I usually try to base each of these articles loosely around a theme of sorts, or at least make something up that tenuously links the cards I talk about – but this week I’m afraid to say I was stuck. So alas, it’s an unthematic week, and I’ve just talked about some cards that I think are worth taking a good look at buying on MTGO.

Having said that, I still think that these are all some solid picks (otherwise I really shouldn’t be wasting time writing about them), so have a read and let me know what you think!

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Fiend Artisan

Price today: 14 tix
Possible price: 20 tix

There were a lot of mixed opinions on Fiend Artisan in the run-up to Ikoria’s release, with a lot of people comparing it to Tarmogoyf or calling it Green Sun’s Zenith on a stick, but others saying that it was trying to do two different things but did neither of them very well. The recent results, however, have shown us that this card can definitely put some work in in a Standard environment.

Lurrus of the Dream-Den Companion decks are all over the place, and the Orzhov Aristocrats deck in Standard plays a suite of Fiend Artisans along with Lurrus as the Companion. It’s able to tutor up key pieces like Priest of Forgotten Gods, as well as being a big beatstick later in the game. The Artisan has also been showing up in Pioneer, most recently making the finals of the Team Lotus Box Pioneer tournament over the weekend in an Abzan Rally shell. It’s reminiscent of the Rally the Ancestors deck from BFZ Standard, but the wider card pool of Pioneer has made for a much more streamlined, powerful deck.

After peaking at 30 tix around Ikoria’s release, Fiend Artisan has been hovering between 12 and 15 tix since then. It’s sitting around 14 at the moment, and I think that this is a powerful card that can find multiple homes in multiple formats. I think there’s a lot to do with the card that hasn’t been explored yet, and I expect the Rally deck to gain some more traction in Pioneer over the next couple of weeks.

Jace, Wielder of Mysteries

Price today: 4.5 tix
Possible price: 10 tix

Speaking of Pioneer, and more specifically Team Lotus Box’s Pioneer tournament this past weekend, the Lotus Breach combo deck is being pushed back down after having had a week or so back in the sun. The Damping Spheres are back in the sideboards for now, but give it another month or so and people will slowly remove them again and we’ll see Breach do well again, and then rinse and repeat…

Anyway, I’m not supposed to be talking about Breach here. Dimir Inverter was by far the most represented deck on the weekend, with over double the metagame share of the next deck (Lurrus Burn). A new flavour of Inverter has appeared on the scene – can you guess what’s different? That’s right, the deck can play a Companion now. Yorion is the ally of choice here, expanding the deck up to 80 cards and filling the slots with more interaction and cantrips. As well as just being a 4/5 flier that’s a free card in your opening hand, Yorion can actually help you win by flickering your Inverter of Truth and flipping over your library again.

So what’s the pick here? Jace, Wielder of Mysteries has been trending down online since mid March, after its spike when Dig Through Time didn’t get banned. But see that little turnaround at the bottom of the graph there? I think we’ve reached the bottom and the price is going to be headed back up now. Jace has been 18 tix before and so I think that 10 is a pretty reasonable target for this play. This Yorion version of the deck has great potential, and I expect to see more of it in the MTGO leagues over the next couple of weeks.

Sunbaked Canyon

Price today: 13 tix
Possible price: 20 tix

See how I mentioned Lurrus Burn in the previous section? Well, now I’m segueing into talking about another card from the deck – but in Modern. That was a smooth transition, right?…

Anyway, Sunbaked Canyon has been a staple in Modern Burn decks since it was printed, and now that Lurrus has given the deck an extra boost it’s really putting up results in Modern. Due to the Modern Horizons flashback draft on MTGO a couple of weeks ago, the Horizon lands (along with most other MH cards) took a dip in price online. A lot of staples have recovered since then, but the Horizon lands have, for the most part, stayed down. I don’t think that they’re going to stay that way for too much longer though.

I’m calling out Sunbaked Canyon because it’s the most widely played, but this logic roughly applies to the other four lands as well. Canyon was up at 21 tix before the flashback draft, and I think it can get there again, especially with the heavier-than-usual representation of Burn in the Modern metagame.

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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 and a new writer for MTGPrice in 2020, he’s an active MTG finance speculator specialising in cross-border arbitrage.

We all know that Wizards have been pushing the power level of new Standard sets in the past 12 months, but Throne of Eldraine has arguably been the most pushed of the lot so far. Sure, T3feri and Narset from War of the Spark are obnoxious, and Uro out of Theros has seen an incredible amount of play…but remind me how many formats Oko is banned from now? And Once Upon a Time?

But even setting aside the bannings, this is a suite of cards that have achieved a deep penetration of pretty much every format Magic has to offer – and it’s also going to be the oldest set legal in Standard once rotation hits later this year. Those factors all seem like an excellent recipe for some juicy MTGO specs, so let’s take a look!

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Brazen Borrower

Price today: 27 tix
Possible price: 40 tix

Brazen Borrower continues to be one of the most popular cards in Standard, as well as seeing play in Pioneer, Modern and Legacy as well. Side note: although Legacy might not really drive paper prices much any more, it’s a different story online where dual lands and other Legacy staples have had numerous promo printings (like Vintage Masters), and so are WAY more affordable. My point here is that Brazen Borrower being played a bit in Legacy does actually have an impact on its price online, unlike in paper.

I don’t really need to talk much about how good this card is; the results speak for themselves. A lot of the Adventure cards from Throne of Eldraine have proven themselves to be powerful and flexible in multiple formats, and Borrower is probably the best of all of them. Also, it’s one of only two Mythic Rare Adventure cards, the other of which sees so little play it’s not even worth naming.

We’ve seen this card at highs of over 50 tix, but it’s been on a steady downswing for a couple of months now. We might not have hit the floor yet, so keep an eye over the next few days/weeks, and maybe try to buy copies down the ladder. Demand for Brazen Borrower isn’t going to be significantly decreasing any time soon, and so once it turns around I think we’ll see it head back up over 40 tix without too much trouble.

Embercleave

Price today: 2.6 tix
Possible price: 6 tix

Embercleave has seen a lot of price volatility over its time in Standard, but most recently has somewhat fallen off a cliff. Maybe someone threw their sword out of the pram? (Not gonna lie, this is the first time I’ve actually properly looked at the Embercleave art and up until now I sort of assumed it was an axe…the more you know, I guess).

True burn decks haven’t been good in Standard for quite a while, and it doesn’t look like that’s a direction Wizards want to be going at the moment. This means that the majority of aggressive red decks are creature-based, which is great news for our friend Embercleave. It’s a powerful weapon (hah) for the deck, especially when combined with Anax, Hardened in the Forge, making it much easier to push those last point of damage through. It’s so powerful, in fact, that it’s made its way into Modern and Pioneer decks as well, so it could even have some legs once its standard days are over.

As I alluded to earlier, after peaking at around 9 tix a couple of months ago, Embercleave has been trending down since then and taken a sharp downturn in the past couple of weeks. Same as with Brazen Borrower, we might see this go down a little further before it reverses, but even if you buy now I think you’ll be in for a good time eventually.

Murderous Rider // Swift End

Price today: 2.3 tix
Possible price: 5 tix

I kind of wanted to do a triple-mythic article today, but I think that Murderous Rider is a better option here than any of the other ELD mythics. Although it’s hard not to include this card in your black decks in Standard, I think that Murderous Rider has found its best home in Pioneer. Mono-black used to be the top dog in the format, and although it takes up a smaller share of the metagame now, Murderous Rider is still seeing play in that and in Sultai Delirium.

I’m going to try not to repeat myself too much, but these Adventure cards are great, and I think they’ll have applications in a lot of formats for years to come. Murderous Rider has seen prices of up to around 6 tix online – not as pricey as the mythics or auto-playsets but I don’t think it’ll have too much trouble doubling up from its current price. Bear in mind I see this as a longer hold (probably at least a few months), but it should be a steady gainer.

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A final note on these cards from Throne of Eldraine – the set is outside of the MTGO redemption window now which means that there’s a little less demand for some of the rares and mythics that people needed to complete their sets. This means that we may well see ELD cards continue on a slight downtrend for a bit, so this will require a bit of effort on your part if you want to maximise your gains. Look out for the floor/turning point, and buy in then. If you’re happy to buy now for slightly lesser gains and save time keeping track of prices, then that’s also an entirely valid option.

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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 and a new writer for MTGPrice in 2020, he’s an active MTG finance speculator specialising in cross-border arbitrage.

Social distancing is of the utmost importance right now, and yet everyone is running around with Companions? What’s going on??

Jokes aside, it looks like some peoples’ fears over the Companion mechanic being broken might not have been unfounded. Lurrus of the Dream-Den is EVERYWHERE, and Gyruda, Doom of Depths has actually been temporarily banned from all formats on MTGO because of a bug with its interaction with Leyline of the Void type effects – you should be able to return cards exiled with its effect but Magic Online isn’t letting you. On top of that, we’ve seen eight out of ten cats Companions top 8 online tournaments across all competitive constructed formats. It’s clear these cards are busted.

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Kroxa, Titan of Death’s Hunger

Price today: 16 tix
Possible price: 25 tix

The Standard Aristocrats deck has picked up a lot of new and powerful tools with Ikoria. Lurrus of the Dream-Den is obviously great and doing some crazy stuff all over the shop, but other cards like Fiend Artisan, Whisper Squad and Call of the Death-Dweller are putting in work too. A couple of different flavours of the deck have been tried out so far, with both Orzhov and Rakdos showing promise, and Kroxa is proving to be great in builds including red.

Kroxa fits the bill to play Lurrus as your companion, which is the first thing we need to be able to check off here, and so coupled with Lurrus you can be casting and triggering a Kroxa every turn without the need to Escape it. That’s some serious value, and doesn’t even take into account the fact that you might have a Witch’s Oven or Priest of Forgotten Gods in play.

Kroxa has already put up results over the weekend in Team Lotus Box’s Standard tournament, making a top 8 appearance in a Rakdos Aristocrats build. Although it doesn’t have quite the pedigree of its associate Uro, Kroxa does see a reasonable amount of play in Modern too, showing up in Jund and Death’s Shadow builds. This mythic from Theros is already seeing some upward movement and will be over 20 tix in short order, and I don’t think 25-30 is unreasonable.

The Ozolith

Price today: 1.3 tix
Possible price: 5 tix

Now onto quite a different card in the Ozolith. This hasn’t been seeing any standard play as far as I know, but it has been showing up in Pioneer. Hardened Scales is a deck that somewhat fell off the radar when Once Upon a Time got banned in the format, but this one mana artifact has given the deck new life. Lurrus (how many times am I going to have to mention that card?) has also been working some magic for the deck as a Companion, and combined with The Ozolith I think the deck really has some legs again.

In a Scales deck, The Ozolith just acts as a store for all of the +1/+1 counters from any of your creatures that die, and combined with Lurrus it’s a recipe for large, repeatable threats. Throw a Metallic Mimic in the mix and you can really start going crazy!

The Ozolith is fairly cheap online at 1.3 tix at the moment, and although it might be a bit of a narrow card, I think it has a lot of potential. It might even breathe life back into Modern Scales – although Mox Opal is no longer a part of the format (RIP), The Ozolith can do some serious work with an Arcbound Ravager, making for a very quick kill with an Inkmoth Nexus. A slightly more speculative pick, but there’s no doubting the potential of this card.

Seasoned Pyromancer

Price today: 19 tix
Possible price: 30 tix

Speaking of Modern, let’s have a look at what has been doing well recently. A couple of weeks ago I talked about Klothys with regard to the RG Midrange deck that has been popularised recently, and since then its metagame share has only gone up. Alongside Bant Uro and Niv to Light, these midrange decks are appealing to Magic players because they get to play a lot of Magic with them. It’s good old creature-based interaction, served with a small side of land destruction – just as Garfield intended, right?

Whether or not you’re a fan of this type of deck, it’s the most popular (and likely the best) thing to be doing in Modern right now. Combo decks are seemingly out of the picture for now (although that still hasn’t stopped Caleb Scherer top 8ing with Storm), and midrange is king.

Anyway, back to talking about this RG deck – Seasoned Pyromancer is one of the key value engines in the deck, providing card selection and extra bodies on the board. Since the Modern Horizons flashback draft the other week, Pyromancer has actually bottomed out slightly more and is now down to 19 tix, from a high of 30 less than a month ago. It’s a mythic and so supply is on the lower side, and with the increased popularity of this deck I expect to see it back up to 30 tix in the next couple of months or so.

Bonus Pick!

Go and buy Lurrus. Do it. Then sell it sharpish before it gets banned in everything.

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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 and a new writer for MTGPrice in 2020, he’s an active MTG finance speculator specialising in cross-border arbitrage.

I had a bit of a think yesterday about something different I could do for this week’s article, but seeing as Cliff and Jason are still writing about real cardboard I thought I should continue talking about imaginary cardboard for y’all to buy. The strain on the USPS is starting to show, with warnings coming that it could shut down by June without significant financial aid. Losses have been increasing, and this has meant that it’s a bad time for us to be buying and selling physical cards – and that’s not even taking into account the potential danger of transmitting Coronavirus via mail. So it’s more MTGO picks from me for the foreseeable future, with maybe the odd special article here and there in between.

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Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger

Price today: 11 tix
Possible price: 20 tix

Classic Tron has long been an unwavering mainstay in the Modern metagame. It’s had its ups and downs, but I don’t think this deck can, or will, ever die as long as Karn and his Tron lands are legal in the format. Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger started to be played in the deck soon after its printing in Battle for Zendikar, and became more of a staple once Eye of Ugin was banned and Emrakul, the Aeons Torn got pushed out of the deck.

Albeit a pricier deck in paper (it’d run you around $600), Tron is much cheaper online. You can pick the deck up for as little as 200 tix, and that coupled with the fact that it can be a relatively straightforward deck to pilot to a reasonable proficiency makes it ideal for the players that are currently migrating to MTGO for their Magic fix. The deck has been sat in the top five for metagame share for the past few weeks, and I don’t think that’s going to dip down much.

Ulamog is a single print mythic from nearly five years ago, which means that supply online is on the low side. Until it sees another print or release online, I think that this is going to keep ticking upwards towards 20 tix again.

Fabled Passage

Price today: 9 tix
Possible price: 15 tix

Fabled Passage is currently being played in pretty much every deck playing more than one colour in Standard. It fixes all your colours painlessly, as well as having extra utility like providing food to cast cards for their Escape cost in Uro decks and enabling triggers for Mayhem Devil in the Rakdos Aristocrats deck.

As we approach the release of Ikoria, I think that Fabled Passage is going to be more in demand for Standard decks. With the new tri-colour Legendaries, Ultimatums and Mythos(es?), colour fixing is going to be more important than ever. The new tricycle lands (yes, that’s what they’re called, don’t @ me) will help a lot with this, but you’re going to need fixing that comes into play untapped as well.

One of the decks I want to focus on here is the Rakdos Aristocrats deck – it looks like the addition of Luminous Broodmoth could be a big boon for the archetype, effectively giving all your creatures twice the number of sacrifice triggers. Fabled Passage is already a four-of in the deck, both for mana fixing and to trigger Mayhem Devil, and I think that this deck could rise even higher than it already is with the incoming new tech.

Fabled Passage saw a spike up to 18 tix a couple of weeks ago and has since retraced to 9, so I think this is a great spot to be picking them up. Throne of Eldraine grows older by the day, and I like buying these now to sell into Ikoria hype, or even to hold until rotation in the fall if you’re happier to sit back on these for a while.

Thassa, Deep-Dwelling

Price today: 1.3 tix
Possible price: 5 tix+

This is by far my most speculative pick this week, but I think that Thassa, Deep-Dwelling is probably the most powerful of the Gods from Theros Beyond Death (if we set aside the Heliod/Ballista combo; Heliod isn’t great outside of that). 

Thassa had quite the hype around her when THB was first released. Flickering your creatures with powerful enter-the-battlefield triggers is great, and if you can turn on Thassa’s devotion then even better. We initially saw her being used in UG ramp/ETB shells, flicking things like Risen Reef and Agent of Treachery. Since the first couple of weeks of new Theros Standard, however, she’s fallen off the radar a bit, other than seeing a smattering of play in less competitive Flicker or Elementals decks.

As we move into Ikoria, there are definitely some more interesting enter-the-battlefield triggers that we could be repeating with Thassa. There are quite a few Companions that could work really well with her too – Keruga, the Macrosage and Yorion, Sky Nomad both spring to mind as cards that could be great to build a Thassa deck around. The Ozolith also seems like a card that could be busted with Thassa. I’ll leave it to better deckbuilders than me to figure the details out, but I feel like Thassa is a strong enough card that should definitely be more than 1.3 tix. I’m honestly not sure on what the ceiling could be for this card, but it’s one of the lowest priced Mythics from THB so I think that the only way is up from here.

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A note of advice to finish: if you’re missing the feel of playing Magic irl, take out a deck a couple of times a day and give it a shuffle. Feel the sleeves slip through your fingers…take a card out and smell the cardboard, fondle your favourite Commander…okay nah this got weird, we’re done. Bye!

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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 and a new writer for MTGPrice in 2020, he’s an active MTG finance speculator specialising in cross-border arbitrage.