By: Travis Allen
@wizardbumpin

Don’t miss this week’s installment of the MTG Fast Finance podcast, an on-topic, no-nonsense tour through the week’s most important changes in the Magic economy.

As much as I enjoy rambling about Modern and all the wild possibilities that the format is never kind enough to materialize, it’s not too exciting to look into at the moment. GP London saw Izzet Phoenix absolutely take over, with something like 23% of the field on day one. That’s an absolutely staggering percentage for a format like Modern, when 5% of a day is typically indicative of a tier one list. Pair that with Modern’s forthcoming upheaval (perhaps including Upheaval), which while exciting to consider, has rendered today’s Modern fairly meaningless. As Modern cards that I suspect will remain relevant cross my path, I’ll be sure to mention them, but for now, we’re keeping our sights on EDH.

Rings of Brighthearth (MPS)

Price Today: $100
Possible Price: $150

This is the third time the building our apartment is in has sold while we’ve been living here, so we didn’t think much of it when we received notice. We straightened out our security deposit on the new estoppel, signed the document, and got back to the standard tenor of our everyday lives. It was only when one of the business tenants of the building came to speak with us because they had learned that the new buyer had no intention of renewing anyone’s leases. Ours was the first on the chopping block, with an expiration date of August. Phone calls were placed, and the sum of it was resounding uncertainty. Left with no clear idea of whether we’d be allowed to live here past August, we had to reconsider our heretofore, uh, relaxed pace of home discovery. Faced with the possibility of needing to come up with a down payment a year earlier than expected, I took to my collection to see what I could begin liquidating. A box of Masterpieces found its way to the front of the line, and up a few went to test the waters. Within 48 hours the first sold; a Mana Crypt for $315. This recent sale was on my mind when I went exploring for this article, as it had been awhile since I had perused the Inventions from Kaladesh.

That chunk of filler text aside, Rings of Brighthearth jumped out at me as one of the better positioned Inventions. Stock is low, perhaps the lowest of all the NM Inventions right now, with only 10 copies available for purchase at TCG (with zero left at SCG). Checkmark number one. Sorting the Inventions by most popular, you’ll find Brighthearth in sixth place. Checkmark number two. (Now, I take that to mean that Rings as a card is the sixth most popular within the list. Given that Cataclysmic Gearhulk is the second most popular, and there are 32 copies of the MPS left, I don’t believe it is looking specifically at the MPS copies.) Third, the pack foils of Rings have just about exceeded the Inventions copies. While the market price on those pack foils hasn’t caught up to the lowest listed price, that just means there’s a lot of attention on the card at the moment as it is. If people are buying out the pack foils and driving the price upwards of $100, what’s going to happen to the MPS copies?

At a $100 buy-in, you’re looking for probably a $130 or $150 exit. If you’re lucky, you can find a copy floating somewhere under $100, at which point there’s some definite returns.

Primal Amulet (Foil)

Price Today: $5
Possible Price: $15

Niv Mizzet has been enjoying some time in the sun over on EDHREC, which sent me perusing for anything worthwhile. It’s a lean build from our perspective, as there’s a lot of “dead” cards – Opt, Ponder, etc. Excellent for the build, terrible if you’re looking to make money. One card that’s not so poorly positioned though is Primal Amulet. As an enabler, it’s obviously excellent in Niv Mizzet, as well as any EDH deck looking to cast spells. It’s also going to be a lot of fun at home, where cards like Cloud Key always entertain reasonable popularity.

At 4300 decks, it hasn’t exactly exploded into EDH. At the same time, it’s from Ixalan, a relatively new set to EDH. It’s the sixth most popular from that set as it is, and the gap between it and the first card is reasonably narrow. Given that it’s about 2/3rds as popular as Growing Rites of Ixalan, a “fixed Gaea’s Cradle,” I’d consider it a well-positioned card.

You’ll find a few pack foils hanging around at $5, though not too many. Prerelease foils are around $7 or $8, and the Buy-A-Box promos are $8 or $9. Pack foils at $5 are solid, though I certainly also like the BaB copies. If we see pack foils get to $15, BaB copies to $25 seems entirely plausible.

Utvara Hellkite

Price Today: $10
Possible Price: $25

There’s nothing too revolutionary here, but Utvara is worth keeping an eye on. As a dragon that makes dragons, you can see how he would strike a chord with certain players. He doesn’t need to attack to trigger, either. It’s so long as any dragon attacks. Plop Utvara down on the table, swing with two or three other dragons, and you’re in business. (This gets even more fun if you have Dragon Tempest in play along with an effect that lets you attack more than once in a turn, as the dragons you create on the first attack get to swing on the second, generating even more.)

At 8300 decks, Utvara Hellkite is solidly popular, if admittedly not an Eternal Witness. However, popularity within the tribe is remarkable here. Dragons are the second-most popular tribe in EDH according to the numbers, behind only Zombies. And within Dragons, Utvara Hellkite appears to be the single most popular card of the tribe. While the overall number of people playing Utvara Hellkite may be middle of the road, if you decide to play tribal, there’s a good chance it’s dragons, and if you’re playing dragons, you’re almost definitely playing Utvara Hellkite. And we both know Wizards isn’t going to stop supporting dragons any time soon.

Pack foils of Utvara Hellkite are floating between $10 and $11, and supply is well past a tipping point. There are maybe six foils left on TCG? And two of them are $18 or more? SCG has one. You won’t sell multiple a day, but it’s tough to imagine losing money on $10 foil Hellkites. [/hide]

Travis Allen has  been playing Magic: The Gathering since 1994, mostly in upstate New York. Ever since his first FNM he’s been trying to make playing Magic cheaper, and he first brought his perspective to MTGPrice in 2012. You can find his articles there weekly, as well as on the podcast MTG Fast Finance.

By: Travis Allen
@wizardbumpin

Don’t miss this week’s installment of the MTG Fast Finance podcast, an on-topic, no-nonsense tour through the week’s most important changes in the Magic economy.

Two pieces of information are currently the catalysts of heavy market activity right now; the knowledge that War of the Spark is going to be heavily planeswalker focused, to the point that each pack is guaranteed a walker, and the existence of Modern Horizons, coupled with the point that no currently-Modern-legal card will appear in the set. Between them, every card that A. has to do with planeswalkers or B. exists in Modern is coming under intense scrutiny. We could talk awhile about the timing of the announcement — in fact, I did, on the latest episode of @mtgfastfinance — but that’s neither here nor there at the moment. We’ll keep our attention on the cards themselves this week. I’d also recommend revisiting last week’s article, specifically Mox Opal. I managed to find that card all over again this week, and it wasn’t until I pulled up my notes that I realized I wrote about it as recently as seven days ago. If it caught my attention twice in a row, I can at least say that my methodology is consistent, and I like the card.

Doubling Season

Price Today: $38
Possible Price: $60

This isn’t a particularly clever pick, and there’s no doubt you’ve encountered other people talking about it as well. That alone makes it worth turning my attention to it, since we’re sort of one level above that here. Most content of this nature is “here’s what’s going to be good,” while I try to make this column more “here’s where the attention is going to be focused.” I’m not sure if I succeed at making that clear, or in doing it period, but at least I think about it while I’m writing.

Anyways, Doubling Season. It’s hard to find a more well-known synergy than planeswalkers and Doubling Season. Season is the ur-EDH staple to begin with, and that particular interaction only intensifies the demand for the effect. You know this, I know this, every schmoe at your FNM knows this. It’s still true, and for that reason, worthy of our attention. 16,000 EDH decks can’t be wrong. With a deluge of planeswalkers a month away, expect there to be even more demand. What I especially like about non-foils is that Doubling Season is the type of card that speaks to the kitchen table. In fact, I myself bought a playset (for the hard decision of $20) back when I was playing living room table Magic. Those types of casual players don’t bother with foils at all. They’re also the type of player to be enamored with having “a planeswalker deck,” so the overlap is real.

You’ll find copies in the $38 to $40 range. There’s maybe fiftyish copies under $45, and then they’re up into $50, $55, and $60. That’s about what we’re shooting for I think; $60. This isn’t a glamorous shot by any stretch. It’s safe though, as we know it’s not coming in Modern Horizons and is too expensive to end up in a Commander product.

Oath of Gideon (Foil)

Price Today: $1.50
Possible Price: $6

In keeping with our planeswalker focus, as that’s hitting shelves before Modern Horizons, we turn next to Oath of Gideon. Two other Oaths are likely to be more directly impacted — Teferi’s and Nissa’s — as they’re, I guess, more “obvious.” Gideons is certainly useful though, as the two tokens run interference for a turn, and while a single extra loyalty isn’t as immediately impactful as doubling them, it comes down sooner, and is much less likely to be a target for enchantment hate while still shaving a solid turn off most ultimates.

It will be hard to build any planeswalker-centric deck without Oath of Gideon, I suspect. The two tokens are valuable whether we’re talking a casual sixty card build or a full-sized EDH list. Given that it’s not the most popular card in EDH yet, and the relatively low supply, I’m wondering if this was already targeted. There’s a whopping 22 pack foil copies on TCG right now, and for a card that’s semi-new and not in 40,000 EDH decks, I’d expect much more than that. There’s no price changes in the card’s history, so if someone did go after it, they didn’t manage to impact pricing yet. Still, keep that in mind.

What few copies remain are floating in the <$1 to $2 range. These should be an easy cruise up towards $5 or $6 once the spoilers are rolling in hard. I’d be looking for a quick exit on these, with the intention to buylist whatever you end up with.

Heritage Druid

Price Today: $7
Possible Price: $15

Rather than spend all week talking about WAR and the attention being paid to planeswalkers, I figure we should at least cover a little Modern. Remember, we want to look at cards that are currently legal in Modern that may see increased application or attention after having 250 new cards dumped into the set. My first choice for this slot this week was going to be Goryo’s Vengeance, until I remembered that it was in Ultimate Masters and that there were something like 400 copies of those on TCG right now. RIP Goryo’s Vengeance I guess.

Elves is a tribe that’s always hung at the edges of Modern, trying valiantly to elbow it’s way into the crowd, even succeeding, rarely, at relevance, only to be tripped and trampled on by the larger decks wielding Anger of the Gods the following weekend. There’s never been the necessary component to give them full stability by means of enough power that it can overcome the minimal sideboard hate that typically wipes it back out. As a fan favorite tribe that’s on the cusp of playability, it’s not unbelievable that Wizards would toss “elf” on a key card or two in the interest of giving them a bit more depth and range. Birchlore Ranger has long been a card I’ve wondered about, as it would give the deck access to any color of mana it needed, opening up all sorts of slots, whether being able to side in Rest in Peace as a GB deck, or run Beck in the main without needing to ruin their manabase.

Heritage Druid is a key engine in elves builds, to the point that any elves deck that didn’t utilize it would be a functionally different deck. At $7 a copy today with medium supply, there’s a definite possibility this moves into the $15 to $20 bracket with the announcement of new, powerful elves. Keep an eye on the spoilers, and have a purchase plan in place if something pops up. [/hide]

Travis Allen has  been playing Magic: The Gathering since 1994, mostly in upstate New York. Ever since his first FNM he’s been trying to make playing Magic cheaper, and he first brought his perspective to MTGPrice in 2012. You can find his articles there weekly, as well as on the podcast MTG Fast Finance.

By: Travis Allen
@wizardbumpin

Don’t miss this week’s installment of the MTG Fast Finance podcast, an on-topic, no-nonsense tour through the week’s most important changes in the Magic economy.

Late this past week we got our first taste of Modern Horizons. As far as card reveals went, one could apply the word “stingy.” Shown were Cabal Therapist, a card that undoubtedly tickled longtime Legacy players and Arrested Development fans, and Serra the Benevolent, a planeswalker card of Magic icon Serra. You know, from Serra Angel. (I’m admittedly underwhelmed by the card, but at the very least it invalidates the hell out of Worship. Which depicts Serra. Irony, or something.) Neither of these cards confirmed any mechanics, and at best told us two things: there may be a graveyard component to the set, and white has fliers. Difficult to make use of the insight that white will have creatures with flying. Rather, the truly useful information came in some of the other tidbits that were released.

Mox Opal

Price Today: $85
Possible Price: $150

That tidbit is the fact that every single card in Horizons will be new to Modern. It’s the inverse of this that we’re working with; if every card is new to Modern, it means no cards existing in Modern will be in Horizons. Which means no reprints. No reprints of Modern-legal cards in a set likely to inspire more excitement in the format than Modern Masters. Hell, barely less excitement than the announcement of the format itself. Furthermore, this is taking up the summer slot, which means no Battlebond or Conspiracy style set to sneak a few reprints into. Taken collectively, this is making existing Modern cards look real appetizing.

We’re starting with one of the biggest cards in the format, Mox Opal. Is there a card that costs more than Opal in Modern? It looks like just Jace. Liliana is close, but not quite there. Opal is an expensive card. Relative to Legacy it’s peanuts, where several format staples will run you a grand a copy. Still, a tough nut to swallow for aspiring, uhh, modernistas.

Well, I expect it to get worse. With no meaningful reprint venue this year, Opal is already ahead of the pack on dynamism. You’ll find it in both major flavors of affinity, Laternless, and a variety of other fringe strategies. No matter what Modern looks like, someone is going to be shoving a bunch of artifacts in their deck to take advantage of Opal. And now, as everyone gets excited about the format again, it’s likely there will refreshed enthusiasm for one of Modern’s most singularly powerful cards.

Between Scars of Mirrodin and Modern Masters 2017 there’s not a deep supply, and even shallower under $90. You’ll find a few sets, maybe? Then a few more up to $100, and then assorted beyond that. Without additional supply — and where’s it coming from? — Opal is poised to hit $150 this year.

Chalice of the Void

Price Today: $40
Possible Price: $90

Basically take everything I wrote about Opal and read it here too. It’s just short of being the most-played artifact in the format — that distinction is held by Aether Vial — showing up in a wide range of main decks and sideboards. And as the format gets lower, faster, and and more efficient, the value of Chalice rises, as a greater and greater percentage of spells in the format cost one or two, the ‘chalice numbers.’

I especially like Chalice because it’s unlikely Horizons is going to slow down Modern. Why would it? If they printed 250 cards that were a turn and a half slower than the existing format, the format simply wouldn’t change. No, they’re giving us some juice, and unless this release is paired with a B&R update that takes fifteen cards out of the format, it’s only going to pull decks closer to the ground.

Which is a disappointment, really. When Modern began you could attempt some truly ludicrous crap, and it was fine, because everyone was running around trying to win with Endless Whispers or whatever. Those decks were never good, mind you, but at least you could try them and they didn’t seem so offensively bad that you felt the need to use anime sleeves just to draw attention to an even greater atrocity in an attempt to distract from the fact that you were playing a veritable pile. Now, casting a spell that costs three is dangerous. I miss the loose, anything-goes sensation of Modern. I guess I’m just waiting for NuModern at this point.

Anyways, Chalice. Supply is healthy, with printings in Mirrodin, Modern Masters, and Masters 25. We don’t need to drain the supply in order for prices to move though. Once a few sets at $40 start selling it’s likely vendors will begin raising prices.

Fatestitcher

Price Today: $2
Possible Price: $9

I’ll go a slightly different direction for my last card this week. In 14th place of a recent MTGO Modern event was a Jeskai Ascendancy build that utilized, what else, Arclight Phoenix. This build appears to be less all-in than the old builds, which sought to power up a lethal Grapeshot. This build instead utilizes Phoenixes and a few Young Pyromancers to take advantage of a smaller number of Ascendancy triggers, maybe five, to quickly ramp to lethal. I’m amused, and it would be cool to see this become more than a one-event deck.

Those of you that have been around a few years will recognize the name Fatestitcher, and will likely recall Glittering Wish as well. Back when Ascendancy was printed this deck exploded into Modern, with turn two kills theoretically possible. (Back then it played Noble Hierarch to set up a turn three Ascendancy, which could then be activated with the then-legal Gitaxian Probe, which untapped your Hierarch, at which point you went ham. Cool deck.) Fatestitcher got caught up and moved a bunch of copies, and has since trickled back into the market as Ascendancy mostly disappeared. This recent success opens the door to a return of Fatestitcher, and let me tell you, available supply will not support a surge here. There’s maybe 20 playsets on the open market? At $2, this will absolutely disappear if the greater community gets a whiff of it being good. Remember, Fatestitcher has one single printing, which makes it somewhat of a rarity in today’s Magic. Should this deck catch on — which I am by no means implying it will — these will be gone in minutes.

Travis Allen has  been playing Magic: The Gathering since 1994, mostly in upstate New York. Ever since his first FNM he’s been trying to make playing Magic cheaper, and he first brought his perspective to MTGPrice in 2012. You can find his articles there weekly, as well as on the podcast MTG Fast Finance. [/hide]

By: Travis Allen
@wizardbumpin

Don’t miss this week’s installment of the MTG Fast Finance podcast, an on-topic, no-nonsense tour through the week’s most important changes in the Magic economy.

This weekend was, as they say, a “big get.” Autumn Burchett took down the first Mythic Championship (despite player stat screens with claims they had won several in the past). As Magic’s first non-binary champion, this win means a lot of things to a lot of people, which was evident when Autumn was nearly bowled over as their friends rushed the stage within seconds of Ikawa extending the hand. Rarely, even at the top level of the game, is such emotion evident at the moment of major victory. That it was is a testament to the cultural significance of the moment for a group historically underrepresented. Victories like these – where the narrative matters more than the trophy – are lasting successes for not just the individual, but for the greater Magic community.

It was still Standard though, and other than Kaya maybe gaining a few bucks, it was mostly irrelevant as far as we’re concerned.

Requiem Angel (Foil)

Price Today: $1
Possible Price: $5

I’m a bit shocked I’m writing about Requiem Angel this week, if only because I would have expected expected the price on her to have already moved. Angel is seemingly the most popular card in Teysa lists, the current hottest commander. In a deck packed as densely as possible with cards that give you a sacrifice outlet, and that pay you for sacrificing, cards that generate bodies that you’re actually happy to have die are few and far between. Angel does a lot of work here, giving you a stream of tokens that feed the engine.

Dark Ascension is the only foil printing of Angel, and there’s only one other printing anyways, Commander 2014. You’ll find roughly the supply you’d expect for a card from this era with a single printing and low-ish previous demand; about 30 vendors with maybe twice as many copies. That isn’t a glut of supply, but on the other hand, these aren’t going to be gone in 12 hours.

At under $1 each, it’s hard to feel like you can go wrong here. With a reprint in a Commander product, there’s precedent for using that as the reprint venue, should they choose to again. That doesn’t rule out other ancillary product, like the upcoming Modern set. We can be relatively confident in our foils though, especially if she makes it through the Modern product unscathed. After that, it’s just a matter of letting Teysa’s popularity continue to strain the supply. Forty people picking up a foil Angel pushes this price into the several dollar range easily, at which point you can buylist your $1 copies for $4 store credit and move on to something new.

Yahenni, Undying Partisan (Foil)

Price Today: $4
Possible Price: $9

If I had to pick a card that was surprisingly popular, it would be Yahenni. Yahenni has found his way into just about 7,500 lists on EDHREC. That’s an awesomely impressive number for a card from Kaladesh. That’s roughly the 75th most popular black card in the format. For context, that’s right about where Rise of the Dark Realms and Puppeteer Clique land. If you’ve played much EDH, you know those two are across from you at the table regularly.

Yahenni, like Requiem Angel, has found new purpose in Teysa. As a sacrifice outlet, he gives you on-demand, free sacrifices. Just last week I talked about how useful that functionality is, so if you want to read it, take a gander at that article. Beyond that, he grows as your opponent’s threats die, which, depending on the board state, can be many triggers quickly. As far as cake icing goes, that sac outlet making him indestructible is certainly sweet. In the face of a typical sweeper, you can lift your entire board up, piece by piece, getting plenty of value along the way, and find yourself with a fat partisan on the other side of things.

Popularity has pulled Yahenni’s price up to about $4 already, and that’s ‘with Teysa demand still new. He’s far too new to see a reprint, and given the pace EDH players build decks, it will be some number of weeks or months before Teysa demand for singles wanes. That won’t hamper growth though, as he was clearly popular even before this commander. I’d be shocked if you couldn’t get $10 for a foil copy before the end of this year.

Sunbird’s Invocation

Price Today: $4.50
Possible Price: $9

I stumbled across Jodah, Archmage Eternal while doing some other research, and it turns out he’s been doing well lately. Over the last month he’s the seventh most popular commander, which is a strong position. It’s also just outside of the typical three or four spots we’re more likely to focus on. Anywhere in the top 10 or 15 of the month is still a lot of attention, as that extrapolates out to the entire EDH deck building community.

It’s easy to see why Invocation would be popular in Jodah. Jodah is all about casting massive spells for much cheaper than you should. Invocation pays you for the CMC of those spells, not what you paid, so playing ten mana spells means you’re likely to get a eight or nine mana spell for free right after. Getting 17 mana worth of spells for five total mana is awfully tempting. You can make up Sunbird’s entire mana cost in a single cast. Of course, it’s useful elsewhere too, but decks that let you cast big spells for less mana is where Invocation shines.

Browsing SCG, you’ll see Invocation is in roughly the same boat as Angel and Yahenni. Supply is in the same general range, and we’re not worried about a foil reprint anytime soon. Demand should be relatively consistent for awhile, given that Jodah isn’t a brand new commander, so attrition should pull a few copies out of the market a week. Again, like the other two, a few months should pull enough copies off the market that the last few cheap copies get snapped up, and we’re looking at a double digit foil price.

Travis Allen has been playing Magic: The Gathering since 1994, mostly in upstate New York. Ever since his first FNM he’s been trying to make playing Magic cheaper, and he first brought his perspective to MTGPrice in 2012. You can find his articles there weekly, as well as on the podcast MTG Fast Finance.