Readers!

It’s clear that Urza is the favorite deck to emerge from the new EDH Masters set called “Modern Horizons” and it’s not hard to see why. Him plus Paradox Engine plus a few other artifacts means you cast your whole deck pretty reliably and that’s pretty good. Artifacts are good, blue is good, both together is good. Urza is the Vannifar of the set but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a Teysa of the set, and I think I’ve found it.

EDHREC is on top of their game this go-around and since all of the cards are in Scryfall and people are building decks already, EDHREC is scraping data already. The integration with sites like Archidekt which let people make decks almost as soon as card are spoiled means we have data earlier, which is apparently something we need because people are jumping on EDH stuff way earlier than they used to. That’s fine, once we get over the feeling of missing out, it turns out those people miss a lot of stuff because they don’t know what they’re doing. Still plenty of money to be made by listening to people telling us what they’re actually doing. Let’s listen.

Behold! 26 decks – hardly a huge sample size but since we’re getting ideas and nothing else, it’s enough. We want to see if any tech is emerging and these early decks also have the benefit of informing later deckbuilders so actually these cards that may be erroneously over-represented now may actually make people more likely to play them and therefore fulfill their own prophecy. Archidekt integration with EDHREC means people can now build their deck with the suggestions from other decks right in front of them more easily than ever. It’s not that these suggestions are bad, but it does have a snowball effect as the first to get their ideas down on paper have an influence over every subsequent builder.

That said, enough editorializing about problems I personally helped create. Let’s make some money.

Not on the Reserved List but not exactly easy to reprint, either, this card is one the move and $3 is not where it’s going to stop, either. If you can still get these around the $1 they were for basically ever, you should be able to get out above $4 soon. The tipping point on these are coming and being an uncommon from Saga means there are fewer copies than there are copies of uncommons from recent sets with similar trajectories.

Ogre is more explosive, true, but Skirge Familiar is the only card like this in Black and with Yawgmoth’s ability to keep your hand full, you should have no shortage of garbage to pitch to turn into a spell, perhaps a big Exsanguinate. I think if a small number of people discovered Skirge Familiar, it’s going to go. In at $2, out at $5 seems reasonable to me.

Foils of this are falling but considering a foil is currently cheaper than a non-foil Masques copy, we could see some movement back up. This can go off constantly given your ability to proliferate a ton, and unlike a lot of Time Walk artifacts, you don’t have to “bank” a turn to make it work, so if there are 9 counters on it, just take 4 turns in a row and laugh. If you can’t manage to put 3 counters on it during those extra turns with Yawgmoth as your commander, you don’t deserve to win, anyway. I think Masques copies and m19 foils are both pretty good bets, especially since it spiked already on the basis of different cards and copies are more scarce in the wild.

You like this graph shape? I know that you do. I like it, also. This is the “reverse-J” shape that precedes the “U-shaped” graph that is a card recovering from a reprinting. This is obviously a battlebond reprinting based on the time the card’s price plummeted. Why no recovery yet? Was it rarity-shifted? Does it see less play? Was the set overprinted? No, no and no. This seems like an opportunity to me!

Here’s the culprit. I think Revenant is due for a slow climb back to maybe 2/3 of its pre-reprinting price if it’s not reprinted again given how powerful it is. Although people are latching on to the budget version, Crypt Ghast, Ghast is making a case for a higher price tag itself and anyone who is serious about building like redundancy more than they like budget alternatives to non-RL cards. They will buy both and so should you.

Ready for another guess?

Here is a card I have raised the alarum about on several occasions but never really bought into myself, which was foolish because I was right, this card is the truth and it’s only going to get better now that Yawgmoth is a sac outlet for the ages. You’ll like this reveal a lot.

This card is honestly probably not done growing despite having grown quite a bit. I feel like it should have gotten a commander deck reprint by now and it’s strange that it hasn’t, but when they finalized last year’s decks, like 18-24 months ago, this card was steady at $8 for a while. Can it grow more? Is it getting reprinted this year (I doubt it)? Time will tell. I like this card, though.

One last thing – Ultimate Masters didn’t really inject as many copies into the market as anyone expected and prices are really holding up. I wouldn’t wait to buy anything that got reprinted in that set, and this deck has quite a few.

Tower and Urborg are staples in any deck like this so grab them now. They’ll shrug off another reprint and they’re not going to get cheaper so it’s a real low risk buy.

That does it for me. Next week we will have more data so be sure to tune in. Until next time!

Readers!

What do we do when there’s no EDHREC data yet? Whatever I want, this is my column. Today I am going to look at a bunch of new cards and try to find a card that could be poised to move on the basis of the new card. Sound good? This will be a fun one.

Second spikes are usually pretty hard and this one is poised. Already on the upswing following a crash when people didn’t quite build as many Hapatra decks as people thought they might, Skitter is a perfect target. I think Yawgmoth is likely to spike 10-20 cards on his own but this is the most obvious so it’s going to go first. We’ll talk about him in depth in his own article when it’s warranted.

You could find 20 targets on just this one commander’s page but I think one I want to highlight today is this one.

If you have Flourishing out, this is Boundless Realms for cards like Gaea’s Cradle and Nykthos. You may not get the exact lands you want and putting 7 mana into it doesn’t guarantee you as many lands and Realms does, but this also puts non-basics into play untapped and I think that makes this a very different card. When X=6 you look at 12 cards and statistically get 4 lands, untapped. That’s a 2-card combo with Flourishing, but so is Realms and Amulet of Vigor. I dunno, this is on an upswing and it’s going in every Flourishing deck if people are smart.

I have seen people talk about cards ranging from Tibalt to Witch Hunt to Leyline of Punishment, but here’s a funny one.

This puts you in black but it’s also pretty hilarious to dome everyone for 10 and then burn them out with spells. This also gives you access to spells like Exsanguinate which get better when you have a ton of verse counters. Of all the cards to pair with Aria, which may or may not be a thing, this is the most hilarious and is already trending up, albeit minimally.

Kidding.

Check out which decks run Stony Silence, I guess. I’m not sure what this does, besides make Lattice more desirable than it already is, which is lots. A Karn, Ouphe, Silence, Null Rod deck could be nasty.

This has already spiked a few cards, including Deranged Hermit, but if people are going deep on Squirrels, there are things they have missed.

People aren’t going super deep on Squirrel stuff, but they should. Pretend they’re nuts and collect them.

A lot of these effects are good paired with Wrenn which isn’t going to be a new EDH deck, but could be in Modern and also could get people to dust off Mina and Denn or Angry Omnath. 2 mana ‘walkers are historically bad but this doesn’t appear to be in that camp. I also like Strip Mine and Wasteland right now.

This peaked hard and high on the basis of the Commander deck and now that all the copies are concentrated in the hands of dealers, this could have some real growth potential. We aren’t done talking about this sicko card, though, it’s going to be great!

Sorry this week felt like a bit of a hodgepodge but I didn’t want to go too deep on anything in particular. Feel free to do that yourself! If there are cards like it that exist, see which decks play them on EDHREC and which cards have high synergy scores from getting played alongside them. I’ll be back next week to go way in depth on a commander and scoop up all the picks people forgot when they bought out all the obvious cards. Until next time!

Readers!
Typically I don’t like to talk about cards that are in the middle of spiking because that is very stressful. I think a lot of people who pass themselves off as finance minds call stuff while it’s spiking and get a lot of credit because, wow, they nailed that “prediction” and I want in one some of that sweet action. You mean to tell me I can make a prediction that’s not going to be wrong and be heralded as a genius? Yes, I’m all about that. Also, you may be able to snag a cheap copy and avoid overpaying later. Check downstream – TCG Player and Channel are bought out first, but other stores are still HODLing. Check page 3 of your google search results. TCG Player says Wayfarer’s Bauble is $4 but Card Kingdom’s 20+ copies (the max they list is 20, they have more) in all of its 5 printings for $0.99 says otherwise. Let’s do the panic thing and talk about the slow movers next week. This will be a short one but it will be dense with value. Now is the part where non-Pro Traders get cut off and I’m sorry about that. Pro Trader is like $60 a year and I’m about to make people way more than that.

Morophon is doing thangs and that’s good. He’s the variable commander people have been waiting for and he’s already caused some cards to pop, which I’ll mention in case your LGS has copies, and more cards are about to pop. Basically anything that says “choose a tribe” is going to go off, even if Morophon isn’t good (he probably isn’t).

Fist is sold out everywhere for like $15. Despite just getting a reprint in the Dragon deck, it’s getting paired with Morophon. Fist makes your spells cost WUBRG and Morophon makes them cost WUBRG less if they’re of the chosen tribe. Do you dump a bunch of Eldrazi? Slivers? Humans? Is this combo good? Maybe. It’s popular, though, and Fist is sold OUT. If you have these, sell into hype. If your LGS has these for $3, buy them for $3.

Ditto on Jodah. CK has $0.50 non-foils, but foils are to the moon, probably forever. I don’t know if this combo is good but it’s happening. The thing about Morophon is that decks that already have a good commander like Dragons and Slivers won’t want him in the 99 and decks that don’t have a good commander will have fewer creatures than they think. Getting free creatures is cool but I think this is mostly hype. Feather maintained its hype for a few weeks, we’ll see how Morophon does.

Same deal here. You can check the Reaper King page on EDHREC to see if stuff like Scarecrone is where you want to park money, but Morophon makes you able to blow up a ton of stuff for every changeling you play for free. Is that good? Maybe. But everything is good in EDH.

Stuff that hasn’t popped yet is more interesting.

This was touted when first printed but never really went anywhere. I think it could have upside if you have to play creatures like Beast Whisperer in the deck to get a combo off. This is a low-risk bulk rare and since a bunch of tribal decks that never had a commander before are about to be 5 color decks if they want to be, go nuts.

Ditto for this guy. Gettable for like $4 most places, this is going to get slammed in a lot of decks with no lords and with no reprint in site, this second spike is bound to be heavy.

This is expensive but it’s also down from its historical high. If you’re playing creatures for free, you need to replace them in your hand. This is a no-brainer.

I left in the vendor bar to show that sites that had this cheap are selling out already.

Honestly, all of Commander 2017 is in play if you ask me.

That’s Morophon. Let’s talk about the other card.

Urza is pretty nuts. A mana generator AND a mana sink? I must be dreaming. Why they would make a commander that perfectly lines up with Paradox Engine like this, I’ll never understand, but let’s look at Engine.

Neat. Remember when I said to buy these for $5 if they didn’t get banned 6 months after it was printed? Well, I bought like 3 total, so even I don’t listen to me. This was already expensive before they printed a Tolarian Academy on a body that can play all of your spells for 5 colorless, so RIP this card’s price. Can they print this again to lower the price? It will be hard, I don’t see how. Try to find these on obscure sites and at the LGS. This was a $40 foil like 2 weeks ago. RIP.

This is recovering from a reprint, very good in the deck and still in play. Go get you some.

Hi. I tap for mana, now.

Hi. I tap for mana, now, and you only need 4.

Hi, I make Moxen, now. I’m also a $5 foil.

I think the Urza deck will make a lot of utility artifacts go up more slowly, but this article was meant to go out quickly while there is still time to buy some of this, so, go buy stuff. Later.

Readers,

Ugh.

Like, you’re welcome. Sincerely. That’s a phrase I find myself saying a lot lately, unprompted. My daughter has excellent manners 50% of the time and 0 manners 50% of the time which averages out to having OK manners all of the time and on a good day, her manners with strangers are good and with me are suspect which makes me look like a good parent to strangers. You don’t know I did the equivalent of getting you your paints from a shelf you can’t reach, rinsing your brushes and tearing a page out of your Peppa Pig painting book because you can’t quite handle perforation, but I promise I’m doing all that for you and more. I mean, I feel like new formats are a pain and I hate to learn new things and I did that for you. Is Oathbreakers Brawl or is it Tiny Leaders? It’s hard to tell how many months it will last before it disappears under the weight of the collective apathy of an entire community. It’s also possible Oathbreaker catches on and is around forever. Anything is possible. 2016 taught me that.

I know what a portion of you are asking –

1. What is Oathbreaker?
2. Should I care?

The answer to number 2 is a soft “Yes” and the answer to number 1 is a bit more complicated. Let’s launch into that. To do that, I’ll need to read a 300 word wiki article. Time to roll up my sleeves.

Oathbreaker is a 60 card, singleton format with 2 commanders – a Planeswalker and a “signature spell” that both start out in the Command Zone. The spell must be an Instant or Sorcery. Your deck is bound by typical color identity rules like in EDH so new Teferi can only have Blue and White cards. You can’t cast your signature spell unless your “Oathbreaker” is in play and you have to pay the commander tax every time you cast either one, so the spell keeps getting more and more costly. It’s unsanctioned and I’ve never witnessed a game of it being played. Why should we care?

As near as I can figure, Oathbreaker did this because Terferi is disgusting in that format. I don’t know which delightful Canadian with a name like Whackity Smackelberry is responsible for this format or who keeps the banlist updated but for now, Teferi is teferrorizing people. I don’t know much but I know if it can make a card like this double, maybe other ‘walkers have some upside and maybe some signature spells do, too. Certainly Chain Veil combo is easier in a deck that starts the game with 51 cards in it when you’re a Blue deck whose signature spell could very well be Fabricate.

Is there anything else we can look at for potential?

Jace + Tunnel Vision

This would be kind of funny and kind of brutal. Since the games are multiplayer, you need to do this trick more than once, probably, but it’s still pretty brutal and you can cough up the mana to recast Tunnel Vision for.. 8 mana? Jesus, OK. Still, Blue is good and Tunnel Vision… already went up? How did no one notice this?

The timing is too coincidental not to be related to Oathbreaker.

I think there is room for Tunnel Vision to go up, though. It’s the same rarity as Doubling Season and has fewer printings. Just ‘saying. It’s an $8 foil, also. I think that’s easy money on easy mode. I think this is a $30 foil waiting to happen.

Narset + Windfall

New Narset is gnarly and nasty and this seems like a great way to slam Day’s Undoing, Windfall, Teferi’s Puzzle Box and other goodies in a deck where you draw your win conditions and they go down from a 3 mana Identity Crisis harder than Tim Drake’s Dad.

Despite hella printings, this is the only foil version of this card. Is Oathbreaker going to be a thing (I would say no, but look at Tunnel Vision) and if it is, will people who bought Windfall foils get a windfall of their own? Is there a chance they go up for some other reason? Is there a chance Windfall is in Modern Horizons? (nope). I think there is money to be made here, poisonally. But I like my blue foil cards ever since I said $1 was too cheap for Dramatic Reversal.

This has nothing to do with Oathbreaker, but checking in on Dramatic Reversal makes me want to check in on another card I feel just as strongly about – Arcane Denial. The art sucks but it’s in a lot of EDH decks and there is one foil printing. Denial is still under $4, up from the $1- $2 where I called it, but with potential to get to… $11 apparently. Just get that free money. There are enough copies for all of you Pro Traders with enough left over for me to actually buy some since I only bought like 4 Dramatic Reversal because I get squeamish about buying specs I write about. I give you the good stuff and leave myself with… well, collections which have a guaranteed return and are much more stable than specs. Still, though. Coulda dectupled up. You’re welcome. Lol, that’s a callback to earlier but it sounds pretty aggressive. I’m leaving it.

There is an entire Oathbreaker subreddit but it’s really tough to figure out what is durdly and what is concensus good. The subreddit is extremely hard to parse, there are no even results anywhere and EDHREC isn’t compiling Oathbreaker stuff (I’m not sure we should, BrawlREC was a lot of work, no one went to it and now Brawl seems dead). If anything else around this format pops up, I’ll let you all know, but for now, it seems like Blue tryhard cards are the best bets and most of them were already good. A few signature spells I have seen that aren’t good in EDH were

Argent Mutation with Dace Fayden.

Sorin’s Vengeance with Sorin Markov, and

Inspiring Call with Jiang Yanggu. Will any of this pan out? I don’t know. I feel good about all of that blue stuff I said earlier, and I’ll give Pro Traders a crack at Tunnel Vision before I think about if I should buy some. I probably won’t but only because it would look bad if I did. Until next time!