Travis Allen has been playing Magic on and off since 1994, and got sucked into the financial side of the game after he started playing competitively during Zendikar. You can find his daily Magic chat on Twitter at @wizardbumpin. He currently resides in upstate NY, where he is a graduate student in applied ontology.
Validation comes in two forms; emotional and material. When I was telling my local GP-winning friend, MTG Fast Finance co-host James Chillcott, and pro Magic player Dan Fournier all that I thought Hogaak looked like something special, they were dubious all. “You guys,” I’d exclaim, “it’s an 8/8 trample for sort-of free. Somehow, that is going to matter.” Each one of them blew me off. Now, with Hogaak taking something like four of the top eight slots of this weekend’s Modern Challenge, I’m feeling quite validated. That’s the emotional side. The material side would have been buying them for $1 each five days ago and selling them for $20 or $40 or whatever nonsense they are today. Hindsight is 20/20, they say. I wish I were dead, they also say.
The rest of this content is only visible to ProTrader members.
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.
An exciting day today for Magic fans, although not in the same way it’s been for the last three weeks. We got two announcements today. The “London” mulligan rule that was previewed at the last Pro Tour is becoming permanent, with no changes, across all formats starting this summer. (We’ll talk a little bit more about that below.) Second, Netflix has announced an anime MTG project, spearheaded by the Russo brothers, of Avengers fame. Making the London mulligan rule official is going to have a quick impact on several card prices, and more over the next few months, as it settles into place, but that’s nothing compared to what the Netflix announcement could mean if the series is popular and drives a swarm of new players into the game.
Splendid Reclamation (Foil)
Price Today: $6.50 Possible Price: $15
Modern Horizons brought a ‘lands matter’ theme to the table, which we haven’t seen in earnest since, uh, Zendikar? And on top of that, they juiced the theme. Rioters is a legit card that will kill people in one shot, Wrenn and Six is the very first playable two-mana walker, and some of the other cards will have applications across a variety of formats as well. Inclusion of ‘lands matter’ has been well received, and between that and the cycling lands, Life from the Loam nearly doubled in price, and Lord Windgrace took the top spot as the most popular commander of the week.
With Lord Windgrace having such a great week on the back of Modern Horizons spoilers, I went looking for opportunity there, and to no surprise, I found some. Splendid Reclamation is the mass reanimation spell for lands from Eldritch Moon, a card that tickled our collective fancies when it was spoiled a few years ago. I had daydreams of it being a new and better Scapeshift, and while that hasn’t come to pass, EDH has certainly adopted the card. You’ll find it in nearly 7,000 decks on EDHREC right now, and that number will assuredly grow with each passing day.
Supply on foil Splendid Reclamations is mediumish, with about 50 or so pack foils at TCGPlayer right now, and another 20 in prerelease foils. Of course, more than half of that is at $8 or more, so some of your work is already done for you if you’re getting in at $6 or $6.50. With Windgrace’s continued popularity in EDH, where he sits in the top five or ten most popular commanders every week, and the upcoming addition of more fun ‘lands matter’ cards in Horizons, supply should start to drain at a brisk rate.
Eldritch Evolution (Foil)
Price Today: $15 Possible Price: $30
As mentioned above, WotC officially announced that the London mulligan rule is going permanent. Almost immediately Dan Fournier, talented Magic pro, MTG Fast Finance guest, and comrade made a comment that he’s glad he already has his Allosaurus Riders. When I asked him about the Allosaurus Riders/Neoform deck, his exact response was “its pretty unplayable without, and pretty unbeatable with, the london mulligan [rule].” Well, ok. It sounds like Neoform decks are going to be at the tables in the near future, at least at the outset. Will they perform? Hard to say, but that’s a strong statement from a knowledgeable player.
Given that, where do we go? There’s several components of the deck worth considering, but this isn’t a brand new concept. Allosaurus Rider spiked when Neoform was spoiled. Copies are around $10 right now, and honestly are possibly going to double, but that’s a real big gamble to take. If you’re testing the deck and finding it as good as advertised with the London mulligan rule, then by all means, jump in, but without that sort of research, I’d stay away. Chancellor of the Tangle is another potential target, but the supply runs deep. I find Eldritch Evolution to be the most appealing at the moment. It’s one of the eight combo pieces required to go off, and has significant crossover appeal with both other Modern decks, and EDH, where it’s reported in over 6,000 lists.
As the demand for Evolution is distributed, this is sort of a split play. If the Neoform deck really does see any play, we can expect these relatively affordable foils to move. At the same time, people are going to keep wanting copies for EDH, and the supply isn’t deep at all. Between those two factors, I anticipate copies bleeding off somewhere between “overnight” and “a few months.”
Paradox Engine
Price Today: $35 Possible Price: $60
This is certainly the most speculative purchase on this list. Paradox Engine is absurdly popular in EDH, to the point that it may be in discussion as a possible ban target. Until it is banned though, it’s going to be in a lot of decks (13,000 as of today). It’s also a great casual card, where players perpetually live in magical christmas land.
Why talk about it today? Urza, Lord High Artificer. He well may be the strongest card in Modern Horizons for Modern, which is definitely saying something. Turning all your artifacts into mana rocks is no joke, and his Mind’s Desire ability stapled onto the card is a solid win condition, as it lets you cast every spell in your deck should you happen to find infinite mana. Oh, how do you make infinite mana? Well probably with several artifacts and Paradox Engine. It’s possible Urza may lead to another Eggs style deck, as a replacement for Krark-Clan Ironworks. Instead of building loops to sacrifice your artifacts to generate mana, you resolve Urza, tap all your Wellsprings for mana, cast Paradox Engine, resolve one more Bauble, and you’re off to the races.
On top of that there’s EDH, where Urza is going to draw a solid cross-section of Vorthos’ and Mels, who love that they finally get to have Magic’s in-universe grandfather, possibly the most iconic figure in all of Magic lore, as their commander; spikes, who see Urza as an inherently busted commander; and Johnnys, who see a cool combo card and were building some Rube Goldberg ass machines in their heads as soon as the spoiler popped up.
With a price tag of $35 to $40, buy-in is not cheap. At the same time, that price tag is supported completely on casual play and existing EDH demand. How much will Urza push Engine in two formats, one that it’s completely new to? I don’t know, but Doubling Season has been a $60+ card with a reprint or two in the past.
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.
Modern Horizons spoilers have been going bananas. This set is not disappointing. Wizards has managed to include cards for both Urza and Yawgmoth, two new allied color swords, the return of snow, squirrels, and ninjas, forty-something keywords, an insane new Sliver legend, and plenty more. Specs have been going bananas too, and we’re going to have way too many cards to discuss while recording @mtgfastfinance tonight. And this is just the beginning. Once the set is fully spoiled, there will be months of people finding and exploring deck designs that unlock even more cards.
Second Chance
Price Today: $8 Possible Price: $25
Disclosure: I’ve got a chunk of these laying around.
Many of the new cards have caught my attention. Some are intriguing, but I’m not sure what to make of them. Some I can plainly tell are quite powerful, but I haven’t found the other half of the equation. And some I find the answer on social media almost immediately, and just say “yep.”
Hall of Heliod’s Generosity is a great utility land that’s going to find homes in EDH right off the bat. For two mana you get to put an enchantment card back on top of your library. People are going to be flipping Ghostly Prisons and Doubling Seasons and Omnisciences left and right. Why wouldn’t they be? You always have the choice to, instead of drawing a random card, draw the best enchantment in your graveyard each turn. That’s going to come up often.
The juice comes from Second Chance, an enchantment that sacrifices itself. To what end? Why, to get you an extra turn. And what do you do on that extra turn? Why, put Second Chance back on top of your library! Once you’re fateful hour’d, you can recur Second Chance every turn for a hard lock. From there, you can win at your leisure.
Second Chance’s biggest barrier is that it’s not legal in Modern. Our applications are limited to EDH, Legacy, and the kitchen table. And at 127 current decks in EDH, there isn’t exactly seething demand for it there. In this case, I see that as a silver lining though. There’s virtually no EDH demand for Second Chance right now. What about after a land has been printed that a huge percent of white decks will want to include anyways, that happens to set up an infinite-turn combo under specific circumstances? People that would have passed on it before may swing back around and toss it in, since while it wasn’t good enough on its own, it’s definitely above the cut once you can accidentally walk backwards into a combo.
With supply low and prices in the $7 to $8 range, there’s already some latent demand. Adding this land may fuel the fires in a few spots, and it doesn’t take much to kick Reserve List cards off.
Academy Rector
Price Today: $55 Possible Price: $100
I stumbled upon Rector while looking for cards related to Heliod’s land, and while it’s not exactly going to pop in response, our old buddy the rector is still well positioned. Heliod’s Hall will make its way into plenty of decks where its marginal, and in response, pilots may be inclined to shore up the enchantment theme. It won’t take much either; if you’ve got three decent enchantments in your deck and you want to play Hall, but don’t want it to feel like a waste most of the time, what can you do without adding nine more enchantments? How about you toss in Rector? It’s a single card, but now all your tools for searching for and recurring creatures apply to one that then goes on to find one of your three great enchantments. You’ll go from playing roughly one a game to playing your three enchantments six times a game, just by adding Hall and Rector.
Rector rates at about half the popularity of Grim Monolith, a card of similar age. Grim Monolith is colorless, so of course is viable in every EDH deck that exists, relative to Rector, which can only land in white decks. They both end up at roughly 3% usage, which I’m a bit surprised by. That tells me a two things. Despite costing nearly $200, Grim Monolith sees just as much play as a card that costs less than $60. And Monolith, a generic mana rock, currently costs nearly three times as much as Rector. Both of these point to Rector being underpriced at $60, especially with a new tool for enchantment decks coming shortly.
Also good luck with foils, they’re nearly a grand. If that upsets you, consider how I feel, having found a TCG email stating that I sold four foil Rectors for $80 each three years ago.
Worm Harvest (Foil)
Price Today: $1 Possible Price: $8
One card that’s wrinkling my brain today is Ruination Rioter. His on-death trigger targets anyone with damage, and if you do some work, a LOT of damage. Imagine you’ve got five, nine, or even fifteen lands in your graveyard. You put Rioter on the stack. Without a counterspell in hand, what’s your opponent’s choice? Once it resolves it’s a ticking time bomb, and their only outs are exiling your graveyard and pathing it. Threatening a bolt the whole time reminds me of playing with Shrine of Burning Rage, a card that constantly gave me conniptions during Scars of Mirrodin Standard.
Anyways, I like Rioter, and went looking for ways to make it work. Along the way I stopped on Lord Windgrace’s EDH page, and felt compelled to check out Worm Harvest. The numbers on this guy are tempting. Eventide foils are completely out of stock on TCGPlayer, with the last sold copy at $10. Modern Masters, the only other foil reprint, has less than 20 copies available, most around $1 to $2. It’s going to take one person doing a pass on this to empty inventory and set prices on MMA foils at $6 or more.
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.
Now is what we’ve all been waiting for. War of the Spark was a fun diversion, what with the story culmination and pile of planeswalkers, but we all knew that was the appetizer. WAR was for cosplayers and kitchen table games. Modern Horizons is the entree, the real meat and potatoes. 254 cards are about to get dumped into Modern, and what sets this apart from every Standard set is that those 254 cards are specifically for Modern. Not “we crafted this Standard set and also the cards are legal elsewhere,” but “here are 254 new tools chosen exactly for this specific format.” Modern is in for an upheaval, and it’s going to be fun. (Especially if they reprint Upheaval.)
The rest of this content is only visible to ProTrader members.
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.
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