Today begins Players’ Tour Phoenix, a Pioneer event that promises to do two things:

1. Create calls for a card to be banned.
2. Spike the prices of some cards significantly.

Now, both points might apply to the same card; we can’t know for sure. What we do know is that a lot of Magic pros have taken the time to tell us what they are playing, and that offers some chances to get in on cheap cards before they get camera time, victories, trophies, and rise in price.

It’s not easy to make money off of cards in a weekend. You’re not trying to buy today and sell tomorrow. Too many people won’t ship the cards at the pre-spike price. What we’re doing is identifying value now, as Pioneer is an eternal format. If it’s good now, it’ll still be good when you sell in a week or two.

Mono-Black Aggro

There’s a lot to like in this list, but there’s two targets that stand out to me:

Bloodsoaked Champion ($2.50 nonfoil/$5 foil)

Scrapheap Scrounger (40 cents/$4)

These are recursive and aggressive threats that can close a game very very quickly. There’s other one-drops, but Champion is from much longer ago and Scrapheap is much cheaper. Both are played as the full four and I won’t fault you if the other cards catch your eye here.

These two cards represent the most potential profit, due to age or a low cost of entry. If this deck does well, I’d expect Champion to double to $5/$10 or so, and the Scrounger should become a $3/$7 card. 

Fatal Push is a card I want to love and a card I’ve made money on in the past, but it’s in the Mystery Boosters and I can’t condone buying in right now. It’s possible that this weekend, the card jumps from $5 to $10 on the back of being amazing, but we’re going to get a whole lot of copies coming when stores get to order Mystery boxes for in-store play in March. 

Castle Locthwain is another one to keep an eye on, as the graph has started to rise from maximum supply just a few weeks ago: 

If you want to get in on the Extended Art version around $11-$12, that’s certainly tempting too. It remains to be seen how prevalent foiling and using EA cards will be in Pioneer, whereas in Modern people do love their foils.

Mono-Black Vampires

This is a spicy one, full of card draw and synergies. I’m sad that Vampire Nocturnus is not quite Pioneer legal, but there’s a lot to like here. If you’re playing against a combo deck that stumbles, they are dead very very quickly. Sorin into Champion of Dusk is real and powerful. 

Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord ($12/$17)

Champion of Dusk ($1/$2.50)

These are the best two targets from this deck, mainly because there’s only the one printing of each. I’m delighted when a deck requires a playset of a mythic, makes me feel very good about my purchase. Yes, Sorin was a couple bucks cheaper a while ago, but he’s the key mythic in this deck and if it does well on camera, $25 is likely and $30 quite possible.

Champion of Dusk is a card that could hit $8 or $10 in foil in this circumstance, and if you’re buying in Friday morning at $10 for a foil playset, well, you’re going to feel very good about this. For both of these, I’d prefer to be in on the foils because there’s no EA versions to contend with and supply is much shallower on foils. There’s only about a hundred foils on TCG right now, and that includes Promo Pack foils and Prerelease foils. For a mythic that’s played as a four-of, that means only 25 people have to see Vampires do well and decide to jump in. 

Niv to Light

Oh, does this deck make me happy. Bring to Light is a card that I know I’ve mentioned before, and frankly, this is the best shell for it. You’ll get a 6/6 flyer and probably 2-4 cards if it resolves. Best of all, you’ve got a good chance of casting Bring to Light or Niv-Mizzet Reborn a turn or two early. 

Niv-Mizzet Reborn ($8/$17) and Bring to Light ($2/$7) are the big winners here, as the headliners for the deck. Sylvan Caryatid at $11/$18 is a bit high for my taste. I’m not worried about the supply of Niv due to War of the Spark uncut sheets, because there was only one Niv per sheet and getting a perfect cut out of one of those is HARD.

Dimir Inverter

Tons of words have been written about this deck, and I’ll be honest: I don’t like the odds that it survives the next set of bans. I cannot recommend buying into this deck, because of the difficulty interacting with these triggered abilities. Splinter Twin was easier to disrupt than Inverter into Oracle!

Lotus Breach Combo 

The deck a lot of pros are talking about, here’s a list courtesy of Pascal Vieren at HareuyaMTG that is using Underworld Breach, Lotus Field, and a lot of other fun choices to kill your opponent dead on turn three or four. It goldfishes very well, is amazingly redundant, and is another strong contender to get banned before too long. Interestingly, both this deck and Dimir Inverter use the either/or of Thassa’s Oracle and Jace, Wielder of Mysteries as the win condition. The JP version of Jace is $20/$80 on TCG, the Secret Lair stained glass version is $60, it’s a winner in Commander…but can the two decks using him survive the next bans unscathed?

I’ve spoken before about my love of the Breach, how it’s a combo card waiting for the right shell…and here it is. Underworld Breach is currently at $4/$7/$9 EA/$44 EA foil and given what this is doing in Pioneer, with that card pool, I am tempted to get in on the EA versions for Modern and Legacy play. How long till this is busted there too?

There’s other decks, like UW Spirits, UW Control, Heliod Combo…the list goes on. My sampling is just that, a few of the decks to watch for and prepare for. If I missed your favorite deck, feel free to call it out in the comments or let me know on Twitter, or perhaps in the ProTrader Discord channel.

Cliff (@WordOfCommander) has been writing for MTGPrice since 2013, and is an eager Commander player, Draft enthusiast, and Cube fanatic. A high school science teacher by day, he’s also the official substitute teacher of the MTG Fast Finance podcast. If you’re ever at a GP and you see a giant flashing ‘CUBE DRAFT’ sign, go over, say hi, and be ready to draft.

So this weekend, we get PT Brussels for Pioneer and then PT Nagoya for more Pioneer, and then Star City’s got coverage of a Team Constructed event, which is Standard/Pioneer/Modern.

That’s a lot of coverage, and only the draft portion of the PTs are in Limited formats. As a result, we’re going to see some cards move fast this weekend. Some may have started spiking by the time this goes up Friday morning, and if that’s true, I hope you’re able to get in cheap.

Elspeth, Sun’s Nemesis ($7)

Today I’m focusing on the regular card. No foils, no Extended Art or other Showcase. I think there’s value to be had here in the cheapest versions of cards, as I’m looking at their playability. I highlighted Elspeth two weeks ago as a preorder at $7 and my mind hasn’t changed: She’s too good to be this cheap. 

As a bonus, she’s going to have a year and a half to prove herself in any Constructed format before she rotates out of Standard, so buying in now is pretty darn safe even if this weekend isn’t immediately profitable for her. The Escape mechanic is tricky, and recursive cards like this almost always find a home. I want to have some copies on hand to sell into the hype when that hype train takes off.

Underworld Breach ($3.50)

I’m repeating myself and I don’t care. There are too many good combos with this card and it’s going to get broken in half. If you want to go for the Extended Art at $9 I won’t fault you, but I’d prefer picking up a lot at $3.50 and buylisting them away for store credit. I’m much happier when cards are good in Constructed, because then people need playsets, instead of focusing on just one sweet copy of something.

If you need some examples of combos, just search up ‘Underworld Breach combo mtg’ and have a field day. There’s Legacy Storm with Brain Freeze. There’s Modern versions looking to exploit Dredge interactions. MTGGoldfish recently posted a video where Drowned Secrets played a huge part in the combo win. Get in while you can.

The New Temples (Mostly around $1-$1.50)

You don’t have to move on these this weekend, but please, before Ikoria comes out, make sure you have your set of twenty Temples from this set. There’s going to be a lot more demand for them in about six months when the shocklands rotate out. Perhaps there will be a better cycle of lands in the next Fall set, but these are too cheap to ignore. They aren’t going to hit huge heights, as there’s too many copies in circulation, but I hate buying cards at $3 or $4 I could have gotten for a lot less if I’d just planned ahead.

Shatter the Sky ($1.50)

Yes, I agree. This is a bad card when compared to Kaya’s Wrath or Time Wipe or whatever. It’s easy to cast, though, and that’s a very alluring thing to a control player. Four mana to clear the board has always been the sweet spot for control decks, and while it sears my soul to know they might get a card or two, the metagame isn’t punishing this card too much. I think that this card will have a least one good showing this weekend, and it’ll be a great card with no drawback, and the price will jump briefly.

It’s also worth noting that this is one of the few ways to deal with Limited dream-killer and UW Control’s darling Dream Trawler, a card I don’t think I want to buy in on now that it’s risen above $3. It’ll be very hard for it to get actionable value past that. 

Phoenix of Ash (75 cents or so)

The 2/2 hasty flyer has often been a good card in aggressive decks. Being able to Escape it into a 3/3 haste flyer for four is a wonderful upside, and one that might well push this phoenix to the front of the line, ahead of Chandra’s Phoenix, Rekindling Phoenix or Flamewake Phoenix. There’s a lot of hoops to jump through with the other firebirds, and there’s a wonderful simplicity to this one. Being in an aggressive red shell means you’ll rarely be lacking for spells in the graveyard, so they’d better have some Cry of the Carnarium ready to go.

I shouldn’t have to tell you how much fun it is to spec on a card like this for 30+ copies, and then sending them to a buylist as a brick after it breaks $4. It’s the kind of high people chase for a long time.

Storm’s Wrath (50 cents)

You can get this for near-bulk prices on TCG right now, and a lot of that is due to Fires of Invention decks that are trying so very hard to do something fun. The Fires decks actually have two good choices for four-drops in Shatter the Sky and this, depending on the risk and the presumed threats on the board.

Temur Reclamation decks are also playing the full set of this, and you can expect a hefty price jump if this looks good on camera. Wilderness Reclamation is a pretty busted card when built around, and being able to wipe the board and then reset your mana is a very sick play. 

Ashiok, Nightmare Muse ($12)

Finally, I think Ashiok remains a buy at $12. The card is fantastic, providing a game-winning plan through the plus ability and setting up for a devastating minus. Defense is also reasonable, answering any problematic permanent for at least a turn. I would not be in at $15+, but right now you can get Ashiok at prices approaching $10 on eBay or the cheaper TCG copies, and that’s really where I want to be for the UB control finisher.

Cliff (@WordOfCommander) has been writing for MTGPrice since 2013, and is an eager Commander player, Draft enthusiast, and Cube fanatic. A high school science teacher by day, he’s also the official substitute teacher of the MTG Fast Finance podcast. If you’re ever at a GP and you see a giant flashing ‘CUBE DRAFT’ sign, go over, say hi, and be ready to draft.

Here we are, prerelease weekend of Theros: Beyond Death and already we’re seeing some major price adjustments, which I’ll go over in more detail momentarily.

A freebie for everyone: The simplest way to increase the value of your collection is to trade away everything you open at the prerelease. Ask around, shout, check with everyone because that chase mythic is never going to be more chase than it is now, and you’ll get a lot of value from the rares as well. 

The Temples are resilient to this, because there is already a fair amount of them out in the world. If we were getting the other five color pairs of some brand-new cycle, those lands would be in super-high demand this weekend. 

Trading away everything you open is the most basic move in Magic finance because even if you’re trading away Oko at $20 before it gets to $40, you’re unloading so many other cards at their peak that they will never get to again. 

If you’re the type of person who likes examples, how about that other Planeswalker from Throne of Eldraine, Garruk, Cursed Huntsman:

Trading him away at $13 looks pretty genius, no? 

Can I interest you in trading away some Robber of the Rich at $10, before it began to drop like a coyote off of a cliff?

How about trading away the now-bulk and Limited all-star Harmonious Archon when it premiered at $4?

My point here is that trading away the brand-new cards is a shotgun approach, in that you do it to everything and don’t hold back. 

As for the big winners this week, remember that we don’t have any cards in hand yet. Dealers aren’t officially allowed to sell them, eBay orders aren’t allowed to ship until January 24th either. The price movement we’re seeing is all because of pre-orders, and a fear of missing out.

Thassa, Deep-Dwelling (TCG Market has gone from about $7 to about $20)

There have been some outlier sales happening that have messed with the pricing results, and that’s always a risk with TCGPlayer. Bad data or insane players can cause the listed median to vary quite wildly, or even just a buyout of the ten cheapest copies means that the median listing is weighted towards the most optimistic sellers.

The card is moving, though, don’t you doubt that. There’s a lot of reasons why, the most fun of which is that this version of Thassa has an exile clause that allows you blink creatures you’ve stolen and keep them permanently. This is official, straight from the Gatherer webpage for the card. 

It does a whole lot of other fun things, too. It’s true that you don’t want to flicker your Hydroid Krasis, but you’re tickled to death to flicker your Niv-Mizzet Reborn. Tapping things is just gravy, but a very tasty recipe.

I do not think Thassa will hold this $20 price. It’s not going to light up other Constructed formats, it’s not a four-of in any deck, and this is the ‘we don’t have cards in hand yet but this idea of a card is totally worth $20’ phase of life.

Heliod, Sun-Crowned (up to $23 from $17)

The big mover here is the assorted decks that want to do something infinitely, in Pioneer, Modern, or Commander. For the 100-card format, New Heliod is a redundant combo piece, but one that’s very difficult to deal with. For the other formats, it’s infinite life or damage, depending on the build and the ideas being cooked up. Will this avoid a ban in Pioneer or Modern? Is Walking Ballista/Heliod worse in Modern than Splinter Twin/Deceiver Exarch? I don’t know but I do like what White Devotion has going on in Standard to make Heliod good, just not this good by itself. 

If Heliod stays unbanned in Modern and Pioneer, then this is a pretty good price. If you don’t think he’ll survive, then stay away. I wish I could give you explicit instructions here, but that’s the situation.

Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath (up to $26 from $20)

The first casting is a bad Growth Spiral but you’re playing this for the long-term value. This is backbreaking and cheap and thank goodness you need to really focus on milling yourself to make this good. Even the good mill cards like Merfolk Secretkeeper and Wall of Lost Thoughts struggle to keep up. 

I think the Titans look powerful but the repeated Escape is really difficult to trigger without the help of good, cheap, repeated self-mill. There’s no equivalent to Hedron Crab (thank heaven!) but the closest I could come up with already went from bulk to $2.50 because of Secretkeeper: Drowned Secrets.

Sure, Hushbringer lets you just play the Titans into their own ignored triggers, but for two mana, this enchantment can fuel Uro like nothing else. I don’t think it’s worth investing into, but you’re going to see it creep up a little more in hopes of making this deck work.

Elspeth, Sun’s Nemesis (down to $7 from a pre-order high of $35)

Now this…this might be too far gone. Yes, her escape is six mana and four cards, but $7 is too low. I think she’s got a rebound coming. Everyone is ignoring her in favor of Titans and seven-mana Sagas but this is just good, over and over again. Self-contained engines are not to be ignored lightly, and this is a huge drop when we haven’t tried her out yet. 

I want to be clear: I’m not planning on buying up a huge pile. There’s one TCG vendor with 48 copies at $7.28 and that’s a clear sign that at least one vendor doesn’t believe in Elspeth’s newest card. I will not be shocked when she’s a three-of in a lot of different decks, and rises back up to $15.

Cliff (@WordOfCommander) has been writing for MTGPrice since 2013, and is an eager Commander player, Draft enthusiast, and Cube fanatic. A high school science teacher by day, he’s also the official substitute teacher of the MTG Fast Finance podcast. If you’re ever at a GP and you see a giant flashing ‘CUBE DRAFT’ sign, go over, say hi, and be ready to draft.

Oh how I love preview season.

Let’s get right into it, shall we? Most of the big cards are known (The full spoiler should drop today/this weekend, if previous patterns hold) and there’s the possibility of buying cards at preorder prices.

Most preorder prices are a trap, the product of zero supply and infinite demand. Once it’s in our hands, things will have time to settle down. But will they?

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Cliff (@WordOfCommander) has been writing for MTGPrice since 2013, and is an eager Commander player, Draft enthusiast, and Cube fanatic. A high school science teacher by day, he’s also the official substitute teacher of the MTG Fast Finance podcast. If you’re ever at a GP and you see a giant flashing ‘CUBE DRAFT’ sign, go over, say hi, and be ready to draft.