Preview season is here and stuff is WILD.

We were told that there wouldn’t be a lot of faeries but the Brawl decks have given us some truly amazing members of that tribe, there’s two non-tribal decks but what I really want to look at is some of the amazing support we’ve gotten for the Knight tribe.

Some cards have started to spike, and others, amazingly, haven’t yet.

To be clear, there’s a ton of amazing tribal cards, but we’re focusing on the Mardu colors and Knight/Knight-enabling creatures. Equipment is also a valid theme.

Ashenmoor Liege ($4 nonfoil/$10 foil)

That foil price is drying up fast, though. It was less a week ago, but getting foils at $10 seems quite solid to me and nonfoils at this price should be a winner too. Pumping lots of your team always feels good.

Crimson Honor Guard (25¢)

I know this card doesn’t see a lot of play, but it’s capable of dealing a ton and a half of damage if unchecked, as lots of COmmander decks tend to not mess around with their Commander. The really good news is that this is two years old, dirt cheap to get in on, and even a small amount of interest in the card will pay off handsomely. Feels pretty good to buy at nearly-bulk rates and then turn those cards over again.

Eastern Paladin (50¢/$2 8th foil/ 7th foil $20)

Western Paladin (same)

These are both Zombie Knights now, something I keep stumbling over when building decks of the undead. Extremely useful abilities in Commander, and if it weren’t for the 7th edition foil tax, an easy spec. Urza’s Saga was the last set without foils, that’s why you can’t find original pack foils.

Southern Paladin (50¢/75¢)

Northern Paladin ($30 down to 10¢)

These are in a weird place. Northern Paladin dates back to Alpha, and was in Revised, so value is going to take a loooooooooong time to build up. Southern Paladin is in Weatherlight and 7th edition, but red permanents aren’t always as much of an issue.

If you want, skip the formalities and stock up on their versatile cousin:

Pentarch Paladin ($2/$7) is only in Time Spiral, can solve almost any problem, and has only 8 NM foils left on TCG right now.I fully expect this to cost a lot more very soon.

Haakon, Stromgald Scourge ($7/$25)

Foils basically don’t exist online anymore, but this is a premium card in a Knight tribal deck. Once you get him into the graveyard, it’s incredibly efficient and requires graveyard hate, something Commander decks never have enough of. Coldsnap was a low-selling set from a long time ago, and if you can get copies under $10, be enthused.

Knight Exemplar ($5/$10/Resale Promo $10)

Granted, that price is a day old and these are drying up FAST. A Media Promo and a Duel Deck headliner, this is one of the best Knights you could hope to have on the battlefield. It hasn’t been printed in several years, and slowly, over time, the quantities have gotten smaller and smaller. If you have them, hold them, and if you can find them for a pre-spike price, snap them up. Knights are about to get quite popular.

Marton Stromgald ($3)

A Reserved List Knight, he’s looking for a deck that swarms, rather than one which plays a ton of Equipment and seeks to build Voltron. Right now, TCG has about 170 copies, but only 24 NM. I’m not yet sure if the Knights want to go wide, but I shouldn’t need to work hard to convince you to buy a card that isn’t going to be reprinted and offers some impressive upside. Get yourself a few copies right now.

Order of the Sacred Torch (25¢) and Stromgald Cabal (25¢)

I don’t think these are going to go bananas in price. If they were only in Ice Age, then maybe, but having been in 7th and 8th editions means the number of copies is rather high. They are worth mentioning, though, because this is one life to counter the spell! That’s a really powerful ability on a creature, and guarantees that they need to cast something mediocre first. It’s theoretically possible that someone could spend a couple hundred bucks on TCG to try and force a buyout, but that’s not going to work.

Mirran Crusader ($1.50/$4 MM15 foil/$8 MBS foil/$5 Buy-a-Box foil)

Phyrexian Crusader ($5/$12)

Paladin en-Vec ($1/$8)

If you want your Knight deck to feature Equipment, then you have some excellent choices in who should hold the sword for you. All three are worthy, and can do disgusting things. Note that the Crusader’s price has already started to increase, and it hasn’t had the reprints of the other cards. Paladin en-Vec only has foils in 9th and 10th, making those rare finds.

Puresteel Paladin ($11/$20)

One of the two needed cards to go off in the Cheerios deck, Puresteel has already gotten a lot of attention and commanded a premium price. Picking up some foils might be in order, because the multiplier is just too low. The nascent casual demand is about to move that price higher.

Valiant Knight (25¢/$1.50)

This is an ability that can end games quite rapidly, but is only good when things are going well for your team. It’s a very cheap buy-in, even for the foils, making it a solid pickup in anticipation of $5 days to come.

Vona, Butcher of Magan ($2/$7)

Prices are climbing for this Vampire Knight and you should be stocking up cheaply if you can. There’s not a lot of copies on the market, and within a couple of weeks it’ll be at $5/$15 pretty easily. Plan accordingly.

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.

True confession time: I used to get cards signed all the time. I also used to write on my cards when I felt the occasion called for it. 

I remember getting some cards signed sometime in the early 2000’s, but that was a couple of sellouts ago for me. The real motivation hit when my local store brought in a real Magic artist, Thomas Baxa, in about 2010. All of a sudden, I had to have everything by this artist and everything that artist ever made signed by that artist so I could Show My True Devotion, or something like that.

Peak signage for me was 2011, the last Worlds ever held, when I brought about 150 cards to get signed by a stack of different artists. I remember getting in line, a ChannelFireball pro got in behind me, and they had something like 300 cards. A playset of everything this person had ever painted. 

And then it hit me. Why was I doing this? What was the point? I didn’t feel a special connection, I was trying to show off for people. 

It’s the same spirit behind foiling out the entirety of a Commander deck, only foils are a good investment and signed cards are definitely not.

Let’s talk about value, shall we?

One thing that MagicFests offer (enjoy Vegas, everyone!) that nothing else does is the chance to interact with people in person who are involved in Magic in a host of different ways. Cosplayers are creative and handy, dedicated and then some. Designers revel in the sight of people enjoying the products they worked so hard to create. Artists get to hear from fans, and even purchase items to support that artist.

However, there’s a true cost to being an artist at a MagicFest. You’ve had a taste of this, if you go play in a main event you can’t do the side events or casual Commander games. If you go there to Cube Draft you won’t have time to join the big Sealed queues. 

I’m not sure how many artists play Magic, but I do know that almost none get to play it at the actual MagicFest. They are too busy signing and altering and painting, the activity that is their lifeblood.

I’ll let Noah Bradley, someone who paints a prodigious amount of cards, makes a good living from it, explain why he’s got signing fees. 

Pay the signing fees. Unsleeve your cards first. Buy some art. Respect the time you’re taking, and recognize that you’re downgrading your cards to HP, and even Damaged in some cases.

Some signatures are worth a lot, for the macabre reason of death or because they don’t do a lot of signings. Christopher Rush, the painter of iconic things like Black Lotus and Lightning Bolt, has had his signature forged more than a few times in an attempt to maximize value. 

John Avon’s health issues make events difficult for him, and as eBay shows us, that’s a valuable signature indeed. 

One of the paradoxes is that the more an artist signs, the less the signature improves the value. Some artists travel every weekend, putting the effort in so that the grind is profitable. It’s an enormous amount of work, though. If you’ve hauled a box of Commander decks, two trade binders, some decks in other formats, a water bottle, a draft kit, and whatever else is in your Magic bag around all day, imagine carting around what artists bring.

Getting your card signed is going to hurt the value. You might find someone else who says ‘Whoa, that’s neat! Signed? Yeah, I’ll trade for that!’ but you’re more likely to hear ‘Sorry, gotta buy this at HP from you. It’s tough to sell.’ Please keep that in mind, especially if you’re getting lots of things signed. 

I’ve been researching signatures and value, and since signed cards are so rarely listed on TCG and the like, actual data tends to be restricted to eBay’s completed auctions for the category. 

If you find the right buyer/trade partner, then you’ve got a possibility of making a big jump in value. 

Altered cards are another area where you’d better be spending for your own joy, and not the accumulation of value. Getting a high-quality alter done by the likes of Eric Klug, Juju Alters, or Steve Argyle is going to cost you a LOT of money but you’ll have a one-of-a-kind piece. There’s no guarantee that it’ll be able to resell at that value, should you ever wish to let it go.

For what it’s worth, I don’t own any alters. I’ve come pretty much full circle at this point in my Magic career: I appreciate the novelty of foreign-language cards, the beauty of an alter, the shiny glory of a fully-foiled deck, but for cards I play with, none of that’s a requirement, just a bonus. 

Also, and I say this as someone who has made some very NSFW custom proxies: let’s move past needing to have barely-covered people on your cards. If that’s what you enjoy, great, leave it at home. There’s no reason to subject a whole playgroup to your desires. I wish I’d become a grownup about this sooner.

Bonus Prediction: Hogaak does not get banned. Vengevine maybe, or Stitcher’s Supplier. Something else that helps the deck but I think Wizards is going to tiptoe around Hogaak one more time, as they did with Bridge from Below.

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.

We are in a tiny bit of a lull. 

We know what’s in the Commander sets, and there’s been some price movement as a result, but no one’s got the decks in hand until August 23rd.

There’s no new previews from Throne of Eldraine to get us excited.

I want to take a moment this week and explain why the best thing you can do with the packs you win at FNM is to sell them.

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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.

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.