By: Cliff Daigle

Last week I didn’t have the whole spoiler, so today, before you prerelease, I want to remind you to trade everything away. People will pay/trade more for these cards right now than they will at any other point.

Now, on to the rest of the cards I want to talk about. Mostly I’m basing my price predictions on their casual appeal, and if something gets popular in Constructed, expect a strong surge.

Archangel of Tithes
There are two equally annoying modes on this card and unfortunately, Tax decks are a thing, usually led by the Grand Arbiter Augustin IV in Commander.

This might have a place in a white devotion strategy, or some other deck. It combines can’t-attack and can’t-block effects, but instead of paying two or more mana, it’s just one.

I doubt this will ever be worth much more than a $4.

 

Woodland Bellower  
Value comes in many shapes and sizes. This gets you a range of things, but I imagine that in Commander especially, this will fetch up Eternal Witness pretty often. I wouldn’t overlook what Riftsweeper can do if people like to exile your pretty toys.

Also note that you can find anything that’s even partially green. Savage Knuckleblade, Knight of the Reliquary, Shambling Shell…whatever you need.

I think this has potential to keep a decent amount of value. I’m expecting it to stay in the $5-$10 range.

 

Ghirapur Aether Grid
This is the combo piece that a lot of casual decks have been craving, even if they didn’t know it. This will be a card with a higher-than-expected foil price for solely that reason. A surprising number of decks in a lot of formats don’t know what to do once they make 5,000 Myr tokens. The Grid allows for the game to instantly end, which is often a blessing in disguise.

Even foils of this uncommon won’t be worth much more than two dollars, unless there’s yet another infinite combo deck in Modern that exploits it.

 

Willbreaker
Key here is the targeting clause. It’s not just spells. It’s abilities as well. I am drooling to get one of these into my Experiment Kraj EDH deck and if someone at my prerelease opens a foil of this I’m going to overpay badly.

This is probably a bulk rare and a five-dollar foil. Too much has to go right for this to be good, but that’s never stopped us.

 

Herald of the Pantheon
As an enabler, this fits right into any Enchantress deck in any format. Amusingly, those decks tend to get stuck on mana, not cards, and the life gain is a handy bonus too. Still, it’s a minor cog and won’t ever have a huge price.

 

Erebos’s Titan
It’s sort of a shame that Wizards is stopping core sets right when they decided to use those sets to supercharge the soon-to-be-rotating block. It might just be coincidence, as Theros is featured in KG’s backstory.

The Titan has a lot of potential and requires multiple readings to get right. What isn’t clear is if cubes want this or Phyrexian Obliterator for their mono-black aggro decks. There’s a long and awesome history of four-drop 5/5 creatures in black, and this one has two upsides! Not to be overlooked is how this survives Languish in Origins Limited or control shells in Constructed.

As for its price, it’s going to see a fair amount of play in a lot of formats. I would expect this to start high and trickle down slowly over time.

 

Hangarback Walker
By itself, this card isn’t terribly impressive. Two mana for each +1/+1 counter is rather meh, even if there’s good value to be had when it dies.

A little help makes it amazing, though. Doubling Season is the granddaddy of them all. Season on five means Hangarback Walker for six mana and six counters, then twelve tokens. Ding! Parallel Lives, Gilder Bairn, even Hardened Scales will help this be better than its bulk price.

 

Evolutionary Leap
I am not overwhelmed with this card. Everything depends on what you find, though it wouldn’t be too hard to build a deck where everything entered the battlefield, or left it, for value. I’d love to see this chained a few times and then reloaded with Second Sunrise or the like. Bulk rare.

 

Talent of the Telepath
I don’t like to use the term ‘staple’ for EDH or Cube, as there’s a lot of ways to build your experience. However, almost everyone builds a ‘stop hurting yourself’ sort of deck that uses your opponents’ overpowered cards against them. Bribery is the oldest and most feared (target the Kaalia of the Vast player, get Iona, Shield of Emeria) and Knowledge Exploitation costs seven mana. Talent is more random in its payoff but it costs significantly less and might even get you two copies. Now if you’re play in this alongside Hive Mind in a Riku of Two Reflections deck…I’m going to to go make a sandwich while you figure out who does what first.

This will not be a bulk rare, more like $1-$2, and likely $6 in foil.

 

Pyromancer’s Goggles
This is amazing. Just amazing. Normally you have to do a lot of work to copy spells, like get Riku of Two Reflections to survive. The Goggles pay you off easily and almost immediately. Suddenly, Lightning Bolt is a great card to hold till turn five, when you can double up on it. This is another card that doesn’t require mono-red spells, either. Invoke the Firemind is my first thought, but there’s all sorts of great spells to copy.

I wouldn’t be surprised if this popped up as a fun-of in Legacy or Modern. It’s true that more people maindecking Kolaghan’s Command makes the Goggles a weaker inclusion, but how much value do you get if you’re copying your own Command?

This is going to be $3-$5 in regular and more than $20-$25 in foil all summer long. The prices will creep down, but if an Eternal deck does well with it, it’ll spike pretty hard.

 

Demonic Pact
People are brewing in lots of formats with this humdinger of a Donate target, and it’s tricky to evaluate. In cube, it’s unlikely to see play, but there are all sorts of Jinxed Idol/Bazaar Trader/Zedruu the Greathearted decks out there. I see this as another $5 card with a big premium on the foil, $15-$20.

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By: Cliff Daigle

Magic Origins has some cards that will impact more formats than Constructed. We don’t have the full spoiler yet, (though it might even be released by the time this is posted) but I want to go over some of the cards that you’ll see a lot of in Cubes, Commander, and other kitchen table formats.

Elemental Bond

Let’s start with the doozy. This is a hammer of a card in any green deck, and this has some Standard potential. Imagine this in decks that loop Den Protector and Deathmist Raptor?

Commander has had assorted versions of this card for some time. Garruk’s Companion is the direct comparison, and that’s a card that enables all sorts of shenanigans. Trust me on this: There’s no card that I love seeing more than Garruk’s little buddy in any green deck, and this new enchantment is cheaper and harder to kill.

This will never be terribly expensive, but the foils will have a surprising premium, likely about $5.

Sphinx’s Tutelage

One of the things that makes Psychosis Crawler a surprising card at a dollar is that it takes something you love doing (drawing cards) and turning it into a weapon against other players. Tutelage will take longer than Crawler will, under most circumstances, but people love their mill decks.

I think that this will go a long, long way, in casual games and in finance. It’s a strategy and a win condition that only asks you to draw cards, something blue decks want to do and are very good at.

The foils will also have a higher premium, probably about $3.

Dwynen, Gilt-Leaf Daen

Yet another legendary elf lord and this one is good but not overpowering. It’ll show up in elf Commander decks as a mass booster, but it’s more about value than power with this card. Gaining a bunch of life is good, but attacking with a lot of elves likely means you were going to win anyway.

Still, it’s a legendary elf. That will help its price some but not much, since it is the foil rare in the green intro pack. Don’t expect the card or the foil to break $2.

Pia and Kiran Nalaar

Chandra’s parents make for an interesting card. You get four power and toughness for your four mana, some of it flying and some of it able to be used for Shock value. This is both better and worse than the ability of Bosh, Iron Golem but there’s a lot to do in red artifact decks. I’m looking forward to the eventual cycle of four-color legends, as the one without green enables a great set of artifacts in a Commander deck.

This is another foil inclusion for the Intro packs, unfortunately for their price. I suspect that while there is more demand for this card than for Dwyen, there simply will be too many foils out there to keep the price high. This will max out at $3.

Blessed Spirits

I have a suspicion that this will be a card sought after in foil. The card is negligible in its power level, but the art and the story makes this card inhabit a unique space.

As a father of two, I confess I find this a bit creepy. I suppose I do prefer happy ghosts of children to graphically dead ones, but they are a bit unnerving in looking that way.

Much like Gift of Orzhova, I think this will have a surprisingly high premium on the foils. I’d expect it to be around $4, but not less than $2. There won’t be much long-term potential for growth, nor will there be huge demand.

  

Kothoped, Soul Hoarder, Alhammarret and the Hixus, Prison Warden

These are the other intro pack foils and they will be lucky to get to $2. None of them is particularly overpowering in casual formats in terms of what they do. They are unique, yes, but the casting costs and ubiquity will prevent them from being financially relevant.

Languish

This has potential. Black isn’t lacking for sweepers but it’s nice to be spoiled for choice. A lot of Cubes will seize on this as an alternative to Damnation, at least until it comes down in price.

Managorger Hydra

In case you haven’t ever played against it, Taurean Mauler is definitely a card but it is infinitely chump-blocked.

I love it when people say “it dies to removal” as a rebuttal for big creatures. If your deck is full of threats that must be answered, then eventually, there are no more answers.

Managorger Hydra will never have a big price but it will show up in all sorts of casual formats.

Tainted Remedy

False Cure is a supremely awesome “Gotcha!” card. Tainted Remedy loses the surprise factor but lifelink isn’t optional. I don’t think this will make it into Cubes but there are a lot of Commander groups that will play this in the 99.

I confess I’d be more likely to play something like Erebos, God of the Dead for the multi-function utility, but if you know people that like to go off with Sanguine Bond and Exquisite Blood, this might be the enchantment you need.

Flameshadow Conjuring

This is an incredible card for Commander. We have had versions of this effect before (Minion Reflector) but Commander is where we love to jam value creature cards. There are blessed few creatures worth playing that don’t enter the battlefield with a good effect.

I’ve written before about my almost-all-creature deck, and this card is fighting for a place in that deck. It’s cheap but only for decks with red, which limits it somewhat.

I would expect this to be slightly above bulk rare in price, but the foil will be around $4-$5 because of people like me.

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By: Cliff Daigle

First of all, thank you to everyone who responded well to last week’s Father’s Day piece. It meant a lot to me to read all the positive feedback.

So here we are, the last Core Set until the next time that Wizards rearranges things. It’s hard to believe, but it was 2009 that we were given Magic 2010, which was aligned with Zendikar, widely considered the one-two punch that brought Magic its current ridiculous and so far sustained growth.

In a way, I’m sad. Core sets became a fun combination of the old and the new. Mechanics could be expanded on without needing a whole block (bloodthirst!) and certain cards could be proven as amazing in a variety of strategies, perhaps most notably Tormented Soul as an enabler for exalted decks one year and bloodthirst the next.

We also missed out on being able to call a set “M16” and that’s just a missed opportunity for unamusing mixups with people who have no idea what’s being discussed.

This week, though, I want to focus on the five origin-story planeswalkers, and see where they will end up.

 

Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy // Jace, Telepath Unbound

First of all, Tibalt set a very low bar for two-mana planeswalkers. Jace, as a looter, is already better than Tibalt and pretty good as looters go. It’s only two mana, which cannot be overstated. It’s cheap and easy at 1U.

The synergy of his abilities, and his loyalty, is what’s impressive. I do not find it hard to believe that Jace can be flipped on his first activation, what with cards like Thought Scour, fetchlands, and Satyr Wayfinder around. His loyalty is also an impressive five to start, but if you’re only filling your graveyard with Jace’s effect, five loyalty on turn seven is a lot less noteworthy.

I also really like how planeswalkers are getting “Until your next turn…” abilities as opposed to “Until end of turn…” because it highlights the difference in power of planeswalkers vs. creatures. Saltfield Recluse is a surprisingly hard card to play around in combat, and Jace’s plus ability is on a par with that, even with the lack of instant-speed interaction.

I see this sixth version of Jace as an easy fit into most Cubes, and lots of EDH decks. I would be surprised if he was more than a niche player in Standard, but I wouldn’t rule out free re-use of spells in the graveyard in Eternal. Unlikely, yes, but I can see him as a ‘fun-of’ in some Delver decks. His price will probably not go below $10.

 

 

Kytheon, Hero of Akros // Gideon, Battle-Forged

Oh, Savannah Lions. You were once a rare, and no upside was needed. Now, there’s no shortage of 2/1 creatures with abilities for one mana, and your time has passed.

KG here is going to go right into every Cube with an aggressive white deck. He’s surprisingly tricky to flip, as he needs the right combination of attackers into blockers or open mana for his activated ability. Once flipped, though, he plays merry hell with your opponent’s plans.

He’s got two plus abilities, the first of which unfondly reminds me of the first time he was printed. Also, here’s our second “Until your next turn…” ability and it’s a bit tricky. Using this before combat doesn’t grant vigilance, using it afterwards means you have a creature that can live through combat…so you’re likely winning anyway.

KG (I hope this nickname sticks!) is going into Cubes, as I said. His +1 is going to be sneaky-relevant in Commander too, and there will be no shortage of him at kitchen tables everywhere. I think his price matches that of Jace.

 

 

Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh // Chandra, Roaring Flame

This is a stunning, stunning design. I think Chandra is easily the most Constructed-playable of these five and she is a must-kill threat in Standard. I would be a little surprised to see her in Modern or Legacy burn, but the potential is there.

It is not hard, at all, to imagine her played on three and flipping on turn four. When she’s flipped, she will have dealt three and add two more if you desire. Any red spell triggers her, not just instants or sorceries.

Cards like Gelectrode, Cinder Pyromancer, or Lobber Crew have always had potential to add damage to spells, but Chandra V is a level beyond that. She also jumps right into Cubes as a worthy addition to Burn archetypes and while her first two abilities aren’t going to be relevant in Commander, her ultimate hits everyone hard and must be respected.

I do not see Chandra at less than $20 for her lifespan in Standard. If she starts seeing Legacy or Modern play, she could be twice that.

 

 

Liliana, Heretical Healer // Liliana, Defiant Necromancer

This fourth iteration of Liliana is not as overtly powerful as any of her previous versions. Notably, she’s missing any way of killing creatures, though her transformation gives you an immediate blocker.

She could flip the turn she enters play, and that’s powerful in and of itself. I can’t find a creature right now that sacrifices for value, like Cartel Aristocrat, but the potential is there. Her abilities are nicely synergistic, but that emblem is amazing and a half. The emblem is going to be what decks are striving for in casual settings, and rightfully so.

She’s preordering for around $20, and that’s likely a bit high. Her flip condition is easy to meet and her abilities are worth protecting, so I’d expect to see her around $15.

 

 

Nissa, Vastwood Seer // Nissa, Sage Animist

I love this version of Nissa, but that’s not the same as saying she’s very good. This is the flip planeswalker that seems expressly designed for Commander, because she’s only good with lots of land. It’s very easy to generate seven mana, but having seven land is not what Constructed decks are designed to do. 

Let’s be clear: Coiling Oracle every turn is not among the most broken things to do in Commander. It’s a good thing to be doing, but the emblem and the legendary token are much less exciting. I am going to enjoy playing with Nissa, but Elemental Bond is going to draw players far more cards than Nissa will.

I believe that this will be the cheapest of the five, and not see much play outside of Commander. She’s not overtly powerful enough for most Cubes, as a 2/2 that finds you basic Forest is very meh. Remember, the land goes to your hand, not into play. Basics only, and not even directly into play.

Her price will reflect her lack of power: She’ll be under $10 by Halloween, and I suspect she’ll be nearly $5 by her rotation time.

Some other thoughts:

I’m treating the two unofficially spoiled ones (Jace and Nissa) as the truth, and if they aren’t the real deal, I accept the mistake.

Also, if these five are indeed the SDCC promos, that puts a larger number of them out there for the collectors and the magpies who need special shiny versions of cards for Cubes and EDH. (I’m one of them!) Don’t overlook the value of having the SDCC versions out there, putting a cap on the individual foil prices.

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By: Cliff Daigle

First of all, Happy Father’s Day to my dad and all the MTG Dads out there!

One of the themes of this game is that it grows when we teach someone how to play it. Some people never find a teacher, they learn via Duels of the Planeswalkers and then Magic Online, but most of us learned from one person or a group of people, others who enjoyed the game and cared about it enough to spread it.

For a couple of years now, I’ve had one thought percolating in my head: How am I going to teach my two daughters how to play? When should I do it?

More recently, the thought has switched: Should I teach them?

My daughters are both under the age of three. This is not a question I have to answer soon, but I have two very conflicting views.

Personally, Magic has been amazing. I’ve met new people, I’ve had financial success with the cards, and there’s been countless hours that were just fun, because of this game.

But there’s a side that is more worrisome. Think about the last FNM you were at. Perhaps it was a Grand Prix, or an SCG Open, or a TCG Diamond event, or any Magic tournament. How many people there acted like winning at Magic was the defining quality of their worth as a person? If they won their match, the feeling was that they were the best in the world, the master of all they surveyed.

If they lost, they went on a tirade against luck, against the winner’s poor play, against the air conditioner working too well or not enough, etc. Maybe they look through the match and say “Of course they had a counter/pump spell!! How could I have missed the signals!?”

Is that the person I am? Is that the person I want my daughters to become?

How am I going to teach my daughters to play this game that I love so much?

Should I teach them? I’ve been thinking a lot about whether I should, because there is a significant number of Magic players who will look down on them for being female. I’m not trying to shame anyone, but let’s be realistic: You likely know someone who takes a loss harder from a woman than they would from a man.

My wife plays Magic, and I’ve seen the reactions of people who are seriously overreacting to losing to her. Would they be as salty if they had lost to me and not to her? Will they attribute losing to me as a lack of skill, whereas my daughter winning will be a matter of bad luck?

Let’s be honest for a moment. You probably know someone who, if they sit down to play a woman in a Magic event, they think, “I’ll beat her easily!” You might even have had this thought.

In all honesty, I have had those thoughts, to my everlasting shame.

I’ve been at enough events, large and small, to hear the talk and catch the conversations about how women there look. I’ve heard the derogatory comments and the snide remarks.

I’ve said nothing. By remaining silent, I’m contributing to the problem.

When you got ready to attend a large event, did you think about your makeup? Did you have to devote time to fixing and maintaining your hair? Were you forced to wonder how many of your opponents would be looking down your shirt?

It’s not acceptable to presume anything based on a person’s appearance. Someone at a Grand Prix wearing sweats and flip-flops isn’t automatically going to smell bad and have limited social skills.

I’ve seen women who don’t want to be involved in the game but are still present, and I wonder how many men would do the same. Which of us would go on food runs, would sit by silent but supportive, who would sacrifice what they want to do in order to be there for a game they don’t understand to be played with people who can be quite unpleasant. 

I think that a lot of people, myself included, have taken the ones we care about for granted, and that’s something we should all reflect on.

I want my daughters to take as much joy in this game as I do. I’ve found some of my best friends through Magic, I’ve survived moves and other upheavals thanks to finding a new store to play at. I want them to develop a sense of confidence and insight by playing, just as I have.

But how do I do that?

For all that Magic has an awesome community, there are large and small forces at work. Body shaming is a thing, from taking pictures of buttcracks to a vicious set of Twitch comments about the winner of an SCG event. Even if those aspects are gone by the time my daughters are playing, how many gamers presume a level of inability from females?

Should I even worry about what those gamers are thinking?

At a store I used to go to, there was a man whose two children, a girl about eleven and a boy about eight (I think those were their ages, and if I’m wrong, I apologize) would be 3/8 of the draft pod. I would look at them and think of other activities I did and didn’t have with my family. How marvelously lucky he was, to not only play an awesome game, but to share that experience with those he loved most in the world.

My wife says I’m overthinking this. I want to shelter my daughters from even the spectre of negative experiences. Intellectually, I know I can’t spare them from the pain of the world, but that’s not the point.

She also points out that I wouldn’t be having the same set of worries if I had two sons instead of two daughters. She’s absolutely right. By thinking of my daughters as girls to be protected, I’m feeding into the same erroneous line of thinking. I would probably not be concerned for their mental state or their emotional health if they were boys. How ancient of me.

God help me, I’ve got enough anger issues to think about when it comes to my children. I’ve played out in my head what I’d do the first time some overbearing and belligerent jerk called out an error from my daughter and mocked her for it. Table-flipping may be an option.

What’s a father to do?

There’s always the option of letting them do the things they want to do. Ideally, I don’t even have to try to make it interesting to them. I’m a teacher; I know that trying to force interest onto a child is not going to go well. They just need to see my wife and I enjoying our games and they will follow along.

Maybe that’s the answer. Maybe I just let them be who they will be. Maybe they will be control players, who when they first see Dismiss they know there’s not a better spell to cast. Maybe they will be aggro, and have a Swiftspear tattoo someplace.

Maybe I’m just scared of all the things I don’t know.

Before I met my wife, before I had two beautiful yet frustrating children, I was really good at Magic. I was drafting twice to three times a week, all in person because I swore off MTGO. (50,000 cards that I have no hope of ever using or trading!)

This was way back, during Zendikar block. ELO ratings were the norm. I made the top 8 of a Zendikar sealed PTQ by maindecking Tajuru Archer, that silly ‘deal damage to flyers’ Ally who always killed turn two Welkin Tern. My rating was hopping between 1850 and 1900, and I was proud of making the top 100 in Limited play in my region. 

None of that mattered when I met my amazing wife, or when my children came along. I left that area, and a vibrant Magic scene, because my family was more important.

I constantly wonder about the home lives of pro Magic players. I know, for instance, that LSV has a wife and a day job, and that he’s able to travel to PTs and events and such with extra time for testing and planning. It’s not like the pros are all solitary hermits; they do have families.

I wouldn’t enjoy such separation, even with a top prize of $40,000 on the line. I can’t believe how much I love the stupid and silly little things about being a dad. The youngest is just starting to eat solid food, and she immediately groks how to use a spoon, causing my wife and I to grin at each other like loons.

I anticipate these little things and when they arrive, it’s like wheeling a card I wanted to first-pick..except it is far, far better. My daughter climbs up the slide, then turns around and sits down, sliding back down the way she came, and the only one happier about it than her is me!

Compared with that, hanging out in a giant hangar with 2,000 other gamers playing for a max prize of $4,000 (before taxes) isn’t that important.

I wasn’t prepared for how efficiently my brain rewired my sense of what is and isn’t important. Magic was paramount. And then, without fanfare, it wasn’t. I never had to choose between them. I wanted the time with my wife and my kids. Sure, I want to play more, but it’s the dessert now. It’s no longer all-consuming.

My wife is going to read that last sentence and laugh. I listen to podcasts, I write weekly, I trade cards online, I watch Magic matches on Twitch and Youtube whenever possible.

I might not play it as much, but Magic is still a big part of my life.

I am certain that my daughters will at least learn to play. I have a battle box in mind, a rough outline, but I won’t need to build it for a few years yet (and there are years of cards yet to be released!) so that’s not an immediate concern.

I do not believe that they, or anyone else, should have to tolerate foolish behavior from gamers of any gender, creed, or belief. It’s taking me years to clean up my language and my behavior, because they don’t yet understand how people can have different personalities depending on who they are around. You don’t need to hear specifics on how awful I can be, but I’m trying to be better.

What I am going to do, and what I’m asking you to do, is to make sure that when you play, you be competitive as the setting calls for, as serious as you want to be, without going overboard. I’m not asking you to just be nice to younger players, as that’s quite condescending. Magic’s competitive history is replete with examples of teenagers taking down big tournaments.

I’m asking you to treat your opponent, or your trading partner, or anyone, with the decency you would want given to your family, your loved ones, your children. Don’t presume anything about the other players. Don’t let your own issues override the enjoyment that someone else is seeking. It’s possible to lose and still have a good time at the event.

I am also asking you to tell people, especially your friends, when they are going too far. Call a judge when someone in a game is derisively snorting at a player’s mistakes. Tell your friend that yes, he’s being an asshole and that he needs to tone it down.

Magic is an easy game to lose at. Don’t make it a game about losing in life as well.

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