Readers!

Last week I talked all about panning out and looking at the format at macro scale to see that not all “best commander in the set” are created equal. I don’t think I do that enough, and a constant parade of new products made me very comfortable just writing about a new deck every week. The thing is, I found last week’s article useful because it got me thinking about things I take for granted, and things I gloss over when I focus on new stuff. The thing is, there is a class of “new” cards that we all gloss over, but which we should pay a lot of attention to because if there is anywhere to make easy, free, reliable money, it’s there. I’m referring, of course, to cards that are in the Top 100 cards in the last week but not the last 2 years meaning they are relatively new staples but still have a chance to go up in price. That’s a mouthful but hopefully they’ll… be a walletful? Because of the money you’ll make on them? That you’ll put… in your wallet? Look, they can’t al be gems, I’m here to find you some picks, not make jokes. To that end, let’s look at some cards.

Just in case it’s not intuitive, the way to find the page is head to the edhrec homepage first.

In the top left there is a series of drop-down menus. We want Cards.

Select Top Cards from the menu and it will take you to the Top Cards page. I mean, obviously, but I’m setting up the next pic, chill. You asked for this (play along, I’m pretending you need this because someone probably does).

On that page, you can select the date range. I’m going with the past week. If this was too hard to follow or if you figured I would link it for you, I’m going to link it for you. Let’s look at some cards, shall we?

Sol Ring
Arcane Signet
Swords to Plowshares
Cultivate
Counterspell
Beast Within
Cyclonic Rift
Rakdos Signet
Izzet Signet
Orzhov Signet
Dimir Signet
Rampant Growth
Path to Exile
Kodama’s Reach
Boros Signet
Rhystic Study
Chaos Warp
Heroic Intervention
Demonic Tutor
Talisman of Creativity
Azorius Signet
Farseek
Smothering Tithe
Brainstorm
Blasphemous Act
Boros Charm
Assassin’s Trophy
Dovin’s Veto
Rhythm of the Wild
Eternal Witness
Lightning Greaves
Anguished Unmaking
Talisman of Indulgence
Talisman of Dominance
Sakura-Tribe Elder
Birds of Paradise
Talisman of Hierarchy
Llanowar Elves
Ignoble Hierarch
Despark
Three Visits
Swiftfoot Boots
Esper Sentinel
Eladamri’s Call
Negate
Generous Gift
Swan Song
Talisman of Conviction
Growth Spiral
Ruinous Ultimatum
Vampiric Tutor
Dockside Extortionist
Mirari’s Wake
Terminate
Enlightened Tutor
Fierce Guardianship
Putrefy
Mystical Tutor
Damn
Simic Signet
Deathrite Shaman
Elvish Mystic
Mystic Remora
Avacyn’s Pilgrim
Reclamation Sage
Noble Hierarch
Elves of Deep Shadow
Windfall
Nature’s Lore
Sylvan Library
Arcane Denial
Teferi’s Protection
Faithless Looting
Sun Titan
Eerie Ultimatum
Mind Stone
Fyndhorn Elves
Ponder
Jeska’s Will
Dark Ritual
Gruul Signet
Abrupt Decay
Return of the Wildspeaker
Vandalblast
Deflecting Swat
Mana Drain
Toxic Deluge
Supreme Verdict
Nature’s Claim
Golgari Signet
Rakdos Charm
Bedevil
Fellwar Stone
Beast Whisperer
Solemn Simulacrum
Mortify
Feed the Swarm
Worldly Tutor
Preordain
Commander’s Sphere

If you’re interested in seeing the list in list form, here it is, and you can also make the EDHREC site do that for you.

There are a LOT of staples on here. We can cut this list down by using our list comparison tool to cut out cards that are in both lists, meaning we’ll only get recent cards. That seems worthwhile to me, let’s do that.

There are 89 cards in both lists, which gives us 11 cards to work with which is… fewer than I thought. However, the list of 100 has a lot of cards that “feel” new and which also are less than 2 years old, meaning they ARE new. Let’s look at the 11 first.

Feed the Swarm
Jeska’s Will
Damn
Deflecting Swat
Rakdos Charm
Ignoble Hierarch
Bedevil
Worldly Tutor
Return of the Wildspeaker
Esper Sentinel
Three Visits

A lot of these are not new. However, some of these should pop out at you.

This seems fairly obvious. If Modern comes back in paper, a non-zero number of decks need this, it’s potentially a card if paper Legacy ever happens and it’s in a LOT of EDH decks for how new it is. It made the Top 100 cards of the week. How many Jund commanders were printed since the set came out? 0, that’s who. With the price beginning to rebound on Card Kingdom, it’s time to pull the trigger. I realize there are other targets, but this just feels like free money.

I posted this so we could talk about it. I’m not sure I love this at a $32 buy-in, but one potential wrinkle is that this is not playable outside of EDH, so while its price is somewhat controlled by a lack of cross-format appeal, it’s also kind of tough to reprint. I don’t love this at $32 because I have to imagine if this approaches $50, they’ll find a way to reprint it, but since the precon it’s in costs like $35, you might just use this as a way to get 99 free cards for now and re-evaluate later.

Bedevil got a reprinting, which was inevitable, but given that it was nearly inevitably going to be reprinted in a commander deck, let’s look at the foil.

You know I don’t love foils, but this appears to be gettable for cheaper than the non-foil peaked at, so it seems like a pretty sold pick-up to me. The foils are cheap, harder to reprint than the non-foil which just got hit, and it’s basically a format staple moving forward. Sure, it wasn’t in the 2 years ago list, but can we agree if it’s on the list of cards for the month that Prosper and friends are going to make this a buy at $6?

That’s me convinced.

I won’t lie, I didn’t imagine this card would be this popular, but Damn is showing up a LOT. It’s not done plummeting, but when it stops, I especially like the old border versions of the card. Damn is played more than I expected and I might not have noticed it was getting played enough to make the Top 100 until it reversed its price trend and started creeping back up. I’m glad I noticed now.

Duh.

I thought the ship had sailed on this card when it hit $15. It’s crazy that we all had a chance to get this for under $10 and not all of us got enough copies to make bank selling now that CK thinks it’s worth almost $30. If you can get these from Europe for under $10 for English copies, it may be worth it, but also, TCG Player has these for under $20 and that may be the play. CK buylist was nearing that at one point, and it’s not like this is getting worse in EDH.

I think all of these cards are going to go up more, even the ones that are already kind of expensive, and I think it’s good practice to abandon my very specific method occasionally and get back to fundamentals. I think these are fundamentally sound picks and I stand by all of them.

That does it for me for this week, readers. Thank you for your kind attention and continued support, and if you have any questions about how to use EDHREC as it is or suggestions for how it could be, I’m oddly enough an excellent person to talk to about it. Hit me up in the comments or the MTG Price Pro Trader Discord which is pretty insane value. Until next time!