Guo Heng started kitchen table Magic as a kid, during Urza's Destiny. He played intermittently and casually until Innistrad, where he began to grind the competitive circuit.
It was then that he became hooked on the magical substance that is cardboard crack and it dawned upon him that Magic finance is a good way to subsidize his habit.
Guo Heng started writing for MTGPrice in October 2014. A competitive grinder himself, he focuses on the mtgfinance of competitive Magic.
Catch him on Twitter @theguoheng.
Today’s article will kick off a series exploring undervalued Tiny Leaders cards. However as I have threw my hat into the proverbial ring in my pre-Pro Tour article last week and backed a number of cards as potential financial winners, I feel I ought to do a post-mortem on their results.
We have a new Modern Pro Tour champion (congrats to Antonio Del Moral León, the first Spanish Pro Tour champion) and a new Modern metagame. Travis Allen has an awesome Pro Tour analysis coming up tomorrow; I would just briefly go through the calls I’ve made in my article last week and discuss their performance.
Their results were grisly, but they were calls I’ve chose to make as a finance author and I think it is imperative for me to do a post-mortem on them, regardless of whether they soared or bored.
Post-mortem of My Pro Tour Calls
I am glad I decided to feature Amulet of Vigor as my first call based on Amulet Bloom’s performance in the young post-ban Modern metagame. It turned out to be my only call that spiked over the Pro Tour weekend as Amulet Bloom’s performance successfully ported over to the Pro Tour. Unfortunately, the rest of my calls barely saw play among the Pro Tour decks that finished with 18 points or more.
However, that does not mean they were all failed specs or sunken ships. I made those picks based on the fact that those were cards that were or still are Modern staples, or cards with power level ripe for Modern but has yet to find a home.
More importantly, the underlying thread of each call were the fact that they were all vastly undervalued at the time of writing. None had a price tag more than $10 and half of them were under $5, which made investing in them relatively low risk.
Moving forward, I would still consider them good pick-ups, as the Modern metagame is constantly evolving, and those cards are at a bottom right now.
Just picked up 40 Chord of Calling M15 at $3.25. This is the floor & it should find a home and a $10+ price tag within 2yrs #mtgfinance
Once upon a time when Lingering Souls was a pervasive threat, Thundermaw Hellkite was the apex predator in the metagame. As I mentioned in my article last week, the single driver that could make Thundermaw a format staple again is the prevalence of Lingering Souls.
There were 144 copies of Lingering Souls spread across 32% of decks at #PTFRF. Thundermaw Hellkite be like “Put me in, Coach!”.
Thundermaw Hellkite would have been good against a whooping 32% of the decks at the Pro Tour. I’ll let that thought linger here.
It’s going to be an unpopular opinion, but I think the Modern metagame took a step backward with the recent slate of bannings. 28% of the day two metagame comprising of Abzan reminded me of Jund’s level of dominance before Bloodbraid Elf was sent to the Undying Lands.
The second most successful deck, Burn occupied 12% of the day two metagame, nearly twice the number of the third most successful archetype, Infect. The top 8 metagame consisted of just four archetypes, which would have been acceptable for a Standard Pro Tour, but is not exactly the epitome of diversity in a non-rotating format with neartly 9000 cards. Perhaps the metagame still has space to evolve and we have yet to reach the peak diversity in the post-Birthing Pod ecosystem.
Enough about Modern, as I’ve mentioned, Travis has an awesome article lined up tomorrow on Modern finance, be sure to check it out.
Undervalued Cards in a New Format
I’ve written a primer on Tiny Leaders a few weeks back. Since then there has been some movements in the finances of a few cards which could have been driven by Tiny Leaders demand.
When I wrote about them two weeks ago, foil copies Varolz, the Scar-Striped were just going for $3.50 and foil Ezuri, Renegade Leader were $5. 78. Today foil Varolzs are going for $9 and Ezuri foils skyrocketed to nearly $20.
I hesitate to call Tiny Leaders demand a market force to be reckoned yet, based on just two popular Tiny Leaders commander who saw their foil prices shoot up. Market correction could be a factor here: Ezuri foils were from a set released nearly five years ago and Varolz, while cheap, is one of best Golgari leader and he also fits into Abzan builds, one of the most powerful color combination in the format.
A good way to buy into a format on the cheap is to predict which cards are likely to become staples and buy into them when they are still cheap. I am going to embark on a Tiny Leaders series exploring undervalued cards, and today we shall begin with with undervalued white Tiny Leaders cards.
The inspiration behind the band Enter Shikari. Just kidding.
The boat has sailed for this one but it might be relevant for the first undervalued card I would be discussing. Foil copies of Leonin Shikari were going for $10 last month but doubled up early this month, while non-foil copies only moved from $5 to $7.
The spike is almost solely due to demand from Commander or Tiny Leaders. Besides the fact that the foil spiked by a larger margin than the non-foil, I have yet to see a Modern or Legacy deck running Leonin Shikari (and I suspect we are unlikely to see one) Leonin Shikari fits well in Nahiri, the Lithomancer Commander and the following leader:
Kemba, Kha Regent may not be a tier one deck (yet), but she is a popular leader, as far as the Tiny Leaders subreddit and Facebook group goes. I am not bullish on her normal copies as she was reprinted in Commander 2014, but Kemba’s single foil printing looks sweet at $4.61.
While foil Kemba would struggle to hit the heights Ezuri hit (Ezuri at $20 also seems like a bubble), she has a lot of room to grow at sub-$5. I would not be surprised to see her foils hit $10. As with all Scars of Mirrodin cards, Kemba is at risk of being reprinted in Modern Masters 2015. However, Modern Masters 2015 would have to feature an equipment theme for her to be included, something which I think is unlikely.
As mentioned, Kemba was just reprinted in Commander 2014. Unless Wizards thinks she is destined to be the next big thing in Modern, I would imagine the chances of her seeing reprint is relatively thin in the short-term.
That is all for today. Please accept my apologies for the shorter than usual article; things have been a little hectic over the past week. I have something nice in the pipeline for next Tuesday to make up to you readers.
I initially planned to write solely about cards to watch during Pro Tour Fate Reforged. However, I’ve had the chance to participate in the first ever Tiny Leaders tournament in Malaysia over the weekend and friend and fellow Magic player @rezaaba convinced me that I should probably do a report on the event. So today’s article is going to be a two-in-one (talk about value for your time): the first portion discusses the cards which I am keeping an eye on as we count down towards the Pro Tour this weekend and throughout the Pro Tour. The second segment would be a round-by-round report of the Tiny Leaders tournament I attended.
Throwing My Hat into the Ring
The following are cards are possibly undervalued at the moment in terms of their price in relation to the amount of play they currently see and could potentially see. These are cards that could experience a spike if decks they running them performs at the Pro Tour.
Data on the post-ban metagame is sparse, with only five Modern Daily Events (the bans were enforced on Magic Online from 28 January onwards) and two StarCityGames Premier IQs. Going through the data, there is one deck that stood out, Amulet Bloom. It took down last weekend’s StarCityGames Premier IQ and is the most successful combo deck in the Modern Daily Events, comprising of 4.6% of the field. The deck is not exactly dominant, but it seems that reports of the death of Amulet Bloom have been greatly exaggerated. The deck is of interest financially because the namesake card of the deck could spike in price if Amulet Bloom spikes Pro Tour Fate Reforged.
Ain’t nobody got time for coming into play tapped.
Amulet of Vigor is at $3.05 even though the strategy of the archetype hinges on Amulet. If you are looking to invest in Amulet of Vigor, do keep in mind that it would be a short-term investment as Amulet of Vigor is at risk of being reprinted in Modern Masters 2015, although it escapes my mind what sort of limited archetype in Modern Masters would Amulet fit in.
Thalia may be 2/1 but she is a force not to be reckoned with, as her foes soon found out.
I often wonder why Thalia, Guardian of Thraben remains so cheap despite the amount of play she is currently seeing in Modern and Legacy. Thalia is present in Modern Hatebears, Modern Death and Taxes and the occasional Modern Zoo. You can also find her in Maverick and Death and Taxes in Legacy. And decks running Thalia want to run three to four copies of her. Most importantly, Thalia is not going to be reprinted in Modern Masters 2015, and by the virtue of being the Guardian of Thraben, we are unlikely to find her anywhere else but on the plane of Innistrad.
Seeing that I have been raving about Tiny Leaders lately, it is worth noting that Thalia is also solid leader in the format. Thalia is reputedly a favorite of Bramwell Tackaberry, the progenitor of the Tiny Leaders, and has been topping of the Winnipeg Tiny Leaders scene.
Thalia is a card that would eventually bump up in price as her current price of $4.38 is out of sync with the amount of eternal play she has been seeing. Unfortunately the chance that her price would be bumped by Pro Tour Fate Reforged looks to be slim, for the fact that the Pro Tour metagame is historically skewed towards midrange or blue-based decks. Thalia is a card I consider a good great long-term investment, at least until the following Modern Masters is announced, which we probably would not see until 2017.
I wrote about the next two cards in my article a short while ago. I am revisiting them today as there were new developments during the two weeks that have passed.
Since the announcement of the bans on 19 January, Sphinx’s Revelationspiked on Magic Online from the 9.8 tickets it was hovering at before settling at 16.8 tickets, but remained at $6.18 on paper, which was pretty much the same price it was at when I wrote my previous article. Modern staples are generally cheaper online due to the larger quantity of boosters being drafted online; when a key component of one of the potential new overlords of Modern is nearly three times more expensive online than its paper counterpart, a price correction is inbound. I think it is paper Sphinx’s Revelation that is due for correction, rather than the digital one.
I mentioned in my previous article – before we got any data on the post-ban metagame – that Thundermaw Hellkite would soar once more if Lingering Souls becomes prevalent again. Lingering Souls was ran in 19.8% of all the decks that moneyed the five Modern Daily Events since the bans were implemented on Magic Online and 18.6% of the top 16 decks (3 out of 16) in the StarCityGames IQ in Washington two weeks back (but none in last week’s IQ in Indianapolis as no Abzan Midrange decks made top 16). Lingering Souls has got its staple status reinstated in Abzan Midrange, one of the most popular decks in the post-ban Modern landscape.
Thundermaw Hellkite could very well be a level one tech at the Pro Tour designed to trump Abzan Midrange, which is predicted to be one of the most played tier one decks at the Pro Tour. Thundermaw Hellkite plays the role as a curve-topper in Jeskai Geist and Big Zoo. If Thundermaw sees a decent amount of play at the Pro Tour, I doubt Thundermaw’s price would remain under $10 as it is now ($9.25 as of writing). If you are looking to invest in Thundermaw Hellkite, it might be best to consider it a short-term investment due to the possibility of reprint in Magic 2016, as I have explained in my previous article.
Chord in a Post-Pod World
The card struck a chord with deck brewers.
As someone who has lived through the era of $40 Chords, I’ve mentioned on multiple occasions that Chord of Calling is unbelievably cheap at the $3.40 it is at right now. While Chord of Calling was discarded by Birthing Pod decks in the final chapter of the archetype’s evolution in favor of a less combo-reliant build, Chord is now a potential saviour of the archetype.
Jay Lansdaal wrote about a few different Pod shells that could be given a breath of new life with Chord of Calling. The lists harked back to the days of yore when Pod decks were combo decks with a beatdown backup plan. Chord of Calling replaced Birthing Pod in helping you assemble the combo pieces, whose tutoring capabilities also imbued the deck with toolbox capabilities.
Chord of Calling was also seen as a playset in Elves, which finished 9th at the recent StarCityGames IQ in Indianapolis. It could be a fluke performance of that archetype, but we are traversing uncharted territory in Modern, a landscape free from the subtly oppressive dominion of Pod decks, and for all we know Elves might actually be viable now.
Domri’s stature is misleading in terms of the amount of value he provides.
Speaking of Birthing Pod replacements, Domri Rade is another value engine option as featured in Jay Lansdaal’s Kiki Pod Chord shell and Redditor /u/OctilleryLOL‘s iteration of Kiki Chord. Together with Courser of Kruphix, Domri Rade is a beast of an advantage engine. At $6.86, Domri has a lot of room to grow if decks running Domri performs, especially if Kibleresque Zoo decks becomes viable.
Moonshot Card
This new tech has been floating around for a while, but I’ve only stumbled upon it courtesy of Travis Allen‘s tweet.
Séance for value.
Redditor /u/hp94 did pretty well with the list which possessed favorable matchups against BGx decks and Affinity. Magic Online user RaptureReady went 3 – 1 in a Modern Daily with a slightly modified list after reading the Reddit post. Like Pod, the deck is chock-full of value creatures, and to put it in Travis’ word, it is pretty much a Pod deck that runs Séance instead of Birthing Pod. And from what I’ve read, Séancing a Siege Rhino or Mulldrifter is quite a lot of value.
There has yet to be more results since then, though it has only been a little more than a week ago. Séance looks like a legitimate successor to Birthing Pod and at the bulk price of $0.29, it is a card worth keeping an eye on for the Pro Tour. It does not take much for a relatively old card like Séance to jump.
Tiny Leaders Tournament Report
The first ever Tiny Leaders tournament in Malaysia was held last week. Shout-out to the tournament organiser Kelvin Seow at HQ Sri Petaling for the initiative and the wonderful players who gave their support to the event. The turnout for the event surpassed our expectations: 15 players for a new format in the local Magic scene.
I ran the Anafenza, the Foremost list which I posted at the end of my article last week. The deck drew its inspiration from Modern Pod decks: it attacks from two angles with a beatdown plan A and Melira combo plan B.
Round 1 – Athreos, God of Passage
A few of the players participating in the tournament built their Tiny Leaders the night before just to play in the tournament. Unfortunately, my first round opponent was one of them and I felt bad jamming a refined Abzan list against him. Kudos to him though, for building the deck the night before (if I recall correctly, he heard of the tournament the night before) and coming to support the LGS in their first ever Tiny Leaders tournament.
1-0
Notes from the round: Tiny Leaders is as competitive as non-rotating formats like Modern and Legacy and tuned decks would walk over untuned lists. This should not be viewed as a downside as it applies to Modern and Legacy, and to some extend, Standard as well. Budget options are available for Tiny Leaders, and a good tier one is Anex and Cymede, which I would be writing about in my next article.
Round 2 – Geist of Saint Traft
My second round opponent, Kean ran a well-tuned Geist of Saint Traft list and the power level and fun of Tiny Leaders manifested itself in this match. Game one was a close grind as we exchanged removals for each other’s haymakers. It felt a bit like Legacy: Kean resolved a Stoneforge Mystic searching for his Sword of Feast and Famine, I ripped a Thoughtseize the next turn and got rid of it.
After bashing at me with Geist of Saint Traft and other pesky evasive creatures and building a board position for the kill the next turn, he tapped out and I managed to resolve a Chord of Calling to assemble the Melira combo.
In game two Kean fell on the wrong side of variance as he mulliganed to five and I proceeded to draw Wrench Mind (my Hymn to Tourach) and Thoughtseize.
2-0
Notes from the round: Kean pointed out a poignant observation about how Tiny Leaders differ from Legacy and Modern. Certain color combinations have access to less removals than they usually do due to the singleton nature of Tiny Leaders. My Dark Confidant survived longer than he should have in game one as Kean did not draw into one of his two answers: Swords to Plowshares or Path to Exile. The amount of card I drew off Dark Confidant allowed me to assemble the Melira combo pieces in the nick of time before he could swing for lethal.
Round 3 – Ezuri, Renegade Leader
Ah, the dreaded Elfball deck. Besides Geist of Saint Traft, Ezuri Elfball was the other deck I dedicated the most sideboard slots to. In game one, I was overruned by elves as I attempted to develop my board position from a slow opening hand.
Sideboard: +Zealous Persecution, +Drown in Sorrow, +Golgari Charm, -Sword of Fire and Ice, -Thoughtseize, -Lingering Souls
In game two I assumed the control role and sandbagged my removals for key creatures like his Elvish lords, Ezuri and any elf that could generate more than one mana. It is difficult to outsize his board position as he is a swarm deck after all. It was a close back-and-forth battle: I thought my chances were good when I managed to connect with a Sword of Feast and Famine-wielding Anafenza, but he has a Reclamation Sage to remove it before shoring up his board position with elves that grew in to outsize my creatures in power and toughness. I took game two one turn away from a whooping 30 damage Elvish alpha strike on the back of the Melira combo.
I got greedy in game three, keeping a hand with Zealous Persecution and Golgari Charm but only one land which was a Wooded Foothills. Most of my opponent’s elves were 1/1 prior to any lords and I reasoned that if I drew one more of my 18 remaining lands, or one of my four mana dorks, I would be able to reset his board twice. Alas, I saw no lands nor mana dorks until he has an Elvish Champion in play and I was quickly dispatched. Thankfully my opponent, Keith ended up taking down the whole tournament and propping up my tiebreakers.
2-1
Notes from the round: Elfball was slower I imagined it to be. The deck still has one of the fastest board-building speed in the format, but it does not go critical until it could untap with either Priest of Titania or Elvish Archdruid. It is imperative to keep those two off the board or answer them as soon as possible. Allowing your Elfball opponent to untap with either of those in play means facing an exponential growth in the number of elves and a quick trip to the next game.
It is also important to keep Ezuri off the board due to his ability to regenerate other elves. Dismember was MVP here as it gets around Ezuri’s regeneration shield (for other elves, if you could not afford to remove Ezuri first). I would prioritise removing Elfball’s Priest and Archdruid, followed by the lords and Ezuri.
Round 4: Vendilion Clique
Vendilion Clique turned out to be one of the most popular leaders in the tournament as a lot of the participants were Duel Commander players and they ported over their Duel Commander decks. My final round opponent was local alterist extraordinaire, Patterson and he sported some of the most gorgeous-looking basic islands I have seen.
Game one was a drawn-out grind for me to amass a board position amid his flurry of counterspells and bounces. He flooded out in the mid-game as he ripped one too many islands in succession (perils of having beautiful islands), which allowed me to sneak in a Midnight Haunting and bolster my tokens with Gavony Township. An Ancestral Visions did not draw him into the Cyclonic Rift he was looking for and it was game two.
I took out all my creature removals as there were no targets beyond Vendilion Clique and I have flying spirit tokens to handle that. The excessive number of artifact and enchantment removal stemmed from my fear of Back to Basics and getting Vedalken Shackled out of the game. Rightfully so, game two would have been lost had I not have a Reclamation Sage in hand when he resolved his Vedalken Shackles.
Notes from the round: Playing against blue was not as dreadful as I initially thought. The lack of board wipes meant that the fight was to resolve a few threats through his counterspells and bounces, and bounces were net negative in terms of card advantage. However, blue does have a lot of deadly enchantments and artifacts post-board that could wreck a tricolor creature-based deck if left unanswered.
3-1 (finished second)
Overall, the tournament was a hell of an experience. The complexity of Tiny Leaders and the decision trees available definitely felt like playing Legacy, or at the very least competitive Duel Commander. The singleton restriction was one of the factor as it promoted diversity in answers and threats. I have yet to amass enough Tiny Leaders experience to point out its flaws (and I am certain there are some), and from what little experience I’ve had, Tiny Leaders filled a gap for me by providing a format where I can experience the thrills of Legacy at a fraction of its cost and the fun of Commander without the long-drawn out games.
I’ve always wondered how it felt like to be an early adopter of bitcoins. To be one of those who got in when bitcoins were $0.20 each (bitcoin is now trading at $257.09 per bitcoin). To be a member of the bitcoin millionaire club just for the virtue of being an early adopter of a technology most initially shrugged off as a passing fad.
Ah, the perks of being an early adopter.
While I was drawn into Commander when the format first broke into the mainstream with the release of the first Commander products in 2011, I paid little attention to the financial aspects of Commander cards. It was a fun, casual format of singleton cards and my logic (flawed in retrospect) told me the demand for Commander cards would not be sufficient to drive the price of Commander staples.
Fast forward to 2015. I am now writing a Magic finance column and one of my area of focus is undervalued Commander foils. While most Commander staple foils have already spiked, there are still some undervalued Commander foils lurking beneath the bush, but they are hard to find. It feels a bit like foraging for truffles. I hate to admit it, but the treasure cruise for speccing on Commander foils had left the port a while ago and we are trawling the waters for any gold that fell off the barge.
Magic, fortunately is an ever-changing landscape, and once in a while we get something new brewing on the horizon. Sometimes it’s an innovative supplementary product like Conspiracy. Sometimes it’s an exciting new format.
The Littlest Giants
Tiny Leaders seemed to be the talk of Magic town lately. Tiny Leaders is a new take on the Commander format where players play with 50 card decks including their commander, and a defining caveat that only cards with three or less casting cost can be played. Designed by Bramwell Tackaberry in 2013, the format spread quickly among his local community and in the past few months, began to gain traction in the Magic community as a whole.
Chas Andres briefly discussed Tiny Leaders in his article last November. Jimi Brady at GatheringMagic.com put up a piece on Tiny Leaders with some sweet decklists the same month. Eric Levine, Commander-in-Residence at Channel Fireball wrote an article about it in December, so did Matt Higgs at StarCityGames. I first heard about the format myself from Brainstorm Brewery’s mid-January 2015 Fate Reforged set review podcast, where Jason E Alt was talking about the viability of two of the Fate Reforged khans as Tiny Leader commanders. My fellow finance writer at MTGPrice, Cliff Daigle also wrote an article about the format last week. Even people at The Mothership started paying attention to the format recently:
The Tiny Leader community is still growing, with the Facebook group and subreddit both boasting a membership of around 1,500 members each as of writing. I highly recommend checking out both groups if you are interested to delve more into the format. And I definitely recommend giving Tiny Leaders a try if you have yet to do so.
Tiny Leaders, Big Potential
Why do I think Tiny Leaders has the potential to be the next big format in Magic? It shares a characteristic found in a lot of successful startups: it caters to an unfulfilled niche.
Tiny Leaders is a cross between Commander and Legacy, a singleton Legacy. The majority of the mana curve in Legacy lies at three or less anyway, so cards that are good in Legacy are bound to be good in Tiny Leaders as Jimi Brady pointed out in his article. Jimi also mentioned a very valid point on why the format has the potential to catch on like wildfire: it has a relatively low entry barrier. A Tiny Leaders deck requires less cards than the usual 60-card deck and only one-of rather than a playset-of expensive staples.
I can’t get into Legacy with the single Tarmogoyf and Dark Confidant I opened from my two boxes of Modern Masters, and they are not exactly optimal cards for Commander. However they fit snugly into my Anafenza, the Foremost Tiny Leaders brew. To be honest, the virtue of being a singleton format is that players could get away with missing a few expensive pieces and still have a relatively competitive deck. This list by redditor /u/darkflame1o1 performed pretty well at a tournament despite missing Dark Confidant and Tarmogoyf.
Tiny Leaders appeals to players too spikey to play Commander, or players who are weary of long Commander games and all the politicking which are integral to Commander games. Even Brainstorm Brewery’s ‘I’m-never-gonna-touch-Commander’ Marcel professed an interest in Tiny Leaders in their recent podcast.Tiny Leaders has the competitive lure of Duel Commander, and is better designed for competitive play.
I feel I ought to include arguments against Tiny Leaders taking off to provide an objective view of the format’s future. While Chas Andres mentioned a few good ones in his article, he nevertheless gave the format a moderate to high chance of future success. I think those drawbacks mentioned in Chas’ article – potential power-level imbalance and small number of players – are issues that confronted every new format as it made the leap from niche to mainstream.
Power-level imbalances could be ironed out with astute management of the banlist. The banlist is currently managed by Steven Harmonic and Matthew Turnbull with input from the community (Steven and Matthew are highly active on the Tiny Leaders subreddit and Bram manages the Tiny Leaders Facebook group).
The issue with the format’s small player base is temporary and is remedied as format hits a tipping point in momentum, something which I think is Tiny Leaders is heading towards right now with the amount of interest and attention it is getting from the community. Besides the increasing number of articles being written about the format, and the number of times Brainstorm Brewery mentioned it in their podcast, Cedric Phillips and Patrick Sullivan briefly discussed Tiny Leaders during the commentary of StarCityGames’ Washington DC Open last weekend, all good signs of the format breaching through into the mainstream.
Tiny Investments
Tiny Leaders cards are in an interesting spot financially – the format’s three mana and below casting cost restriction meant that a swath of the format’s staple overlap with Legacy and Modern staples, which are already pricey. On the other hand, the restriction led to cards with casting cost-specific effects to be more powerful in the context of Tiny Leaders. Unearth becomes a Reanimate without a drawback. Smother becomes an unconditional removal. Three CMC and under spells with X as part of their casting cost is a way to circumvent the figurative power level of the format, as spells with an X in their casting cost scales according to the amount of mana channelled into X.
Today, we are going to go through a few of these cards that could potentially spike if Tiny Leaders takes off. First off, we have the heads of the states decks.
The Leaders
Grenzo, Dungeon Warden
Fifty Shades of Grenzo.
Non-foil: $1.33
Foil: $18.03
Two reasons why Grenzo, Dungeon Warden is sweet in Tiny Leaders: He has an X in his casting cost and he could generate a swarm all by himself. Tristan Gregson pointed out on Twitter that Grenzo could be a good Tiny Leaders pick-up and I wholly agree. Non-foil copies are unlikely to stay at $1.33 as the demand for Grenzo increases and being flavor-tied to Conspiracy, Grenzo is unlikely to see a reprint. Foils are already expensive as Grenzo is also a decent Commander general and I am not a fan of speccing on those.
Ezuri, Renegade Leader
Leading the Elfball revolution.
Non-foil: $1.67
Foil: $5.78
Ezuri Elfball is one of the tier one decks in Tiny Leaders. $5.78 is a good buy-in for foil copies of a tier one leader from an old set. Non-foils at $1.67 have room to grow but being reprinted Commander 2014 means a longer lag in appreciation. I would rather snag up foil copies.
Varolz, the Scar-Striped
Varolz, the Scar-Striped troll.
Non-foil: $0.59
Foil: $3.05
Another tier one leader, foil Varolz, the Scar-Striped is only $3, courtesy of being from a recently rotated set. I would pick up foils rather than non-foils at this price. Varolz is also playable as part of the 49.
Ambassador Laquatus
He was not a great ambassador. Milling your opponent to death is not very diplomatic.
Non-foil: $1.09 (Tenth Edition); $0.70 (Torment)
Foil: $3.51 (Tenth Edition); $3.68 (Torment)
Ambassador Laquatus is a good example of cards that are crap everywhere except in the context of Tiny Leaders. Against a 50-card deck, milling becomes a viable competitive strategy. Sword of Body and Mind was banned for the exact reason. Laquatus is a tier one leader and both foil and non-foil copies are good pick-ups at those prices.
Contextually Good Cards
As mentioned above, some cards are just better in a format with an imposed maximum casting cost of three.
Unearth
It’s all about the context.
Non-foil: $0.72
Foil: $7.02
Unearth is a unconditional and drawback-free Animate Dead in Tiny Leaders. Cheating-into-play may not be necessary for most creatures costing three or less, but Entomb is legal in this young format and there is potential for graveyard shenanigans. Non-foil copies look like good pickups at under $1.
Sunforger
Not exactly forged by the Sun God, they belong on different planes after all.
Spells with X in their casting cost circumvent the imposed three casting cost ceiling and there is a lot of potential for powerful effects the power of those spells scale according to the amount of mana sinked into them. White Sun’s Zenith has the potential to be a late game finisher not just for control decks, but also for midrange decks looking for a card to close out games fast in the mid-to-late game. Foils for $2.39 could be a good investment.
Tiny Leaders’ three casting cost ceiling rendered a lot of sweepers illegal in deckbuilding. Black Sun’s Zenith is one of few black sweepers available as pointed out by Chaz from BoltSnapBolt. Although the Game Day full art foils just increased in price, the Mirrodin Besieged foils at $5 is not a a shabby pick-up.
Ratchet Bomb
Literally a ticking bomb.
Non-foil: $0.48 (M14); $0.51 (Scars of Mirrodin)
Foil: $1.70 (M14); $3.24 (Scars of Mirrodin)
Speaking of sweepers, Ratchet Bomb is a colorless sweeper that could become a staple in the Tiny Leaders besides Engineered Explosives. Ratchet Bomb may be too slow for other formats, but is efficient in Tiny Leaders. Foils at $1.70 have room to grow if the format takes off.
The Big Picture
Tiny Leaders is a format in its infancy. The format is a brewer’s paradise, brimming with unexplored deckbuilding space. There has yet to be a repository for Tiny Leaders decklists or tournament results. The two places to find Tiny Leaders decklists currently are the Tiny Leaders Facebook group and subreddit. I would definitely recommend checking out those forums. There are a lot of innovation and ideas being bounced around, but there has yet to be highly-tuned lists of respective archetypes, which means an abundance of opportunity for deck brewers to get brewing.
The metagame is still young and evolving. The addition of Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest and Alesha, Who Smiles at Death injected a lot new design space in the format as previously Tiny Leaders does not have a Jeskai or Mardu leader and resorted to a placeholder ‘leader’ with no abilities.
The format’s future is by no way certain. For all we know, the hype and interest that is building up a momentum right now could dissipate before the end of the year. However, judging by the overwhelmingly positive response from those who dipped their toes in the format, I am confident that Tiny Leaders would grow into the next big format.
In Retrospect
I guess I am not hopelessly bad in spotting the next big thing. I was an early fan of Modern and I completed my playset of blue-based staples back in 2011, shortly after the inception of Modern. I was confident that Modern would grow into the next big thing as it filled a niche that many players, myself included felt was missing from the competitive scene.
I wanted to play in a competitive non-rotating format where I could run my favorite pet deck all the time, but I could not afford to buy into Legacy. Modern filled that niche in that it served as an intermediary between Standard and Legacy, a non-rotating format with a lower barrier of entry. Gavin Verhey’s Overextended has been garnering a lot of interest, so there must have been plenty of other players in similar positions as I was.
I had my hipster moment with Modern. I acquired my Scalding Tarns and Misty Rainforests at $15 each, Vendilion Cliques at $8 each, Player Rewards Cryptic Commands at $10 each, among many others. I ran Storm in the first Modern PTQ season in 2012 and crashed badly, but it was fun. Storm was my pet deck for one whole year. It won me my first Grand Prix Trial and performed okay for me on Magic Online daily events. Eventually Jeskai (UWR back in those days) Geist took over and it has been my go-to deck up till Ancestral Recall became Modern legal (sort of).
My excitement for Tiny Leaders reminded me of how I felt about Modern in 2011. I am excited for Tiny Leaders because the format is an opportunity for me to play a fast-paced Duel Commander game with a touch of Legacy’s power level but only a fraction of Legacy’s buy-in fee. And I am excited that my enthusiasm for the format is shared by many other players and writers.
Bonus: My Anafenza, the Foremost Tiny Leaders
Seeing that there is a dearth of Tiny Leaders decklists at the moment, let me share with you my Anafenza brew that I am taking with me to what seems to be Malaysia’s first Tiny Leaders tournament this weekend.
Commander: Anafenza, the Foremost
First and foremost, let me sing you the song of my +1/+1 counters.
Creatures
Avacyn’s Pilgrim
Bird of Paradise
Deathrite Shaman
Llanowar Elves
Cartel Aristocrat
Dark Confidant
Melira, Sylvok Outcast
Scavenging Ooze
Tarmogoyf
Tidehollow Sculler
Eternal Witness
Knight of the Reliquary
Kitchen Finks
Loxodon Smiter
Varolz, the Scar-Striped
Planeswalkers
Liliana of the Veil
Instants
Enlightened Tutor
Worldly Tutor
Sword to Plowshares
Abrupt Decay
Smother
Chord of Calling
Dismember
Midnight Haunting
Sorceries
Green Sun’s Zenith
Lingering Souls
Thoughtseize (I don’t own Inquisition of Kozilek)
Artifacts
Sensei’s Divining Top
Sword of Feast and Famine
Sword of Fire and Ice
Lands
Gavony Township
Windswept Heath
Wooded Foothills
Flooded Strand
Polluted Delta
Bloodstained Mire
Arid Mesa
Marsh Flats
Godless Shrine
Overgrown Tomb
Temple Garden
Woodland Cemetery
Sunpetal Grove
City of Brass
Cavern of Souls
Command Tower
Plains
Swamp
Forest
The deck attacks on multiple angles, in the spirit of one of the best Magic strategy articles in recent time. There are four one-drop mana dorks to ‘ramp’ into the three drops on turn two for a fast start. One of the perks of having a leader is having access to a three drop to ramp into all the time. The deck is also quite mana-hungry as the mid-game plan hinges on Gavony Township and tutoring out value creatures.
The mana dorks help fuel the deck’s mid game, besides providing an extra layer of consistency to ensure that we hit our ‘land drops’ every turn. Those mana dorks could be conscripted to the frontline during the mid-to-late game as they get jacked up with Anafenza’s counters or Gavony Township.
The tutors are also present for the deck’s second angle of attack: the classic Melira infinite life combo. The combo pieces are Melira, Sylvok Outcast, Kitchen Finks and either Cartel Aristocrat or Varolz, the Scar-Striped to loop for infinite life. The initial blueprint had a Blood Artist to enable a combo kill, but I’ve found that Blood Artist was a dead card outside the combo. With the exception of Melira, all the other components of the combo are creatures that can provide exceptional value by themselves. Kitchen Finks sort of combos with Anafenza to reset its -1/-1 persist counters. Varolz and Cartel Aristocrat are two hard to remove creatures, ideal targets for Anafenza to bestow +1/+1 counters on.
The game plan is resoundingly similar to Birthing Pod decks (RIP): grind your opponent out with value creatures and develop a superior board position with Gavony Township. If and when the opportunity arises, execute the infinite life combo by tutoring out the pieces on instant speed. Tidehollow Sculler is there to give us a tutorable hand disruption if we find the need to ensure that the coast is clear before we execute the Melira combo.
Thanks for reading through all 3,000 words of this article. I hope the article has provided you with an insight into this wonderful new format called Tiny Leaders and cards which price could take off together with the format. Comments are most welcomed and you either leave a comment below or at engage me on Twitter at @theguoheng.
As the clock struck 8 a.m. PST yesterday, the banhammer fell. In a mighty swoop, not one, nor two, but three cards in Modern became casualties in the latest round of DCI banned and restricted announcement. It was a banning on a scale we have not seen for years, taking out two dominating Modern archetype and resetting the power level of the format to pre-Khans of Tarkir level.
Granted, concessions were made. The good ol’ grave troll were released from the DCI’s prison, but part of me wished that Wizards released the Troll just to indicate that the banned and restricted announcement was just one big trolling attempt.
In the veins of Deathrite Shaman‘s ban last February, yesterday’s banned and restricted announcement aimed at shaking up the Modern format in anticipation of the upcoming Modern Pro Tour in Washington, DC. The ripples of this year’s bannings will definitely be felt as two tier one incumbents were nudged off their seats in the Council of Tier One Modern Decks. Coupled with the unbanning of a popular card, the financial implications could span across a multitude of cards. Travis Allen (@wizardbumpin) would be discussing the changes in his article tomorrow. My article today will focus on a few cards I am very familiar with, a few cards which in my opinion, stand to be the biggest winners of the latest round of bannings. Those cards are related to a particular archetype that was marginalised in the post-Khans Modern landscape.
The Ghost of Jeskai Past
UWR Geist, or Jeskai Geist as the nomenclature goes in 2015 was the first successful tempo deck in Modern. The archetype debut on Magic Online when Larry Swasey, better known as Krazykirby4 on Magic Online took down a Magic Online PTQ in the middle of January 2013 with an innovative new brew. It was at the height of Jund’s dominance, shortly before Bloodbraid Elf fell under the banhammer. To put it in Larry’s own words, that deck was a monster, and it propelled both Larry and his friend Brandon Large who was running the same list, to the finals of that said PTQ. It was a deck capable of attacking efficiently on multiple angles, a hallmark of good modern-day decks as Gerry Thompson encapsulated recently in a very insightful article.
UWR Jeskai Geist garnered widespread attention a week later when Mitchell Manders took down Grand Prix Bilbao with a 75 that was mostly similar to Larry’s masterpiece, dispatching a Jund piloted by the formidable Lukas Jaklovsky. Jeskai Geist was inducted into the hallowed halls of tier one Modern decks. One does not simply disregard a deck that could take on pre-nerf Jund, the fairest of fair decks, in one-on-one combat.
Unfortunately that was exactly what happened. Jeskai Geist faded into obscurity, only to surface again a year later when Vjeran Horvat won Grand Prix Prague with Jeskai Geist in January 2014. Jeskai Geist proponents rejoiced.
I may not be a strategy writer; heck even my strategy credentials are lacking – I do not even have a single PTQ top 8 under my belt. However, I have been playing Jeskai Geist in real life and online pretty much since Larry Swasey took down the Magic Online PTQ in January 2013, and it was my go-to Modern deck up to the point when UR Delver upstarted it thanks to Treasure Cruise. I like to think I have a decent grasp on Jeskai Delver; at least good enough to 4-0 a couple of Modern Dailies. And I like to think that Jeskai Geist was one of the biggest winners from yesterday’s banned and restricted announcement.
Prior to Khans of Tarkir, Jeskai Geist was the de facto tempo deck in Modern. After Treasure Cruise entered the metagame, Jeskai Geist found it difficult to compete with UR Delver’s raw speed and ability to refuel with Ancestral Recall (though Jeff Hoogland did top 4 a StarCityGames Modern 5K with an updated Jeskai Geist list that incorporated two copies of Dig Through Time). When Deathrite Shaman was banned in February 2014, the tier one deck that became the hardest matchup for Jeskai Geist was Birthing Pod.
While Jeskai Geist could trade resources on parity with Pod decks, a resolved Birthing Pod often pushed the game out of reach, more so in game one where Jeskai Geist does not have an answer to a resolved Birthing Pod. To make matters worse, Pod decks could sneak a Birthing Pod under Jeskai Geist’s Mana Leak or Remand on turn two if the Pod deck is on the play. Or catch a Jeskai Geist pilot unaware during game one.
Birthing Pod was one of the toughest matchups for Jeskai Geist back when I was grinding Modern Daily Events. With Birthing Pod out of the equation, Jeskai Geist has a good chance to be very well positioned in the metagame. How about Siege Rhino? Siege Rhino is not too much of an issue in my opinion. One of the worse things you could do against Jeskai Geist is attempt to resolve high casting cost spells. Jeskai Geist capitalises on tempo and it is a huge tempo swing for Geist to Remand or Leak a four mana spell, or even just Path to Exile it.
Hopefully by now I have made a convincing argument that Jeskai Geist is the Next Big Thing New Old Big Thing. Let’s have a look at the key components of Jeskai Geist with financial potential.
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Spirited Away
The Geist of Jeskai Past, soon to be the Geist of Jeskai Present.
Geist of Saint Traft is sitting at $14. Let that sink in for a while. $14 is pretty much the lowest ol’ Saint Traft’s spirit has ever been. Geist is probably the frontrunner for potential financial winners from the 19th January Banned and Restricted announcement. Geist barely escaped an upcoming reprint in Modern Masters 2015 and was last year’s WMCQ participation promo. It is highly unlikely to see a Geist of Saint Traft reprint in the near future.
At $14, Geist of Saint Traft can only go up in price. He is already $21 on Magic Online and has started to trend up since the announcement. My speculator’s ears always perk up when I see a digital card being significantly more expensive than its paper counterpart. $14 is a sweet price to pick up a mythic that is a four-of in a potential tier one Modern deck, and also offers hexproof against near-term reprints.
Heavenly Creatures
Dealing out heavenly justice since 2010.
A beauty in the design of Jeskai Geist is the deck’s ability to play both aggro and control roles efficiently. An early Geist of Saint Traft closed games in a quick fashion in tandem with Restoration Angel and the occasional Thundermaw Hellkite. An early Geist backed by a flurry of removals and burn does the job too. After all, Geist was considered to be an honorary red card by no other than Burn maestro Patrick Sullivan. Shall the draws or the matchup demanded that Jeskai Geist plays the long game, the deck could trade removals and out-card advantage the opponent while Celestial Colonnade slowly chipped away at the opponent’s life total, four at a time.
While Colonnade is the other four-of win condition in Jeskai Geist, it is not a good pickup at $18, even though it has been trending down. Celestial Colonnade has a near-certain probability of being reprinted in Modern Masters 2015. I would steer clear of Celestial Colonnade.
Geist of Saint Traft’s other angel. He was quite the Casanova.
The price of Restoration Angel continues to baffle me. The Swiss Army knife of an angel is still a sub-$10 card despite the amount of play she saw in Modern. She was found in all iterations of Pod, in Death and Taxes and also the occasional UWr Flash. Restoration Angel is one of the most versatile value creatures in Modern: she resets your Kitchen Finks, protects your Geist of Saint Traft, rebuys Snapcaster Mage and a plethora of other creatures with enter-the-battlefield effects. Not to mention she combos with Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker for infinite angels and is a formidable beater by herself, being a 3/4 flying creature with flash.
I suspect Restoration Angel’s price will suffer a bit of a dip due to the Pod ban if Pod’s value shell proved to be unviable in a post-Pod world. If that scenario happens, it would probably be a short-lived dip as Restoration Angel is not going to be in Modern Masters 2015. Restoration Angel has the versatility to fit easily in plenty of other archetypes and it would only be a matter of time before another archetype picks her up from where Pod left off (on top of the archetypes that are currently running Restoration Angel).
$8 feels too low for a card this powerful and versatile and is unlikely to be reprinted soon. Even if you do not plan to spec on her, it might be prudent to pick up your own playset while she is at $8.
Mother of Dragons
The mother of dragons. Well, the mother of playable dragons.
Thundermaw Hellkite was the ideal curve-topper for Jeskai Geist and Jund back when Lingering Souls was running rampant in Modern. Jeff Hoogland eschewed Thundermaw for Stormbreath Dragon and Vjeran Horvat mentioned about replacing Thundermaw with another Restoration Angel or Cryptic Command in his post-Khans of Tarkir list that narrowly missed top 8 at Grand Prix Milan. Thundermaw’s position in the deck and the Modern metagame is meta-dependent. If Lingering Souls sees a resurgence in the new meta, Thundermaw would once again be the five-drop king of the sky.
I would not recommend buying as many Thundermaw Hellkites as you can at $9.46. It is quite possible to see Thundermaw reprinted in Magic 2016. It is the perfect foil to Hornet Queen and could appear as a pre-planned safety valve in Magic 2016. Keep an eye on Thundermaw; it might be worth moving in on Thundermaw at under $10 if Lingering Souls is widely played in the upcoming Modern Pro Tour, but don’t spec too many copies or sit on it for too long due to its short-term reprint risk.
Card Advantage is King
The leading cause of unintentional draws.
Both Jeff Hoogland’s list and Vjeran Horvat’s list ran two copies of Dig Through Time as late game card advantage trumps. With Dig Through Time out of the game, Jeskai Geist will probably revert to the old faithful, Sphinx’s Revelation. Sphinx’s Revelation is a good pickup at $6. It is a Modern playable mythic that is unlikely to be reprinted in the near-to-medium-term as Return to Ravnica rotated out less than half a year ago.
Snapcaster tried his best to do an impersonation of Yawgmoth’s Will. He really did.
In the midst of the furore of yesterday’s shocker of an announcement (don’t pretend you were not suprised too), Snapcaster Mage nearly slipped my mind, until Redditor and moderator of the mtgmarketwatch subreddit /u/mtd14 reminded me that Snapcaster is among the winners from the bannings. I could not agree more. Snapcaster’s numbers suffered a decline in the wake of Treasure Cruise, because jamming Ancestral Recalls is plainly better than pseudo-Yawgmoth’s Wills.
Now that we can’t Ancestral Recall in Modern anymore, Snapcaster Mage will probably be present in higher numbers again. A Jeskai Geist resurgence would also increase the demand of Snapcaster Mage as the deck runs a full playset of Snapcaster. More importantly, Snapcaster is the most played creature in Modern being present in 31% of Modern decks in 2014 at 3.2 copies, despite Treasure Cruise suppresing his numbers during the recent months. And he is not going to be reprinted in Modern Masters 2015.
$34 is a rather low figure for the most played creature in Modern (and Vintage) with no reprint in sight for the near future. The only real risk of reprint for Snapcaster before the Modern Masters after Modern Masters 2015 is being minted as a Grand Prix promo, but we could rest assured that it won’t happen until at least December 2015, with Griselbrand being the 2015 Grand Prix promo.
Closing Thoughts
Other cards to consider in the wake of yesterday’s announcement:
Chord of Calling. Kiki-Chord is a potential direction for Kiki-Pod decks. Chord of Calling is just $3.
Domri Rade. Kiki-Pod once ran Domri Rade as an extra value engine. $7 is not cheap, but if he (or she) replaces Pod as the deck’s value engine, I am sure Domri would not be in the realm of single-digit price tag.
MAGIC: THE GATHERING FINANCE ARTICLES AND COMMUNITY
