I hadn’t actually intended to just write about blue cards today, but I ended up doing just that and so here we are. Modern is still great and I’m just going to keep writing about it until someone tells me not to – paper tournaments are slowly returning and people are buying their Modern cards again (me included), so let’s see what we should be buying right now.
Murktide Regent
Price today: $20
Possible price: $40
Murktide Regent has quickly become a staple in the Izzet Tempo decks that are dominating Modern at the moment, and although it generally ends up costing two mana rather than one, it might just be a new and improved Delver of Secrets. With fetchlands in the format it’s not too difficult to cast this for two mana on turn three, and in this kind of deck it’s almost always going to come into play as a 5/5 or bigger. On top of that, any time you delve away any more instants or sorceries, Murktide just grows bigger, and can take over a game incredibly quickly.
All the Delver-esque decks are playing four Regents at the moment, and it’s pretty much become a staple in Legacy Delver decks as well. I don’t think it’s quite powerful enough to get banned, although we’ll have to keep an eye on it – but for the time being I don’t think it’s likely to be unseated from its place in these decks.
$20 is already a high-ish buy-in for a card that’s pretty much at peak supply right now, but if we compare it to other mythics from the set then it’s actually not looking too bad. Ragavan is already a $70 card and Endurance is $35, so $20 for a card with such a high amount of competitive play seems like it should easily get there soon enough. Supply is still reasonable at 125 TCGPlayer listings, but the vast majority of those are just single copies, and MKM is actually more expensive at the moment.
Striped Riverwinder (Foil)
Price in Europe: €2 ($2.50)
Price in US: $???
Possible price: $8
Living End is continuing to put up the numbers in Modern with the new-to-Modern Shardless Agent at the helm, and the Elementals from MH2 in the forms of Subtlety and Grief backing it up. Striped Riverwinder has long been an absolute staple in the deck – one mana to cycle and producing a huge 6/5 Hexproof body is some of the best value you can get with Living End, and so I don’t see it shifting from the list any time soon.
As far as I can see, foils are basically non-existent in the US. TCGPlayer has none, and there are just a sparse few copies across the major vendors. There aren’t exactly a huge number of copies in Europe either, but it’s still a great deal more than there are in the US, and so we have ourselves a nice arbitrage opportunity. This may only be a foil common, but it’s only ever had a single printing and it might be a little while yet before we see another set with Cycling in for a potential reprint. Ikoria had Cycling but no reprint for the Riverwinder, and so as a four-of in one of the more dominant Modern decks at the moment, copies are difficult to get hold of.
If you pick some of these up in Europe I can honestly see them selling for close to $7-8 each on TCGPlayer. People that want them for Living End may well pay a good $30 for their playsets, and being able to sell four at a time makes your life much easier.
Brazen Borrower (Showcase)
Price in Europe: €26 ($30)
Price in US: $40
Possible price: $50
Brazen Borrower has waxed and waned in Modern (and other formats) since its printing way back in Throne of Eldraine, but is back to the forefront of the meta again now. Four copies in the Crashing Footfalls Cascade decks, as well as lots of other decks playing 1-3 copies between main and sideboards – Living End, Izzet Tempo, Jeskai control lists etc. – and it’s the 7th most played creature in Modern right now.
The Showcase versions of these are really nice – Eldraine had one of my favourite Showcase styles that we’ve seen for a while, and people want the pretty ones for their decks. Supply is running very low now with only 24 TCGPlayer listings across foils and non-foils, with non-foils running around $40+ and foils already up at $100. This is a card with a printing in The List as well, but those are the same price and even more sparse.
Europe has copies a bit cheaper at the moment, starting around $30 with a reasonable number of copies there before you get to $40, but again not a hugely deep supply. There’s a nice bit of arbitrage to be had there, and a good opportunity to pick up cheaper personal copies if you need them. I expect to see prices push up to $50 and maybe higher on the non-foils, and I’d keep an eye out for any cheap foil copies too because they could easily crest $130+ before too long.
David Sharman (@accidentprune on Twitter) has been playing Magic since 2013, dabbling in almost all formats but with a main focus on Modern, EDH and Pioneer. Based in the UK, he’s an active MTG finance speculator specialising in cross-border arbitrage.