We’ve been well underway with Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty spoilers previews for a couple of weeks now, and I want to spend today talking a little bit about some cards that I think are going to be ubiquitous, underrated or both.

---

Jin-Gitaxias, Progress Tyrant

Pre-order price: $30
Price I want to buy at: $10
Possible future price: $25

The new iteration of Jin-Gitaxias we’re getting looks to be a very powerful card, and might even outstrip the old Jin-Gitaxias in terms of how oppressive it could be at the EDH table. Copying your spells and countering your opponents’ spells is obviously strong, but the limit of one per turn isn’t nearly as restrictive as you might think at first glance. You can copy your own spell on your turn, counter someone else’s, and then do it again on each of your opponents’ turns – which means that it’s going to take at least two successive removal spells to get rid of Jin-Gitaxias. What’s more is that we’ve also upgraded from a nine mana 5/4 to a seven mana 5/5, a cost reduction which is not at all insignificant, especially if you’re playing this as your commander.

Pre-order prices are as usual a little too high, with TCGPlayer starting at $30 for the regular non-foil versions and a lot more for the EA, Showcase and Phyrexian versions. I’ve no doubt that this is going to be a hugely popular EDH card amongst blue mages – it does everything you want except for draw cards really, and will be a powerhouse in most decks. I expect to see prices come down towards $10 once we start to hit peak supply (pre-orders in Europe are already $18), and bounce back up to around $25 a year or two out from there. I’ll be keeping an eye on prices for the premium versions too, as they’re likely to get very expensive some way down the road, so if we can get those at a reasonable price then they should be a great pickup too.

Scrap Welder

Pre-order price: $2
Price I want to buy at: $0.50
Possible future price: $5

Scrap Welder is another Goblin Welder/Goblin Engineer lookalike, but with the potential for more versatility than either of those predecessors. It’s hard to beat the power level on Goblin Welder, at just one mana and no other cost to activate its ability, and Goblin Engineer’s tutor ability can make for a great setup before you start messing around with reanimating your artifacts – but hear me out.

Scrap Welder doesn’t have the three-mana-or-less restriction on it that Goblin Engineer does, and being a 3/3 it doesn’t die quite as easily as a Goblin Welder might, which falls over in a stiff breeze. What’s more is that you get to give haste to whatever behemoth you’re reanimating, and although you need to give as good as you’re getting in terms of mana cost, giving haste to something like a Kuldotha Forgemaster is bound to instil fear into your opponents.

As far as I can see there isn’t actually a page for this on TCGPlayer yet, but CardKingdom has had pre-orders up at $2 (which is roughly what I expect) so I’m going off that for now. It’s a little cheaper in Europe as pre-orders tend to be, but I hope to see this card getting down to (or below) $0.50 in the coming weeks. I don’t think it will ever hit true bulk rare prices so I wouldn’t hold out for that, or you might miss out on picking them up before the price trends up again. I think that this is going to be just as ubiquitous as its aforementioned cousins and as such should see some nice gains across all versions until its likely inevitable reprint in a future Commander deck.

Satsuki, the Living Lore

Pre-order price: $5
Price I want to buy at: $0.50
Possible future price: $5

This is another one without a page on TCGPlayer or CardKingdom, but prices in Europe are good enough to go off for now – although I think that they’re currently a bit higher than they should be. Don’t get me wrong, I think that Satsuki is a very strong card, but it doesn’t have quite the broad applications of the other cards I’ve discussed today, and as such will probably see prices in the $0.10-0.50 range.

Why is Satsuki so good? Well, if you want to play it as your Commander then the recently (ish) updated rule which enables your Commander to die and then also return to the Command Zone means that you can have your cake and eat it with the death trigger on the card. You can also just loop it with Sagas like Binding of the Titans and The Eldest Reborn, recurring value and card advantage with Satsuki also speeding the whole process up by setting off your Sagas earlier than normal.

Overall I think that this is a fantastic card for enchantment themed EDH decks, either as the Commander or part of the 99, and will likely rebound nicely from bulk-ish prices given enough time. It’s probably going to be a good buylist target down the road, so I wouldn’t be afraid of picking up a decent stack of these. I’d also keep an eye on prices for the Neon version, because those are likely to end up pretty popular too.

---

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.

I was surprised to learn that Adventures in the Forgotten Realms released over six months ago now, and with both the Innistrad sets back to back followed by Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty just around the corner, I think that we should take a look back at AFR before we forget about it and all the decent specs are gone.

---

Guardian of Faith (FEA)

Price today: $4
Possible price: $10

Guardian of Faith is something that I hadn’t really noticed until now, but really should have been on my radar as a decent EDH card. As well as being a popular option among Spirits and Knights decks, it’s actually a strong piece for any white deck and can act as a budget (or secondary) Teferi’s Protection effect, protecting all your creatures for a turn at instant speed, whilst adding an extra body to the board as well.

With AFR already having been six months in print, some of the more popular premium treatment cards are starting to dry up. Guardian of Faith has 34 NM FEA listings on TCGPlayer, almost all of which are just single copies and not many of those below $5. Europe has more supply but the copies are actually slightly more expensive than in the US, so you could still pick some up but your margins are going to be slimmer. There is also the Ampersand promo to consider, but supply on those is very thin on the ground – if you can find any under $30-40 then I’d say go for it, but they’re getting harder to find at reasonable prices.

Oswald Fiddlebender (Showcase Foil)

Price today: $3
Possible price: $10

Moving onto another white card for my second pick today: for a card that’s just a Birthing Pod for artifacts, I’m honestly surprised that Oswald Fiddlebender is only in 4600 decks on EDHREC. It seems obvious that any artifact-based deck that can run this card should be doing so, especially if you’re trying to sift through your deck to find combo pieces rather than just mana rocks etc. Once you involve a Scrap Trawler and/or Myr Retriever then you can really go to town with it, getting back all the pieces you sacrifice to Oswald for free.

Showcase foils for this aren’t particularly pricey yet, but nor are they hugely plentiful in supply – around 40 NM foil listings on TCGPlayer, again almost all single copies, and around half the quantity of the regular foils available. I wouldn’t bother with the Ampersand promos on this one as they’re all $100+ already and I’m not sure how much money is to be made there. The Showcase foils from AFR definitely aren’t for everyone, but I quite like the art style on them and it’s clear that others do too, so although sales on them might not be as fast as they could be, I think you’ll still be able to make your money on them in time.

Teleportation Circle (FEA)

Price today: $5
Possible price: $15

All white cards? Yep, all white cards this week. Unintentional but here we are, and honestly it’s probably a good thing that there are actually some good white cards for EDH. We know how popular Conjurer’s Closet is, and Teleportation Circle is both cheaper in mana cost as well as being able to flicker artifacts as well as creatures. Closet is in almost 25,000 decks listed on EDHREC and I expect Teleportation Circle to close the gap between that and its current 7000 decks somewhat over the next couple of years.

Enter-the-battlefield effects will always be powerful and popular in EDH, and so I fully expect to see this card over $10 before long, and pushing $15-20 sooner or later. Around 30 NM foils on TCGPlayer and a solid ramp to $10 means that it won’t take many EDH players buying/upgrading copies of the card to lift the price up. The Ampersand promos on this one are around $50 right now, and personally I won’t be buying any but I could see a world where they move to $75-100, so use your own discretion on that one.

---

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.

It’s always refreshing to see people bringing new ideas to the table in Modern, especially when it’s a new piece of tech for an already established archetype that can shake things up a bit. Today I’m looking at just that – some innovative takes on both old and newer decks on the Modern scene.

---

Tourach, Dread Cantor (OBF)

Price today: $12
Possible price: $25

Jund? In 2022? It’s more likely than you’d think. Over the past couple of weeks, Jund has become a more and more popular choice in the Modern metagame, with some of the old favourites in Tarmogoyf, Thoughtseize and Wrenn and Six, plus some newer tech in Tourach, Dread Cantor. This little two-drop is in a pretty good place in the metagame right now – as well as getting buffed from your discard spells, the protection from white is huge against decks like Hammer Time that have mostly white threats carrying their equipment, as well as being Solitude-proof.

Now can anybody tell me why the retro foil versions of this is only $2 more than the retro non-foil? No? I’m not really sure why either, but the fact is that you’d only be paying $12 over $10 for the foil rather than non-foil here, and I think that the foils will start to push upwards pretty soon to correct that. The foils are already a bit pricier than that in Europe (where the non-foils are actually slightly cheaper), and we should soon see the US market follow that trend.

This isn’t a huge EDH card but the low supply doesn’t need much demand to push the price up, and a few Modern and EDH players here and there wanting pretty versions will be enough to start draining the market. If you want any personal or spec copies then now is the time, and I think these are a slightly better pick than the borderless version of the card which has higher supply and, let’s be honest, a worse frame.

Kor Outfitter (Foil)

Price in Europe: €2 ($2.25)
Price in US: $12
Possible price: $15

Speaking of Hammer Time (as we always seem to be when discussing Modern these days), that deck has seen some new innovation as well. Kor Outfitter has been picked up as another piece of tech to put your huge equipment in the hands (or wings? Don’t ask me how an Ornithopter is supposed to carry a Hammer) of your creatures without paying the exorbitant cost for it, and although not a huge number of people have picked it up yet, the lists it’s been in have been putting up strong results.

A common with a single printing all the way back in original Zendikar, foils of these are already pretty scarce, and a NM copy is going to set you back $12 on TCGPlayer. Over in Europe however, you can grab a few at the €1-2 mark, and if you’re not too sluggish about it then you could easily ship some over to the US for a tidy profit. It’s also worth looking around in the US for any cheaper copies too; I’m sure there will be some stores that still have copies at the old price that you can chuck straight on TCGPlayer or eBay.

Wishclaw Talisman (EA)

Price in Europe: €3 ($3.50)
Price in US: $9
Possible price: $20

I don’t think that this is actually very new tech, but it’s an older deck that’s seeing a little bit more play in Modern and so I thought I’d give it a mention regardless. The Twiddlestorm deck puts Lotus Field coupled with a bunch of Twiddle effects to good use, and was a prominent force in the Modern meta a little while back before shrinking into the background a bit. Now it seems to be making a small resurgence, with a few different variants flying around and a lot of them playing Wishclaw Talisman.

Using a Twiddle effect on the Talisman enables you to search for multiple cards with it before handing the Talisman over to your opponent, sometimes even with zero counters left on it, rendering it useless to them. Some of the decks are going for a Grapeshot or Empty the Warrens win, with others opting for a Thassa’s Oracle or even grabbing an Aeve, Progenitor Ooze from the sideboard to overwhelm the opponent with Oozes.

Being a very popular EDH card, FEA Wishclaws are already $45 in the US and in very low supply, and EAs at $9-10 looking to push upwards too. Over in Europe though, you can find EAs as low as €3 (and some FEAs around €20 which aren’t bad pickups either), and that makes for some nice arbitrage. I expect to see non-foil EAs push $15 before long, and could climb as high as $20 without a reprint soon.

---

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.

There have been some obvious winners from Innistrad: Midnight Hunt in terms of EDH play; cards like Vanquish the Horde and Augur of Autumn were always going to see a lot of play, but I think that there are some underrated cards a little further down the popularity standings that could easily be good gainers over the next few months as people start to realise their value.

---

Adeline, Resplendent Cathar (Showcase Foil)

Price in Europe: €1-2 ($2)
Price in US: $5
Possible price: $10-15

Adeline feels like a callback to Hero of Bladehold, except it’s a mana cheaper and generates an extra token (albeit without the Battle Cry effect). You’re also getting Vigilance on it too, and the fact that you can play it as your Commander has made it quite a popular choice both as a General and part of the 99. Combined it makes nearly 7000 decks on EDHREC, and is a favourite in token decks and humans decks that packs a punch once you get some creatures in play.

The foil Showcase versions are surprisingly sparse, with only 21 NM listings on TCGPlayer from $5-10. Over in Europe you can snag copies as cheap as €1, and with a few more listings than you’ll find in the US it’s a good opportunity to grab some cheap ones. I think that Adeline will have an easy push to $10 in the US over the next few months, and could head towards $15 if it sees continued popularity in EDH.

Triskaidekaphile

Price in Europe: €0.05 ($0.05)
Price in US: $0.50
Possible price: $2

I hadn’t intended this to be an arbitrage-based article, but here we are. Triskaidekaphile is a surprisingly popular EDH card, clocking in at around 4650 decks on EDHREC, and whilst it may seem like a bit of a meme card on the surface, it’s actually quite useful. No maximum hand size on a 2 mana creature is pretty nice, and it’s not imposing enough to be something that your opponents instantly need to remove, which means that you’ll likely get some decent card draw out of it as well. The win condition strapped to it is nice to play to, and is likely to make it a popular card amongst the more casual players.

With that in mind, I like picking up stacks of the regular non-foils here as cheaply as you can get them. Casual players often don’t bother with premium versions of cards, but still drive prices on non-foils when a card is popular enough. I’d be looking to get in on these under €0.20 in bulk, with a view to buylist them to CardKingdom or similar a year or so down the road.

Lier, Disciple of the Drowned (Showcase Foil)

Price today: $10
Possible price: $25

Finishing things off with a spikier card that isn’t actually much cheaper in Europe, Lier, Disciple of the Drowned has been picked up as a potential cEDH card as well as being a solid Commander and 99 inclusion for regular EDH too. Five mana is a high price to pay when you’re trying to cast lots of cheap spells quickly, but if you can ramp it out fast enough then Lier is a hugely powerful protection point for all your spells, as well as being a permanent Snapcaster Mage for your entire graveyard.

As a Showcase foil mythic, there aren’t ever going to be too many of these around and so if you’re wanting any for your collection or to play with then now is the time. In terms of speculating on this, I think that anything under or around $10 is a solid buy to hit $20+ in the next 12-18 months – demand for this isn’t going to be huge, but supply isn’t exactly on the high side either and so as people upgrade their copies, the price is going to get dragged upwards.

---

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.