All posts by Derek Madlem

Derek picked up Magic the first time during Ice Age and played through the release of Invasion. During Shards of Alara he returned to the game and has never looked back.

Going Mad – “A Sure Bet”

By: Derek Madlem

There’s no such thing as a sure bet in Magic finance, though there’s a lot of cards that are pretty close. Looking at Magic Origins from a financial strategy perspective rather than a nostalgia perspective makes me feel like this set is mostly a trap.

Soulblade DjinnWe have the obvious turds like Soulblade Djinn, a rare that you might be excited to pick up in draft, but you’re going to be disappointed to see in a booster pack. Even a FOIL version of this card is never going to break $1 unless they put some serious effort into Djinn tribal.

 

 

The Sky is Always Gray

Yeah, I’ve got a habit of that with the last few sets released into the Standard habitat. There’s a lot of simplified designs that strike a chord and keep Standard a relatively balanced format. But that’s the issue isn’t it? If Standard was a more diverse ecosystem with more unique strategies, we wouldn’t be in a world where any card with a powerful design automatically floats to the top. See: Den Protector + Deathmist Raptor in Standard right now for examples of cards being significantly above the power curve.

So what are the standout cards that will rise above the rest? Which cards will make their mark on Standard and possibly go deep into Modern?

Evolutionary LeapEvolutionary Leap is preselling for a whopping $7, which may or may not be a reasonable price. Would I buy in? I just did. This is a card that you’re going to want to catch onto before it takes off. Cards like Evolutionary Leap just needs a talented deckbuilder and a few events to hone a rough idea into a working archetype. This card doesn’t slot into any obvious places, thought I expect it’s only a matter of time before this card shows up in a big way in Modern. Strangleroot Geist and Kitchen Finks are obvious places to start, but there’s probably even a world where this card shows up purely as a defensive spell to negate your opponent’s creature removal.

Picture this card in Modern Elves. The ability to sacrifice your elves in response to removal or simply to move up the food chain is going to be extremely powerful.

This doesn’t even take into account decks built around sacrificing tokens to quickly assemble a combo or search out a single copies of creatures. Hell, I’ve got no problem throwing this into a Naya Token strategy alongside Goblin Rabblemaster or Monastery Mentor.

Evolutionary Leap is the exact kind of card I look for when I’m picking out cards to speculate on.

Sword of the Animist

Sword of Animist is a card that’s gotten a lot of hype, but you also have to consider the source. Sold out at the $5.99 preorder price with the added footnote of being a card that Ben Bleiweiss predicts “could be a chase rare.” I’m always skeptical of the salesman that tells me their product is a good investment, but in this case it might be. We’re almost a lock for Landfall to return as a mechanic in Battle for Zendikar as I’m sure the plane is still a home to “powerful manas” and all that nonsense, but will it return as something more than overpriced creatures getting +2/+2? That’s hard to say.

Sword of the Animist is not going to push out cards like Umezawa’s Jitte or Sword of Fire and Ice in Legacy and is likely to be a third or fourth choice at best in most Commander decks that utilize equipment shenanigans. BUT…it does provide continuous ramp which could be a real powerful effect going forward as Wizards has telegraphed that they want to slow things down a bit by bringing in Leaf Gilder over an Elvish Mystic reprint.

Sword of the Animist is a card that I’m going to watch closely going forward; I don’t think it can really be worth much more than the current price of $5.99 over the next few months, but if prices slip into the $3-4 range, you can bet I’ll be picking up a few.

Abbot of Keral KeepHey Abbot!!! Abbot of Keral Keep might be one of the most underrated cards in the set at $2.99. This is an Elvish Visionary for red aggro decks, except it has two power and Prowess. Even in a cruel world where you hit a land with this card, you’re still not going to feel too bad about as a 2/1 Prowess creature for two mana is not a bad rate at all.

This card is clearly not the red Snapcaster Mage that we’ve all been waiting for, but it fits into a variety of archetypes ranging from the Sligh decks to the red/green big mana decks. I know I can’t wait to sleeve this card up in Modern Zoo.

Erebos's TitanErebos’s Titan is an interesting case. The obvious place to go following this guy is the Gray Merchant of Asphodel, but a mono colored deck has to be extremely powerful in a world full of readily available dual lands and I just don’t know if Mono-black has that kind of arsenal right now.

So that leaves us with a semi-difficult to cast 5/5 for four mana that features some awkwardly powerful abilities. The conditional indestructible clause seems like a pure “win more” scenario, but it makes your opponent unable to top deck removal in those instances where you are slogging in the last bits of damage. The return clause seems pretty easy to trigger in a world where people completely ignore the text boxes of things in opposing graveyards, Deathmist Raptors, and delve.

But the real question we have with ET is whether or not the card is just another evolution of the unplayed four mana 5/5 creature that black has become so accustomed to seeing. At the $12.49 preorder price that SCG is offering, I am not a buyer. Erebos’s Titan is a card that greatly benefits from a few of the peripherals, as those Devotion cards and Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth rotate out that casting cost becomes a major liability and this card begins to look a lot more like a mythic Vengeful Pharaoh. I expect this card to spend most of it’s Standard life in the $4-6 range rather the $10+ we see right now.

If we somehow get filter land reprints in Battle for Zendikar, then anything becomes possible.

Woodland BellowerWoodland Bellower is at risk of succumbing to an illness that I’ve long called “Ranger of Eos Disorder”. Ranger of Eos was not an exciting card for a very long time, and then they printed Goblin Bushwhacker, Steppe Lynx, and Goblin Guide and we all of the sudden had a deck.

There’s another card that suffered from Ranger of Eos Disorder: Stoneforge Mystic. This card dipped all the way down to just above bulk status before Scars of Mirrodin was printed, but all it took was one or two good search targets to put it on the radar, and at the moment Batterskull was spoiled, the writing was on the wall.

Woodland Bellower is priced like a Titan but comes with none of the bells and whistles we’ve become accustomed to beyond being a largish creature that gets to bring a friend, so he needs a good friend to be of any real value. Who are currently the best friends this Bear/Deer (Beer?) can bring to the battlefield?

As you can see, there are PLENTY of very powerful targets for our Woodland friend to befriend. This doesn’t even take into account Commander decks looking for another tutor to help assemble a convoluted creature-based combo. I’m just sad that I’ll never get to run this guy in a Modern Birthing Pod deck.

I don’t see many universes where the Beer doesn’t see constructed play. At $5.99 for this Mythic beast, there’s plenty of room to grow as soon as it makes a strong debut, we also have two full blocks worth of new creatures to give this card the boost it needs for a big payoff.

Archangel of Tithes“It doesn’t die to Languish” is one way to describe this card. Another card that might be too mana intensive for it’s own good, Archangel of Tithes provides you with a whole lot of text-box for a low low price of just four mana.

At $20 I’m required to do the usual song and dance about this being a Mythic Angel and explain that “casuals” love angels and that there’s a ton of players that just collect angels and angel angel angel.

That said, is this the usual preorder exploitation of our wing-fetished friends or is this actually a good card? While putting the thumbscrews to your opponent by taxing their every maneuver is powerful, it’s much more powerful when you’re casting creatures that are mana efficient and aggressive… something that doesn’t really include four mana creatures with three power.

Archangel of Tithes is a creature that could excel in a world where white-weenie strategies were genuinely viable and that has not been the case for a very long time, no matter what Craig Wescoe tells you. The casting cost is going to be incredibly burdensome and this card gets better only as you overcommit to the board… but it survives Languish! This card, like most angels, has a tax placed on its preorder price, I’d advise against paying it.

The Bulk

A lot of this set is just going to be pure bulk; cards like Dark Petition look shiny and new, but then you realize there’s nothing you want to cast for three mana that you’d pay five mana to search up. There’s the “premium” bulk like Exquisite Firecraft that are preselling for $4, but ultimately follow the path of Crater’s Claws right into the gutter.

 

Many of the mythics have great casual appeal, so ship them on day one or at the prerelease to the players that are salivating for them. Long term, if you want to pick up the Alhammarat’s Archives of the world, wait until they take their hit. Casual cards usually have the advantage of being popular BEFORE their prices goes up, because the players are more… err, casual about picking them up.

If there’s any other cards you’re interested in my thoughts on from this set, feel free to ask in the comments section below.


 

Going Mad – Magic Origins

By: Derek Madlem

Spoiler season is in full effect and Twitter is abuzz with the praises and condemnations of the masses. Preorder prices are being conjured from the aether and we’re left pondering whether or not we should be buying into the hype.

Walkers

Kytheon, Hero of Akros

Taking a look at the Magic Origins Planeswalkers has basically left me befuddled, I’m honestly having a hard time evaluating them in a vacuum because they’re templating is brand new to Magic. The best I can figure so far is to start with the creature, examine how easy it is to flip said creature, and then determine if the payoff was worth it.

kytheonheroofakros

So Gideon starts like this, an obvious upgrade to Elite Vanguard. Kytheon slots into a white aggro deck pretty easily and transforms easier than most of the other walkers in this cycle. Currently we really only have a couple archetypes that this just slots right into: Abzan Aggro and the Heroic decks, the latter of which has fallen out of favor recently.

gideonbattleforged

The flip side of Gideon is more or less a mini impersonation of his previous incarnations. There is no “ultimate” ability so Gideon doesn’t force an opponent to care about his ticking clock but he does offer a variety of combat related tricks. Forcing an attack, making an unstoppable blocker, or wading into combat himself are all abilities that fit in a wide array of scenario. This card has a lot of flexibility.

Problems: it requires you to overcommit to the board to flip, something that’s going to be even harder to do with black getting ANOTHER board wipe in Languish.

So is this worth the $25 preorder price that SCG has slapped on it? I’m going to go with an emphatic “no” on that question. This is a conditional role-player in a sub-category of decks, likely a 2-of at most. Short term I see this card dropping into the $10-15 range quickly after release and ending up floating between $7-10 after that, relying heavily on casual appeal. The hardest thing going forward is evaluating how popular these characters are for casual players.

Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy

jacevrynsprodigy

Merfolk Looter has rarely been a constructed playable card. Even on sterroids, Magus of the Bazaar can’t make too strong of a case for looters being constructed viable cards so Jace isn’t starting off on the right foot .

jacetelepathunbound

Is this a Jace you would put in a deck if you could “just cast” him? Probably not, so why would you want to jump through hoops to get to this? His “ultimate” provides the threat of defeat for your opponent without actually doing anything to hasten that defeat. Let’s put it another way, if you’re losing and you resolve this ultimate – you’re still losing.

For a meager $19.99 preorder this could be yours, This card seems less playable than Jace, the Living Guildpact and that saw basically zero constructed play, so I have a hard time imaging a world where this one feels much better. I’m betting on this card being sub-$5 within a couple months. Just draw one side of a pyramid and you should be able to find Jace’s pricing trajectory.

Liliana, Heretical  Healer

lilianahereticalhealer

As purely a 2/3 lifelink for three mana, Liliana is a situationally playable card. Showing up to watch your other creatures die seems easy enough, though it might actually have the side effect of making some of your creatures unblockable. So Liliana’s starting off with potential, especially when you consider she starts off her Planeswalker career with a pet zombie.

lilianadefiantnecromancer

Once flipped you realize that Liliana is an awkward place for deckbuilding; she only brings back your own creatures to the battlefield and the only way to keep fueling that engine is to keep discarding cards. So by including Liliana, you’re painting yourself into a corner playing a deck that wants you to dump your hand and play tons of creatures so that you can awkwardly return them to play once they die.

Mono-black humans seems like a place for Liliana, but is she any better than an Obelisk of Urd or a targeted removal spell in those decks? Liliana is often going to be an awkward scenario where you trade Liliana + another creature for a zombie + another creature, which is not exactly thrilling. The ultimate takes four turns to achieve and requires you to spend that time protecting Liliana, which is counter intuitive to the decks she would best fit into.

This is another card with a preorder price of $24.99, a price that just can’t be sustained being such niche card. I expect Liliana to make a run at $10 and then slump from there as she sits buoyed by casual demand.

Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh

chandrafireofkaladeshChandra is where things start getting interesting for me. Chandra is a pain to flip, but still easy at the same time. All you have to do is attack unblocked, cast a red spell, and then untap and tap again to that last point, of course this doesn’t take into account tricks like Titan’s Strength or Hammerhand that can push through that three damage pretty quickly.

So she flips and turns into this…

chandraroaringflame

At this point Chandra becomes a ticking clock that’s going to ruin your opponent two points at a time. After three turns of this, there is very little reason to do anything other than pop the ultimate and ride out Chandra’s volcanic aspirations from there, This should leave your opponent dead in two turns or less.

In a strange twist of fate, Chandra’s price tag is carrying some baggage. At an $11.99 preorder price it’s pretty clear that Chandra has a long history of being the Planeswalker that couldn’t and this price reflects it. This seems like the easiest of the cycle so far to slot into existing decks without much hassle… I would almost call this price “reasonable” in comparison to the others, though I expect this card to settle closer to the $5-8 range because casual appeal for Chandra just hasn’t ever held her price very high.

Nissa, Vastwood Seer

nissavastwoodseer

In a world where Rampant Growth isn’t very rampant, the conditions for flipping Nissa become a bit harder to achieve, this is a turn three spell that you essentially have to keep alive for four more turns, or wait to play it. So after you reach this magical land where you control seven lands, you get this:

nissasageanimist

Nissa grants you an extra spell each turn for a number of turns until you get to alpha strike with six of your lands. Nissa does have the distinct advantage of her ultimate being capable of outright winning the turn it’s activated, the second ability is just “fine” in a pinch.

Nissa’s biggest advantage is that she is a serviceable topdeck in the late game: you can cast, fetch a land, flip, and then draw another card off the top of your library immediately. If you need to squeak in the last couple points of damage you can instead activate the -2 ability to send a 4/4 rumbling into the red zone immediately. But is any of this realistically better than the existing Nissa? I can’t see why I would.

Nissa is preordering for $19.99, a price that might seem reasonable if Nissa, Worldwaker wasn’t already under $14. When to cards occupy the same space, the price of the greater is going to put a ceiling on the price of the lesser and this seems like a compelling case for that. But then again, maybe people really just want a Borderland Ranger that only searches for basic forests.

The Catalyst

daysundoing

Is this card good? The design clearly wants to gut you of any advantage gained casting this card by giving your opponent the first chance to take advantage of the seven new cards.

The first thing that came to many people’s minds was Quicken, or Leyline of Anticipation, but at that point is the setup worth the payoff? If you’re building a deck around it, you really have to build a deck around it.

Then Craig Wescoe tweeted out asking about the following opening hand:

      daysundoing

The idea being that Affinity could use this card to help them dump their hand and refill instantly… the debate erupted from every angle imaginable: Is this a playable card? Is this a valuable card? Is this a $5 card? No convincing of anyone was accomplished.

So here’s how I’m approaching Day’s Undoing, I’m making a list and checking it twice.

  1. They obviously tested it extensively and determined it was not “entirely broken”
  2. If it is ever demonstrated to be broken, it will be banned
  3. A card in risk of banning doesn’t generally go up in price substantially
  4. No “sorcery” card has been worth more than $20 in the last eight years of Magic other than Bonfire of the Damned, but you could argue that to be an instant
  5. Time Reversal.

Maybe I’m a bit gunshy because I did preorder a playset of Time Reversals at $19.99 a piece, I have a soft spot for Timetwister effects. I love Timetwister so much that I refuse to build additional blue Commander decks unless I have additional Timetwisters to put into them. So I’ve clearly got mixed emotions regarding this card.

Let’s just consider it in best case scenarios, in Standard what are you going to do with this card? Most likely candidate is a 1 or 2-of in a Blue/X control deck to refill late game, but is taking a random seven and reloading your opponent better than Dig Through Time? I just don’t see it. It’s just not a card I want to cast late game, regripping your opponent is just not where any deck wants to be.

What about Modern? Three mana draw sevens scream “combo deck” but that whole “end the turn” part of resolving the spell sure doesn’t lend to any combos that I know. So that leaves us with a cute first turn by Affinity or teaming up with Notion Thief as our best options. Notion Thief is just a little too cute to be constructed viable, so let’s run with slotting it into that affinity list. Three copies? Two copies? What about those pesky Etched Champions and Master of Etherium? All of the sudden those expensive cards become a liability when we’re all-in on the low end of the curve, more Memnites please!

So likely what we have is a card that has a lot of raw power but doesn’t necessarily have any immediate home outside of decks banking on being able to dump and reload. I’m guessing this card has to follow one of two paths: it struggles to find a home and slips quickly to $10 and descends slowly from there until someone finds a way to break it OR it “breaks” immediately and the formats simply adapt and the price begins its natural post-release descent.

Either way this card is probably good for a $10 swing, I’m betting it swings south.

The first wave of cards in this set have been unusually difficult to evaluate. I still have a sinking feeling that I am “just not getting” something about the new Planeswalkers, but for the most part they seem like garbage to me. Day’s Undoing is another one that simultaneously gives me a million ideas, all of them sketchy at best… but it only takes one. I’d much rather avoid the risk on a card like Day’s Undoing in favor of more predictable targets.

Goblin Piledriver

Oh and this guy at $40? Come on guys, you can’t be serious.


 

Going Mad – It’s Time to Start Thinking About Rotation

By: Derek Madlem

“It’s probably a little late for that one Derek”
-some guy that hasn’t read this article yet.

Late? Or early? No, I think I’m proceeding right on track here. We’ve grown accustomed to the 24 month life cycle of Standard. When Theros hit store shelves, we knew that we could settle in for the long haul because this was going to be a part of Standard for TWO FULL YEARS. We also knew that one year into that two year term that Theros cards would likely hit their all-time high price as Return to Ravnica block rotated out and Khans of Tarkir rotated in.

Timing this price point was a time-honored secret for success for a long long time. We used to watch Block Constructed results from Magic Online and at the Pro Tour to help us determine which cards were going to be exceptionally powerful going forward. While these results helped us hone in on format superstars like the “Mythic” deck during the tail end of Shards of Alara Standard, most of these picks were painfully obvious like Stormbreath Dragon or Elspeth, Sun’s Champion.

We knew to pick up Elspeth’s when they bottomed out at $20 because we could easily unload them at a higher price once Khans of Tarkir was released (ended up being at $30). We also knew that the back side of that last year was a slow slide from the price peak to basically nothing.

It’s Different Now

Your Theros cards are worthless. Yes, basically all of them. Arguments can be made for cards like Sylvan Caryatid and Courser of Kruphix in Modern, but let’s not get too carried away because these cards certainly don’t see anything resembling “regular” play in Modern and there’s a metric ****ton of them in the wild right now.

But Theros is not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about Khans of Tarkir and Fate Reforged. Something that nobody’s really mentioned yet is the new economics of rotation. As Theros and Magic 2015 rotate in September at the release of Battle for Zendikar, Khans is already going to be rotting in your binders. Why’s that?

Six months to live. Yeah, that’s a thing. You might not realize this, but Khans of Tarkir was born with a birth defect common to all sets going forward: a shortened life span. While many of it’s ancestors lived to the ripe old age of 24 months, Khans is only going to see 18 and Fate Reforged is going to fare even worse: 15 months.

So that means we need to rethink cycles and card prices and we also need to acknowledge that in relation to when Khans is rotating, we’re already past the traditional “peak” of one year before rotation.

Seasons Still Matter…

… but not as much as they used to. Some of you may not remember this, but PTQ season formats had a real impact on card prices. Back when Extended was a thing for three months a year, there was a massive sell-off at the end of every season because these cards were simply useless for 95% of the population for nearly an entire year… could be longer because we didn’t know when a format would come back around.

Right now we’re in the middle of a PPTQ season that’s featuring Modern. This means that outside of Grand Prix’s and the SCG Open Series that there is little reason to keep an arsenal of competitive Standard cards, and many of the prices already reflect that sentiment. Take a look at one-time all star Whisperwood Elemental, this card has nearly halfed in value since it’s peak in March ($15-$8).

Modern Masters Effect

I would be doing a disservice if I didn’t point out the obvious: there’s only so much money available in the Magic economy at any given time and Modern Masters 2015 is drawing a lot of that water right now, both directly and indirectly. There were a lot of pent up desire for Modern cards. Many players were waiting for this set to “make their move” into Modern and they’re coming on board in large numbers, which is one of the primary reasons so many card prices are going ape right now (pro tip: it’s not speculators).

With MM2015 on the horizon, many of Modern’s card prices “locked in” because of the uncertainty of what was going to be reprinted. Nobody wanted to go out and drop $200 on a Tarmogoyf if it was going to get reprinted in a couple months. If Tarmogoyf was confirmed early to not be in MM2015, we’d probably be looking at $250+ Gofys right now, but that impending reprint kept that price in limbo. You can repeat this example with just about any card that’s gone up in the last month. Pro tip: it wasn’t a spike, it was a correction.

The Point

Ahh, finally we get to the reason for all these words: some of your Khans block cards are already dead and should be abandoned ASAP. Like what?

Dig Through Time

Like Dig Through Time for example. This card is the unbending backbone of blue decks in Standard. Dig is amazingly powerful, which is why we’ve seen it banned in Modern and watched as it makes a really strong case for being banned in Legacy as well. What’s that mean for those Digs you’re sitting on?

BULK BOX

Dig Through Time is going to be a bulk rare in the very near future. There are roughly a billion-kajillion of these in existence and anyone that needs them for Legacy already has them. Sure there might be some casual demand for this card in Commander, but it’s power is diminished substantially in 100-card singleton formats.

Whisperwood Elemental

Whisperwood, as mentioned above, has fallen from grace. This card is clearly awesome, but it just exists in the wrong space and time. There is virtually zero chance this card sees Modern play after rotation as it’s simply outclassed by cards like Thragtusk. Legacy? Not a snowball’s chance. There’s also just too short a window for this card to curve out. While there’s sure to be casual appeal for this card for years to come, it’s not going to be enough to sustain a price above $3-4… if that.

Sarkhan the Dragonspeaker

Dragons are sweet.
Planeswalkers are sweet.

So this should be worth a million dollars right? That’s what we thought when he first showed up. We quickly figured out that he’s not really good in Standard and his price reflects it. Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker is hovering around $5 solely because his card says “Planeswalker” on it. This is not going to show up in competitive decks past Standard so that demand is going to be tied to casual demand only. The good news is that he’s unlikely to go much lower without a Duel Deck appearance, but he’s almost certainly not going to go rise this fall.

Sorin, Solemn Visitor

Sorin, Solemn Visitor has a much better chance of mounting a slow and stable recovery as he’s replaced his previous self in all those B/W token decks in Modern. He’s still at a great risk of a Duel Deck reprint thanks to being a vampire and that whole tick craze still sputtering along. But how has Sorin fared in Standard lately? Yeah, exactly. Not exactly inspiration for a big investment. This is another card that’s not going to tank outside of a Duel Deck reprint, but it’s going to be a slow climb moving forward.

Anafenza

Anafenza, the Foremost is still a card that I feel suffers from “too much textbox syndrome”. People just forget that whole secondary clause about exiling creatures instead of allowing them to hit your opponent’s graveyard. I was very bullish on Anafenza as a Modern contender because she did a great job of hosing many of Birthing Pod’s shenanigans while still being a fairly insane addition to basically any Abzan deck that attacks with creatures. But as Fleecemane Lion leaves Standard in search of a new mane wig, Anafenza is going to be left behind with a short window and few allies to help her prove worthy of a higher price. Anafenza’s likely going to pull an impression of Thalia, Guardian of Thraben in Modern and possibly Legacy, only showing up in niche scenarios as an oversized hatebear. I’m not going to be surprised to see these as low as $2 by / after rotation.

Brutal HordechiefIn case you haven’t figured it out yet, Brutal Hordechief isn’t Hellrider. You can spend the rest of your life looking at the text box trying to figure out how this card never became a thing, but my bet’s on the fact that it’s a Hill Giant and nobody likes a 3/3 for four mana. You can lump Shaman of the Great Hunt in with Hordechief as a promising young athlete that failed to make it big in the NFL because they got drafted to the Lions or the Raiders. The lack of compelling teammates doomed both of these cards to mediocrity and there’s no chance for recovery. These are already on the cusp of bulk Mythic and I expect to them to retire as such, maybe they can open a car dealership or something.

Crux of Fate

Do you know what a $1 board wipe looks like? It looks just like a $6 board wipe except it’s rotated. There is not much hope for Crux of Fate after rotation because in a vacuum it’s pretty crappy compared to cards like Supreme Verdict or Damnation. These are already slipping as people figure out that playing mirror matches in the draw bracket all day is the very definition of Standard Hell, but you can still get out at $3 if you want to save a little of that value.

Everything Else

Obviously the fetchlands are pure gold. they’re going to retain the bulk of their value and continue to grow incrementally going forward. Tasigur, the Golden Fang, Monastery Mentor, Soulfire Grand Master, and Ugin, the Spirit Dragon are basically the only rares outside of the fetchlands that I don’t see cratering as they leave Standard. Even Siege Rhino is struggling to hold onto that $5 price tag and he was an absolute BOSS. If you have Standard cards that are worth more than $1 that you are not going to need in the next nine months, it’s time to ship them. There’s a very short window for recovery and most of these cards are unlikely to be lifted by it.

Except for maybe See the UnwrittenELDRAZI!!!!

edit: I think people were missing the point of the article by a fair margin. I’m not saying that all of these cards are worthless now, I’m trying to point out that we have a new rotation starting with this set so we’re likely to see things behave differently this time around and you will not have as much time to divest from Khans block as you have had in the past. Couple that with the reality that most of this block has no life past Standard, you’re in for some Temple of Epiphany sized losses if you don’t plan ahead.

Going Mad – GP Charlotte Roundup

By: Derek Madlem

Another weekend, another event in the books. I forgot to mention in my last article that I would be working at the Aether Games booth for GP Charlotte this last weekend, so I’m telling you now: look for me at the Aether Games booth last weekend and make sure you say hello!

Grand Prix events are often where metagames are cemented into place. Sure, we had a double header last weekend with the SCG Open and the SCG Invitational both including Modern in their schedule; so we had a pretty good idea of what to expect this weekend. Let’s take a look at the decks and associated cards and see how they fared this weekend.

 

Amulet Bloom

There was a lot of talk last week about this deck being “just too good” and that there was sure to be a banning because it was so overpowering. Well I did some detective work and a little independent research of my own: it turns out this deck is actually borderline crap. If you take a look at the results of the GP, there is only a single copy in the top 32 decks. Furthermore, that deck was piloted by a guy who wins so often that they added the word “Insane” into his name to illustrate the point – Alexander “Insane” Hayne. If we’re being fair, he could have piloted a ham sandwich to top 32 with very little effort. I wouldn’t worry about the sky falling any time soon on this one.

Can it kill quickly? Sure, but you’re going to need to create your own starting hand – wait, that actually happened. This deck kills no faster and less consistently than Infect so expect a banning about the same time that we see Glistener Elf taken out of the format (0 Infect in top 32 FYI).

Tron

This was the deck to beat this weekend after it finished first in both the SCG Open last weekend AND the Invitational. Urza’s lands, Oblivion Stone, All is Dust, Karn Liberated, and Wurmcoil Engines were all extremely popular cards this weekend. You’ll see a low representation of these decks in the top 32 because the deck had a giant target on it’s back.

Expect prices on these cards, especially Oblivion Stone, to slow down a bit as most of the people that set out to build this deck have completed it and the lack of a top 8 finish is going to dull down the hype a little bit.

Crucible of Worlds is one of the peripheral cards associated with this deck that many players “rediscovered” this weekend. Aintrazi had two copies in his sideboard last weekend along with two additional Ghost Quarters for the mirror match. Combine that with the casual appeal of Strip Mine locking all your best friends in Commander and you have yourself a dual-threat winner.

Splinter Twin

This was expected to be a breakout weekend of the Splinter Twin decks, and it’s fair to argue that it was with two copies in the top 8 and eight of varying varieties in the top 32. Splinter Twin also has a unique relationship with it’s natural enemy Spellskite. One of my bosses pointed out this weekend that the two have seemed to form a symbiotic relationship, as one grows more popular the other does too. Expect these star crossed lovers to be entwined for a long time.

One of the clutch sideboard plays to see camera time this weekend was Cavern of Souls + Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir to lock out an opponent from interacting with your swarm of Pestermites or Deceiver Exarchs. Teferi has already been seen putting in work in last year’s “Blue Moon” deck so he’s likely a card to watch going forward. Time Spiral was not a huge printing and FTV: Legends printings can only stretch so far.

The other big winner from this deck is Snapcaster Mage, a long-term “obvious winner” for #mtgfinance heroes everywhere. StarCity has them listed at $99.99 now which is about as close to $100 as you can get without going over. I don’t know if this price is realistic or sustainable, but it’s there and if you didn’t listen to the dozens of finance wizards on this one, you probably missed out.

A word of caution: now is not the time to buy in on this target, it’s at or near it’s peak and it is clearly on Wizards’ radar as a reprint target.

Collected Company

Creature decks were long at the mercy of being required to play creatures at sorcery speed, opening a window for the combo players to “go off” without fear of you interacting. Collected Company allows these decks to play the “before the end of your turn” game just like the blue decks, shifting the balance and tempo of the match.

Chord of Calling is a card that’s success is going to depend on Collected Company just like it did before with Birthing Pod. While we don’t see any copies in the Naya Company decks, it is critical to the success of the Abzan Company and the Elves decks. The ability to search out silver bullets at instant speed is critical to the success of these decks. This card is already seeing movement, but it’s definitely not too late to hop on this bandwagon as there’s plenty of room to grow and it’s unlikely we’ll see another reprint on this any time soon.

Ezuri, Renegade Leader is another breakout winner from the elves deck. For far too long this guy has been teetering back and forth between being a $2 card and pure bulk… turns out that having a reusable Overrun on your person is a useful ability in an elves deck, especially with the help of Elvish Archdruid. Heritage Druid is another card from this deck that saw “speculation” hype take it above $20, but that train is running out of steam and it’s falling back down. This card is a pretty easy guess for ancillary products like Duel Decks, so I would only get what you absolutely need to play with.

Goryo’s Vengeance

If you didn’t see this one coming for the last year or so, then you haven’t been playing attention. Any time you can cheat fatty boom booms into play, you’re a lock for shenanigans. This card is exceptionally more powerful than most in this category because it works on Emrakul, a card that’s supposed to dodge reanimation with it’s shuffle effect.

Goryo’s Vengeance decks are likely tier 3 for the most part, but make it up by being tier 1 fun. If you have any doubt that this card has a cult-like following, just search #Griselbanned on Twitter and see the rabid salivating fans every time these cards show up on camera.

Griselbrand is definitely not the spec here, with 2,000+ of these Grand Prix promos being handed out every weekend (8,000 in Vegas), the supply is more than keeping up with demand right now. Nourishing Shoal is an interesting one, but this card has already spiked 2,000% so I can’t imagine this niche card in a sub-optimal build of a tier 2 deck is realistically priced at $10, but it’s definitely cute pitching a Worldspine Wurm or a Borborygmos Enraged to to gain some more life to draw more copies and repeat.

Speaking of which, Worldspine Wurm and Borborygmos haven’t even moved the dial on price changes, so if you’re feeling froggy and want to drop $10,000 soaking up all the copies of these cards available on the internet – have at it!

Affinity

Affinity is still Affinity. There’s always at least one copy of this deck that sneaks into the top 16 of a Modern event. It’s almost a mathematically  probability that one of the million people playing this deck will get handed “can’t lose” pairings all day long and crack the top of the charts.

We’ve already established the winners in this deck right now: Inkmoth Nexus, Arcbound Ravagers, and Glimmervoids should be your first pickups if this is a deck that interests you as none of them made the reprint list in the latest iteration of Modern Masters. I wouldn’t go too crazy on these as one of the biggest draws of playing affinity (or burn) is that the deck is (was) inexpensive to build, so players of this strategy are notoriously cheap.

Rebounds

Tasigur, the Golden Fang appears to have bottomed out and will continue to show up in basically any deck that’s running black cards. As it turns out, one mana 4/5 creatures are pretty good. I still especially like FOILs of this card because they’re very modestly priced in the low $30s right now.

Monastery Mentor saw dark days in the past but has found his niche and is growing in popularity. This is another card I really like in FOIL due to the almost certainty that it will show up in Modern, Legacy, and even some Vintage going forward.

Expect a renewed interest in Legacy cards going forward as people take their “Modern Masters Money” and trade those cards into older formats. We saw this big time with the last Modern Masters, everything Legacy and Vintage related saw a surge in price as players traded away stacks of Modern Masters chaff for cards that they’d always hoped and dreamed for.