I’ve been telling everyone to buy Arclight Phoenix for about two months now. I’ve got a one playset and two foils, so I’m not trying to buy the market out, but I do want a few of these to sell when they hit it big. I’m quite confident about this card, because of the numbers it’s showing in Modern and Legacy decks.
In our ProTraders-only Discord channel (yes, that’s a thing and it’s awesome!) a player mentioned their Hydroid Krasis, which was amazing in their Vorel of the Hull Clade deck but getting so pricey. What’s a finance-savvy person to do?
Luckily for you, and for that member, I’ve been researching the price arc of Standard’s best mythics, to get an idea of what’s in store for the bird, the jellyfish, and some others.
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Cliff ( @WordOfCommander ) has been writing for MTGPrice for five years now, 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.
Well, it’s here, the long-prophesied straight-to-Modern set, and it’ll be stuffed with reprints and some brand new cards.
Modern Horizons 1 (Serious, that’s the hashtag) is going to make for some crazy crazy price changes but as of right now, I’m staying the hell away from buying anything in Modern. If you’re trying to get things now, you’re rolling dice on what you think Wizards will or won’t do, and I don’t play that game anymore.
I might miss out on a card here or there but I hate going in blind. I need some information on which to act, and we have none, aside from Serra Angel is now 2WW and brings along a planeswalker, and the Cabal Therapist, who’s just a sweet design and how I wish I could sacrifice more than one critter per trigger.
I have one thought about the set, but my focus today is on Core Set 2019, the last in this series of what to buy, hold, and sell this summer as rotation approaches.
I know that the fetchlands have all gone up slightly since Modern Horizons was announced and frankly, that seems silly to me. Modern’s manabases are defined by fetch-into-shock, and right now, the supply of shocklands has never been higher. I don’t know if we’d get enemy or ally colored shocks but I also wouldn’t be surprised if we got none of them. I’ve no way of knowing, and in the absence of any information, I’d say hold your shocks if you have them, and buy the ones you need now. If they are reprinted they are gonna tank and if they aren’t then Scalding Tarn will be $125+.
Now, Core Set 2019 cards!
Vivien Reid ($24 nonfoil/$33 foil)
One of the things that a foil multiplier tells us is the population who’s using a card. The average is 2-3x, so when it’s higher there’s more of a niche demand, Commander or people who just HAVE to play Invasion foil Opt in Modern/Standard:
When it’s lower, as is the case with Ms. Reid, that means people aren’t chasing the foil at all, so there’s a high demand in Standard for this one and not much appeal otherwise. Vivien jumped when the Golgari decks took off, but this is her moment to shine quite brightly in Standard. She answers a wide range of problematic permanents in the format, and gets you a creature or a land, depending on your need.
Sadly, though, she has shown up in almost no Modern decks, and that portends badly for her price. She’s good enough in the format that I don’t think the price will drop much until we get very close to rotation, but then the market is going to flood and no one will be buying.
Keep your copies that are in decks and move the others right away.
Crucible of Worlds ($13/$28 in this set, $19/$62 10th edition, $20/$65 Fifth Dawn, $120 Masterpiece, $66 judge foil)
Notice anything about those prices? Perhaps that there’s one foil at $120, the Masterpiece, then three in the $65 range, and then the lowly $28. For fun, here’s the price graph of the nonfoil original from Fifth Dawn:
Crucible is played in a few Modern archetypes, mainly ones that grind you to a standstill. Crucible plus fetches is endless mana, but add it to Ghost Quarter and in a turn or two, it’s a Strip Mine. It’s also in 13,000 Commander decks, and now I’m totally sold. I’m in and buying.
I like buying nonfoils the most, as the price of entry is less, but at barely 2x the multiplier is appealing too. I think that even though this price was high because of low supply and not huge demand, it’s seeing enough play to make this a prime target. I don’t think its price will go down much more, so feel free to get in now.
I hate Invocation versions of things but I’d respect if you went after that version of this card. There’s about 9k EDH decks running it, plus it sometimes shows up as a funny Show and Tell piece too. Jam those Emrakul turns!
The supply is maxed out, but really, this card is all about the casual player and I’m here for that. I think you should be buying foils up, there’s about 175 total on TCG and not many of them are under $20. This will eventually correct upwards and you should have your copies before then.
Quick hits on Tribal Goodness
Liliana, Untouched by Death ($4/$11): Zombies are one of the most popular tribes, and this version of Liliana excels with the tribe. I will be picking some up at this price for when Zombies hit it big again.
Spit Flame ($1.50 foil): I only mention this because it’s the truth in my The Ur-Dragon deck. Targeted removal is mostly bad in Commander, but getting it back over and over is wonderful.
Sarkhan, Fireblood ($11/$20): Again, a card you love seeing in Dragon themed decks and useless everywhere else. I’ll be patient, hoping the foil drops lower but this is only in 500 decks online.
Elvish Clancaller ($2/$5): The funny thing is, this is barely good enough for Commander being a two-mana lord but it’s nuts in Modern, where extra mana finds extra copies. Stock up on foils now, and sell into the hype when they hit.
Nicol Bolas, the Ravager ($20/$60): I’d say buy your foil now for the deck you have, and wait on buying nonfoils. This hasn’t been seen in Standard or any other Constructed format, it’s only in a few hundred decks on EDHREC…and yet the price is this high. The kitchen table players must have soaked this up, as a sweet card and the representation of Magic’s major villain.
Cliff ( @WordOfCommander ) has been writing for MTGPrice for five years now, 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.
Dominaria was one of the best draft sets of all time. I don’t think I’ll ever have as good a time in Limited as I did when I could draft Dampen Thought in 3x Champions of Kamigawa, and Spider Spawning decks will make me happy no matter the format, but Dominaria was awesome.
It also gave us one of the most expensive cards we’ve had in Standard for a while: Teferi, Hero of Dominaria and icon of UW control’s ideals.
Teferi represents a test of something I’ve usually been good at: figuring out what price I want to buy at as the price comes down pre-rotation. He’s only one of a few cards from the set that I need to think about, though:
When I’m deciding what to buy in the summer, I start with the numbers. How much Commander play? How much Modern/Legacy use?
Teferi sees some play in the older formats, frequently seen as a 1-2 of in assorted control builds and often next to 2-3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor. I don’t think that’s enough to keep his price above $40, and I’m expecting a trickle downwards to $30. Am I getting in there? Maybe. The soon-to-be-previewed Challenger decks will make a big difference. EDHREC has him in 1300 decks, which is interesting considering that Oath of Teferi is in 1600 decks.
If he’s reprinted and he drips down to $25 or so I’ll grab a couple but five mana is a whole lot and he can’t close a game like JTMS does. I’m pretty sure I’m not a buyer.
Karn, Scion of Urza ($20/$50/$70)
I’d forgotten that Karn was once significantly more expensive than Teferi:
I mean, holy crap. $60+ for an in-print card? This version of Karn fits into a wide range of strategies, but the minus ability gets him into decks ranging from Death and Taxes in Legacy to Colorless Eldrazi or Hardened Scales in Modern. The caveat here is that he’s mostly a one-of and not a must-play-four sort of card.
That being said, I’m very intrigued, and I’m not going to mess around with the nonfoils unless they drop heavily as rotation approaches. The promo is something I want to buy, especially if I can work eBay/TCG promos for another 10-15% off. I grant you that the second edition of Mythic Edition didn’t sell out like the first did, and supply is still out there, but this is the headliner in terms of what sees play in Eternal formats.
I want to buy a couple of the promos in the $50-$60 range and I’m staying away from the nonfoils unless it gets to $10.
Mox Amber ($9/$25)
I have to say, this is one of the cards I’m highest on right now. The nonfoil is up a little recently, but the foil can still be had under $30 and that’s where I really want to be.
I thought it was a garbage card even in Commander, where EDHREC has it in at over 1800 decks, but I’ve come around and I’m especially convinced that eventually it’s going to get broken right in half in Modern or Legacy. We know how powerful Moxes can be, even with restrictions like Mox Opal has.
I’m a buyer this summer, and hopefully it’s down to the $7 range, but any foil under $30 is something I’m buying or trading for with glee.
Sulfur Falls ($9/$14, Innistrad $9/$18)
The enemy checklands are all tempting but Sulfur Falls is the most played by a healthy margin. Yes, there’s a supply from Innistrad already out there but that was released in late 2011, and time has soaked up a lot of copies.
Here’s the graph for the Innistrad foil version, and keep in mind that the Dominaria foils entered the market in April of 2018:
A modest blip, and we’ve got 17,000 EDH decks taking up copies, plus all the casual decks ever, and the toll that seven years took on the Innistrad copies…I think you should be buying foils at $14, and more so if it trickles down in price.
Especially with the nonfoils and foils being so close in price, don’t mess around. Buy the shiny versions.
Yes, that’s a lot of printings but I’m going to have a hot take here: The Dominaria art is vastly superior in terms of art and foiling. I think the FTV’s base art is better, but that foiling process sucks and therefore it’s worth less.
These foils were all higher before Dominaria came out, being in the $15-$20 range except for the Mirrodin foil which will always have a bigger premium, since it’s the first and oldest. All the foils have come down in price, but this is in 43,000 Commander decks, the #18 artifact overall, above Top and Mind Stone.
This will correct upwards, slowly but surely, and this is your opportunity to get them at their cheapest. It’s not going to spike, there’s too many copies and versions, but I love buying staple, popular foils when they’re cheap, waiting a little while, and trading them away. I’m a buyer for the foil Dominaria versions at $8, or even less given the right auctions!
Cliff ( @WordOfCommander ) has been writing for MTGPrice for five years now, 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.
It’s a Pro Tour, no, a paper Pro Tour, no, wait, a tabletop Mythic Championship #1 2019 next weekend.
If you follow the same sorts of folks I do on Twitter, you’re familiar with the jokes about names and awful branding and why does the 2019 MagicFest shirt have a design that echoes genitalia and so on but really, the change in the event names is the biggest fail of all. I could handle “Pro Tour Nagasaki 2017” pretty well but that failed to convey what the Standard metagame was like. In contrast, Pro Tour Dominaria will immediately call to mind how Teferi, Hero of Dominaria came roaring onto the scene. I will miss naming PTs after sets.
Last week I brought up some Ixalan cards that are buys or holds going into this summer and the rotation in the fall. There’s one subset of cards I wanted to mention, and then we’re into the Rivals of Ixalan cards I’ll be watching, plus a touch of PT spec.
I was remiss in not bringing up my favorite speculative pick of Ixalan: The buy-a-box/treasure chest promo versions of the Ixalan flip cards, which Travis Allen taught me to call Mapsterpieces, are fantastic pickups, especially the cheap ones. Search is about $60 and that’s a good price for a card seeing the Legacy and Modern play that this one is, Rites at $20 is a solid pickup as a budget Gaea’s Cradle, and the rest are super cheap, relatively niche, and a wonderful set to have put away for their inevitable spike. I have a soft spot for Conqueror’s Galleon, mainly because the flipped side is everything you ever wanted in Commander.
Rivals of Ixalan, as the last small set we’re going to have until they decide to bring back small sets, is in a smaller circulation than every other set that’s Standard-legal. This has not translated to a lot of expensive cards, but there are some sweet ones to look for.
The Immortal Sun ($16 nonfoil/$30 foil): Buy
I love this card in both versions but I’d so much rather have the foils. This is a card that goes in just about any Commander deck, is very one-sided, and shuts down all planeswalkers. Yes, that’s yours too, but that’s the price for the many other benefits you get. I think this is a very strong candidate to get reprinted in a future Commander deck, and so I advocate foils.
This saw a bump about the time that Guilds of Ravnica came out:
It’s seen some play in Standard, only 2000 decks over on EDHREC, and that’s why it’s $15 to pick up and not $10 or even $7. Still, I’m hoping it’ll come down in price, but I’m not holding my breath. If the price falls that means a good amount are still circulating, but my main thought is that most of the copies out there have been picked up and put into decks, never to come out unless they add more planeswalkers.
Jadelight Ranger ($9/$14): Sell
This is going to be a dollar by Thanksgiving, if it’s not bulk. It’s seen zero Modern play, it’s in less than 400 decks, the foil is 1.5x the nonfoil, instead of the two-to-three multiplier we’d prefer. It all adds up to a card that has no chance once it rotates. Please don’t keep a single one a moment longer than you have to. I respect if you have been playing with it for 18 months, and you want to hang on to the end, but even if this does well at the PT, I want no part of it.
Hadana’s Climb ($6/$11): Sell, then buy after it drops
Frankly, this applies to all five of the enemy-color flip cards from Rivals, as they are mostly very very powerful when flipped and run a wide gamut before then. I like cards with a low buy-in and low chance of reprint, and you’ll be able to get these dirt cheap. Again, I like foils a lot more and they won’t cost you that much more to get.
Azor’s Gateway ($5/$15): Sell
There was a point that this was a $15 card:
And that ship has sailed, friends. Yes, the land is amazing and a half, and if they ever print a card that allows you to transform target permanent this will be among the first to take off, but for now, I just can’t recommend it. I want to love this card, given that it’s two to play and just one to loot, but we can do better in Commander and the big payoff takes forever. I’m just not in on this card unless it drops to near-bulk prices, and then I’ll listen.
Now, as for the Pro Tour, and what to buy ahead of time, I’ve got some quick hits.
Kaya’s Wrath is going to have a good showing. River of Soot had a chance, I thought, but with both Cry of the Carnarium and Kaya’s Wrath, the control decks are pretty set. I don’t think it’ll win it all, but we’ll see a lot of boardwipe effects.
I really like having a few Venerated Loxodon at cheap prices. Don’t bother with the foils, but we’re going to see some impressive games on camera for this card, pumping a team before something else pumps the team.
I’m also a fan of picking up Expansion/Explosion before someone reminds us that it’s an instant and does sick things with Wilderness Reclamation. It’s $2 now, but it was $5 not long ago and that’s when it was being opened. Now that it’s at peak supply and lowest price, is there a bigger instant to cast?
Finally, if you’ve been holding Vivien Reid, I’m previewing myself a bit here but I think the best time to sell will be during the PT weekend. I foresee a spike for her, as she answers so many of Standard’s current problems quite effectively. I’m not buying her, not at this price with only two sets till she rotates, but if you’ve got spares, get ready.
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