It’s been around seven months since we had the Mystical Archive cards released along with the Strixhaven set, and it’s very possible that we’ll get another similar set of cards at some point in the future, but until then I think that there are still some good opportunities to be had with the Mystical Archive cards we’ve got at the moment.

Chaos Warp (MA Foil)

Price today: $10
Possible price: $20

Until we got the Mystical Archive version back in April, Chaos Warp had only ever had one foil printing in Commander’s Arsenal, and being the most popular red EDH card of all time it moved up to around $30 before we got the fresh foil printings. I think that both the global and Japanese art versions are superior to the old art/foiling, and we should see prices rise over the next few months as people upgrade old copies and buy in fresh for new decks etc.

Global art MA foils are around $10 on TCGPlayer at the moment, and I think those should be good for a double up over the next year or less. Japanese art foils are already $25+, but with only 27 listings on TCGPlayer and a reasonably steep ladder, I think those could even hit $50 in a similar timeframe. Prices in Europe are similar or higher, so not much arbitrage opportunity there, but still a decent buy-in if you’re in the market.

Demonic Tutor (MA Foil)

Price in Europe: €47 ($53)
Price in US: $65
Possible price: $80

Moving on from the most popular red card of all time to the most popular black card of all time, Demonic Tutor is undoubtedly one of the biggest EDH staples there is. Compared to Chaos Warp it’s had its fair share of premium printings, but they’re all well over $100 and so this Mystical Archive version might be the one a lot of people turn to for a more affordable premium option.

In the US, TCGPlayer already has the global art MA foils starting at $65, whereas over in Europe they can be had a decent bit cheaper for €47-50 ($53-58). I think that in time this version could get over $100 in line with the other premium copies of Demonic Tutor, but should be good to get up over $80 in 12 months or less. Arbitrage from Europe is pretty good right now, and although the immediate gains aren’t huge, it makes for a better profit over time if you can get them.

Blue Sun’s Zenith (MA Foil)

Price today: $5
Possible price: $15

Finishing things off today with a slightly less (but still very) popular card, the global art version of Blue Sun’s Zenith is criminally cheap at the moment. For a card that doesn’t have a premium version other than the original Mirrodin foil, $5 for a card in over 26,000 EDH decks seems wrong to me. It’s had plenty of non-foil Commander printings plus the original foil and A25 foil, but they’re all the same art and the MA foils should outclass them all.

I think the global art versions at $5 are a better pickup than the Japanese arts at $20, and should be set to crest $10 pretty soon and continue up towards $15-20 not long after that. CardKingdom are already paying $4.50 cash/$5.85 credit on the global art foils, which should be a very strong sign that these are going to play out well, and could be a good buylist option down the line when you’re looking to out your copies.

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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.

Crimson Vow only had its paper release over the weekend, but seeing as the set has been out on Arena and MTGO for nearly two weeks already, people have been thinking about the new cards for a while now and we’ve got some good early data to go off. Today I’m looking at some early picks that might not be ripe to pick up yet, but are worth keeping an eye on.

Welcoming Vampire (Showcase Foil)

Price today: $4
Price I want to buy at: $2-3
Possible price: $8

Early EDHREC data has Welcoming Vampire ahead of most of the pack right now, and it’s not difficult to see why. As a mono-white card, this doesn’t only go into Vampire decks but is also a great inclusion in any white deck looking to churn out tokens or other small creatures. Only getting one trigger per turn isn’t the best, but the fact that you’re getting card draw for free makes it situationally better than cards like Mentor of the Meek or Bygone Bishop that you have to pay mana for in order to get your card draw.

In a Vampire deck like Edgar Markov this card shines even more, with Edgar’s Eminence ability giving you an extra card every turn that you cast another Vampire spell, regardless of that Vampire’s power. Especially in white where card advantage can be lacking, creatures like this giving that extra boost can be very important for those EDH decks.

TCGPlayer prices are around $4 for the Showcase foils at the moment (which I think are a better pickup than the regular versions), and I think in a few weeks we should see those trickle down a bit to $2-3. Although it might not see much competitive play, I think that Welcoming Vampire will be ubiquitous enough in EDH that we should see an $8-10 price point 12-24 months down the line.

Olivia, Crimson Bride (Showcase Foil)

Price today: $30
Price I want to buy at: $10-15
Possible price: $30+

Six mana might seem like too much to pay for a 3/4, but when that body is flying, hasty and reanimates another attacker along with it then things change a bit. If you’re running Olivia as your commander then you’ll want her out as much as possible, so strategies to protect her/recast her quickly are probably going to be good; you might also just be stacking your deck with other Legendary Vampires to try and keep your creatures that you reanimated around.

Olivia is proving to be popular both as a commander and part of the 99 – it’s good in Vampire decks and other RB aggressive/reanimator decks, and will likely end up being one of the top commanders from Crimson Vow.

Although the Dracula version of this card (Sisters of the Undead) is really cool, supply on it is much higher than the Showcase versions, and so for people that want the Showcase version prices are going to be higher (and already are). I think we’ll see the Showcase cards drop to around $10-15 in the next few weeks and then pick back up again before too long. As a premium treatment mythic there’s never going to be a huge supply of these so keep an eye on when it hits a low!

Hullbreaker Horror (FEA)

Price today: $13
Price I want to buy at: $8-10
Possible price: $20

I’m sure that any of you who have played a reasonable amount of Crimson Vow limited will have experienced Hullbreaker Horror from one side of the table or another, and it’s been tearing up the new Standard format as well. It’s also the most popular EDH card from the set according to EDHREC, beating out all of the lands from the rare cycle in raw numbers. It’s just a super powerful creature that can go into a lot of blue decks – it can’t be countered and helps to protect the rest of your board/spells so long as you can cast more spells.

I don’t expect this to become as much of a staple as something like Thassa’s Oracle (despite its potential for infinite combos), but it’s definitely going to be very popular nonetheless. FEAs will be a great pickup at their low, and I hope we’ll see them around $7-8 so I’d pick some up if they do hit that mark. I expect you can get $20 for these in 12 months or less, and from there they’ll keep heading upwards until it sees a reprint (which won’t be for a while).

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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.

Modern content? In my articles? It’s more likely than you’d think. I love Modern and I think that it’s always got some good opportunities for specs, especially with so many viable strategies in the format at the moment. Week to week there are different decks on top, and it leaves a lot of room open for brewing and building variations on established decks.

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Conspicuous Snoop (FEA)

Price today: $5
Possible price: $15

I wrote about the Goblins deck in Modern a few weeks ago, and although it hasn’t quite taken over the meta yet it’s still been putting up decent results here and there, and deserves at least some of our attention. Munitions Expert foils have been drying up and Boggart Harbinger foils are already over $20, so it’s clear that some of these foils with fewer printings are popular enough across Modern and EDH to drive prices.

Conspicuous Snoop FEAs are close to 18 months old now, and although you can still pick a few copies up around the $5 mark, there aren’t many of those left and the ramp up to $10 doesn’t take long. Snoop is in around 5000 EDH decks listed on EDHREC as well, unsurprisingly in almost all of the Goblin tribal decks, and with cards like Skirk Prospector that can generate a load of mana you can just churn through all the Goblins in your deck, not to mention Snoop enabling combos off the top of your library.

The Modern deck can go off as early as turn three by casting Snoop and then tutoring Kiki-Jiki to the top of your deck with Boggart Harbinger, creating infinite hasty copies of the Snoop to attack for lethal. This of course works in EDH as well but might lose you some friends if you keep doing it, but either way Snoop is an important part of any Goblin deck now and the FEAs are going to be heading up in price soon.

Grief

Price today: $14
Possible price: $30

Solitude has arguably been one of the top cards in Modern for a little while now; it may technically only be the fourth most popular creature in the format, but it’s such an important part of so many decks at the moment that its impact cannot be understated. Grief isn’t quite on the same level but it’s not far off, and I think that it’s set to be on a similar price trajectory to Solitude before long. It’s become a staple in the Reanimator and Living End decks (with the new Reanimator deck becoming more and more popular over the past couple of weeks), as well as featuring in various Yorion and Rakdos midrange builds.

Early hand attack is super powerful in a fast format like Modern, and doing it for no mana is even better. Regular versions of Solitude are $45 and up now, and with Grief only at $14 I think it’s got a decent run ahead of it. A Mythic from MH2, I think it’s in the same boat as Fury at the moment, and both cards look like they should be set to reach the $30 mark in the next 12 months or so.

Prismatic Ending (OBF)

Price today: $10
Possible price: $20

I’ve written about Prismatic Ending before, but I think it’s worth revisiting now because you can still pick up some OBF versions for around $10, and for the most played card in Modern (yes you read that right), I think that’s just too cheap. 43% of decks are playing an average of 3.3 copies of this card right now, and honestly those are some wild numbers for a removal spell. Ending deals with so many relevant threats in the format at the moment, and although it’s only sorcery speed it’s still much better than Path to Exile; it doesn’t ramp your opponent and can remove things like Æther Vial, Chalice of the Void and Sigarda’s Aid rather than just hitting creatures.

Europe already has these closer to $12 and so I think that anything you can snag under $10 is a sure thing, whether it be personal or spec copies. We probably won’t see the OBF version reprinted for a long time and so you should get a good run out of these foils, as I doubt its popularity will dip much in Modern any time soon.

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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.

Innistrad: Crimson Vow is just around the corner now and we have the full spoiler out, so I thought that whilst everyone is looking the other way this would be a perfect time to go back and consider some of the best pickups that Midnight Hunt still has to offer us.

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Vanquish the Horde

Price today: $5
Price I want to buy at: $3-5
Possible price: $10

Wraths and boardwipes of one sort or another seem to be very commonplace nowadays, but just because there are lots of different options doesn’t mean that they’re all the same – some are definitely leagues better than others. I think that Vanquish the Horde is one of those that will prove to far outstrip a lot of the current options we have, specifically at the EDH table. I think that it’s directly comparable to Blasphemous Act, a card that is in over 92,000 decks listed on EDHREC and the second most popular red card in the format as a whole.

I think that if Blasphemous Act hadn’t been printed 19 different times (or close to that anyway), then it would easily be a $10+ card due to its popularity and power amongst the more casual formats Magic has to offer us. As it is, the back-to-back reprints in Double Master and Commander Legends put the price in the ground for a fair while at least – but Vanquish the Horde might be a new challenger on the block.

Already one of the most popular cards from MID, I’d like to see Vanquish get a little lower than the $5 it’s at right now, but I’m not sure if that’s going to happen or not. My advice is to stock up on a few copies for now and keep a close eye on it – if it dips then feel free to buy down the ladder, and if the price starts creeping upwards then I don’t think it’ll be coming back down before a reprint. EDH and casual players are faster on their feet than they used to be, and that leaves less time to buy future staples before everyone else realises how good they are. Nevertheless, I think that there’s still ample opportunity to get in on this and ride it up over $10 before too long.

Malevolent Hermit (FEA)

Price today: $8
Possible price: $20

Another card that’s already been making waves on EDHREC, Malevolent Hermit might seem relatively unassuming at first but in the right deck it can be very powerful. If you’re thinking that this is more geared towards higher powered decks then you’d be right, and I think that this could even find a spot in some cEDH decks. The Manaleak effect on the front side is strong in its own right; forcing your opponents to either play around it or play into it can really hamper their strategies, and then if you’re able to Disturb it the card becomes a gargantuan problem for anyone trying to disrupt the combo that I assume you’re about to try and pull off.

Even outside of high power and cEDH decks, I think that Hermit is a strong inclusion in pretty much any blue deck – you’re playing blue so it’s likely you’re going to be casting counterspells and not wanting your own spells to be countered, so this is the perfect card to help with that.

FEAs are currently around $8 on TCGPlayer, and I think that the premium versions of this card are the ones you want to be looking at. The more entrenched and competitive EDH players are likely to want the fancier versions, and this is a card for them so the FEAs are where your money is best placed. I can see this as a $20 without much trouble even in a few months’ time; there are currently only 23 NM foil listings on TCGPlayer and there’s a decent ramp upwards.

Galvanic Iteration (Regular/FEA)

Price today: $0.50/$2
Possible price: $5/10

Finishing things off this week with more of a bulk pick (although I like the look of the FEAs too) – Galvanic Iteration is reminding me somewhat of Narset’s Reversal back in War of the Spark and what a good pickup that was below $0.50. Now a $5 non-foil, I think that Iteration is going to perform similarly, being a card that slots very easily into all UR spell-focused EDH decks and probably a few others besides that.

It’s naturally most popular with commanders like Veyran, Voice of Duality and Zaffai, Thunder Conductor that reward you for casting and copying Instants and Sorceries, and will be very at home in your classic Mizzix decks as well. At a little over 1100 EDHREC inclusions it’s not the most popular card from MID, but far from the least either. I expect to see it become a relative staple in spell-based EDH decks just as other copy spells have been, both in the casual and more serious scenes.

Regular copies can be had in bulk at $0.50 right now, and I think that they will be a great buylist play 12-24 months out. The FEAs are $2 right now too, but with only 40 TCGPlayer listings for those it won’t take much to move the needle, and I think they will post up close to $10 in a shorter timeframe.

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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 and EDH. Based in the UK, he’s an active MTG finance speculator specialising in cross-border arbitrage.