tend to ignore supposition about the cost of Legendary creatures and prefer to focus on the decks that they’ll enable, but since we have data from last year, we can look at it. The Legendary creatures and planeswalkers from Commander 2018 worth more than $5 are Aminatou ($5), Yuriko ($15), Arixmethes ($7) and Lord Windgrace ($5). Nothing from the Saheeli deck mattered, as much as everyone raved last year about how you should buy Varchild’s War Riders. Pramikon has meme value and could end up being this year’s Arixmethes, which is a bad card but a huge casual hit. You know how many people are swinging with tribal sea monsters? More than are playing the Tuvasa Voltron deck everyone on reddit said couldn’t be beat.

This isn’t as bad as everyone says it is and I bet the deck it’s in is the worst one, helping its value even more.

If I had to guess, I think this will surprise people and get built a lot more than the marquee cards in the decks. This is what EDH players want.

That does it for me this week. Buy the decks, I think. I’ll be back next week with some data and some supposition about which specs to buy. Until next time!

Watchtower

The Watchtower 8/5/19 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.

GenCon brought with it our next slate of money engines in the form of the new commanders. 2019’s mechanics were made public, intentionally or not, about a week ago, so the overall themes weren’t a surprise. The commanders themselves were new though, and there’s definitely a power level gap across the four. For my money Anje, the madness legend, is by far the most fascinating, boasting a high potential power level while not pigeonholing players into a specific course of play or experience. On the other end of the scale is Ghired, the populate commander, who I’d consider the least engaging. I ranted about him on Twitter a little bit already, but basically, you have to put your 2/5 commander into the red zone every turn, all to score a single populate trigger, that could arguably be worse than a normal populate trigger. 

Big Game Hunter (Foil)

Price Today: $11
Possible Price: $25

Anje’s really only got two lines of text;  “T: Loot,” and “if it had madness, do it again.” Whether you’re in the market to build the deck aggressively, or as a control build, or as a vampire build, it’s up to you. Truth be told, the limiting factor on Anje is the dearth of meaningful madness cards out in the wild. The mechanic has typically been designed as a low-to-the-ground cost cutting tool. There’s lots of lightning bolt approximations that only cost lightning bolt mana in the madness cost. Jumping through hoops to cast bolt in Standard might have been worth it, but EDH is a different game entirely. Here’s hoping they really go to the wall on the madness support in Anje.

Though the existing madness pool is uneven in its options, there’s a few standouts that will be locks for any Anje deck, and Big Game Hunter is one of those. His iron price is B (good) and he destroys any creature with four or more power (also good). Even his gold price is a respectable 1BB, which means the card isn’t unusable if you don’t have a madness enabler. There’s no way to build Anje that BGH isn’t going to be a useful tool in your 99, and unless every single card in Anje’s box is a competitively costed madness card, players are going to need to branch out to find more. That’s when they’ll find BGH.

BGH has just a single printing in his history, as an uncommon from Planar Chaos. That’s not a particularly deep well to draw from. Foils are sparse, and they won’t last long once the deck is in the hands of the players and they start looking for cards to add, or cards to foil. If you can scare any up at $10 or $11, I fully expect at least a double up on your investment.

Altar of the Lost (Foil)

Price Today: $.5
Possible Price: $5

As far as the new commanders go, I’d consider Sevinne rather bland. His immunity isn’t underwhelming, it’s just doesn’t whelm. There’s no whelming to be had. Doubling flashback spells is nifty, and we know that doubling spells is reasonably popular as is, so that will light a few fires. I would have liked to see something more fascinating than “do the thing you want to do twice,” but, ah well. There’s more flashback spoilers to come another day this week, so maybe an alt-commander will be more thrilling.

Whichever flashback commander you end up playing, you’re going to want two things: flashback spells and mana with which to cast flashback spells. Flashback costs tend to be prohibitive, so adequate mana will be key in making that deck function. There’s always your standard options; Sol Ring, Thran Dynamo, etc. Aforementioned mana rocks tend to produce colorless mana, which you accept because of the raw output. Altar of the Lost is a special case that’s rarely worth its slot, but in Sevinne decks, will be a better Worn Powerstone. Worn Powerstone is in 25,000 EDHREC lists, so a better Powerstone is going to be great in Sevinne. 

Of course, Altar of the Lost is only going to be useful in flashback oriented decks, so it’s not like this is going to reach the level of play any of the other rocks do. Still, every Sevinne player will want to include a copy, and plenty should go pick up a foil as well, since they’ll be affordable. Getting in now at 50 cents may give you the opportunity to sell piecemeal at $4 or $5 each, or dump piles into buylists at $2 to $3. Either way, it’s a small ball choice that should see some real increase in demand over the next few months.

Alchemist’s Refuge (Foil)

Price Today: $11
Possible Price: $25

Let’s say you enjoy metal. Specifically, altering and transmuting metal into other metals. You might be inclined to call yourself an alchemist even, if you’re pushed to it. And let’s say you’ve been working hard and need to take a break. Get away from it all for awhile. Stop thinking about lead and gold. Where does one go to escape the clanging and banging of everyday life? Some sort of retreat I’d imagine. Perhaps even a refuge.

I’m fairly confident I’ve talked about Alchemist’s Refuge before in this column, perhaps more than once. I don’t know what the price was when I first started talking about it, but you know what: I still like it. Supply is extremely low, there’s still only a single foil printing, and that doesn’t look to change anytime soon. On top of that, Kadena adds a new layer to demand profile. Kadena notably says “each turn,” not “your turn.” If you’re able to play creatures at instant speed, that means you can take advantage of that three mana discount again and again. Find a way to untap that Refuge and you’re really getting paid. (And no, Aluren doesn’t work with Morph.)

Any copies you can find under $10 are basically a complete lock. Enjoy.

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.

Casual Fridays

More Rotation Pickups

Yesterday we got confirmation that the materials leak was correct, that the Commander 2019 decks are all about mechanics. I was almost dead-on in my predictions, and hopefully you bought some fifty-cent Secret Plans while the getting was good, or you bought some seventy-five-cent Field of the Dead and are reselling those right now.

I’m surprised that red is getting populate as a mechanic, but that’s neither here nor there.

With rotation upon us, there’s some headliner cards that are losing value at a rapid pace, and we’ve still got about two months until official rotation. Yes, your eyes are going to be drawn to the Commander decks and the new previews and the new spikes, but really, making money there is just a question of listening to the groupthink on the ProTrader Discord channels. 
If you can’t keep an eye on that rapid scroll of value, fear not. Cards are getting dumped as rotation approaches, and some of these cards don’t deserve that treatment at all.

Legion Warboss ($5 nonfoil/$9 foil)

I recognize that Warboss isn’t about to rotate, but this is too low a price for the confluence of factors at play. First of all, the foil multiplier is too low. This ought to be in the range of $15 for foils, especially because this is a very popular card in the Legacy and Modern prison strategies. The benefit here is that you spend 2R, and instantly get two creatures, one of which even has haste. Warboss might not end the game quite as quickly as Goblin Rabblemaster, but the benefit of not having to attack is a real one. 

Field of Ruin ($3/$15)

Field of Ruin has quietly become one of the most ubiquitous cards in Modern. A whole lot of decks are playing a couple, especially alongside other basic-finders like Assassin’s Trophy, Ghost Quarter, or Path to Exile. I’m quite surprised that this was never an FNM promo, being an uncommon, but here we are. I don’t know when it’ll get reprinted, but I’m gladly going to pick up foils in anticipation of $20 or $25. It’s just in so many decks!

Vanquisher’s Banner ($5/$10)

Foils especially should be targeted here, because it’s in 12,000 Commander decks and they are safe from being reprinted in Commander 2019. This is a long time to go between potential reprints, so get your personal copies and then add a few more. Sunbird’s Invocation is in a similar spot: Buy your foils now and thank me when they spike.

Timestream Navigator ($2/$5)

Yes, this is a niche card but the extra-turn effects are never to be underestimated, and this is a card that will eventually be broken. It’s designed to be difficult to break, but foil mythics from the last small set are always going to be appealing to me.

Blood Sun ($1.50/$6)

This was about half its current price before the Internet freaked out on the realization that this turned off the drawback of Lotus Field, and honestly, that mentality is something I want to capitalize on. It’s not difficult to imagine that there’s going to be other lands that this is good with. For example, this also turns off the sacrifice clause of City of Traitors or can be used offensively to turn off fetchlands for both players. It’s open-ended, a trait which just means you want a handful of foils waiting patiently for their day in the sun.

All the flip cards from Ixalan block – Just pick up some foils now. Go for the special promo Buy-a-Box versions if you can, but foil flip cards are very rarely reprinted and you should feel good about this acquisition. 

Oath of Teferi ($1/$5)

Yes, it’s in two colors and that makes it problematic for Commander as opposed to The Chain Veil, but I like getting in here at a pretty low price. War of the Spark triggered an increase because somehow we thought Standard would devolve into Planeswalkers fighting over value on the board. Silly us! It’s still very strong in Commander, if not hugely adopted yet. 

Foil Sagas (varied prices)

The Sagas have high foil multipliers nearly across the board. Lots of them are in the 5x range and a couple are crazy high, like The Eldest Reborn which is at a split of $0.50/$7. It seems that there’s a large group of collectors who wanted foil Sagas, because I can’t find a source of demand listed. EDHREC doesn’t show them being used a lot, nor does tappedout or any other database I use for this. It helps that these are pretty unlikely to get printed again, and especially not in foil. I can imagine a scenario where a lot of Sagas spike pretty hard (counter manipulation?) and foils could really hit a high. 

Foil Rat Colony ($0.75/$3)

All of the cards that let you break the four-of rule in Magic have eventually been worth more than expected. Relentless Rats has been printed three times and is still a dollar common. Shadowborn Apostle is more, with a single printing and a theme it can be dedicated to. What I am noticing is the synergy between the Colony and the Relentless Rats (the extra black mana is worth it to get the growth in toughness) and that foils of the Colony are cheap compared to the others. Get while the getting is good!

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.