By: Guo Heng 

It’s not everyday that you find a Hearthstone quote fit for a Magic article title. For Dragons of Tarkir I did an mtgfinance review of the ‘anchor’ cards of the set, the Dragonlords, who were right down my alley as Spike and Vorthos manifested in cardboard form. When it comes to Battle for Zendikar, the marquee cards of the set, the Eldrazi, are the intersection of competitive play and flavor and I am quite excited to be able to put them under an mtgfinance lens.

I started Magic during Urza’s block, where the major antagonist in the Magic storyline was the original Phyrexians, a race of macabre machine-and-flesh organisms hellbent on destroying Dominaria, the backdrop for all the story in Magic back in those days. The Eldrazi bear striking comparison to the original Phyrexians – inexplicable creatures from beyond the plane threatening the very existence of Zendikar. The Eldrazi even use a horde of minion processors and drones to fuel their invasion, and they view creatures as expendable sacrificial fodder for utility.

Enough Vorthos talk, let’s get to the financial side of the Eldrazis. The Battle for Zendikar has been raging for two weeks, but we have yet to see the Eldrazi making an assault on the Standard metagame. There were not a single Eldrazi deck in the top 8 of both StarCityGames Open in Atlanta last weekend and Indianapolis the weekend before. The first Eldrazi presence was detected in Ali Aintdazi’s funky five-color control (not to be confused with Five-Color Bring to Light a.k.a. Eight Rhinos), which finished ninth last weekend) and that wasn’t of much financial relevance as it’s the humble uncommon Catacomb Sifter.

That is not necessarily a bad thing. Two weeks is scarcely enough to solve the metagame, let alone identify the interactions that would go on to define the meta for the next few months. Financially, it translates into hopefully, opportunity. Let’s take a look at the financial potential of the mythic Eldrazis in descending price order according to MTGPrice’s spoiler list, as the Eldrazi descent upon the Standard metagame.

Ulamog 2.0

The sole Eldrazi Titan this time around, Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger will undoubtedly be the endgame of any ramp strategy in the current metagame. Even if a tier one ramp deck emerges at the Pro Tour this weekend, I am not optimistic about Ulamog’s ceiling as he is pretty much restricted to ramp decks, unlike multi-archetype stars like Dragonlord Ojutai and Deathmist Raptor. Expect Ulamog to hit $25 briefly (maybe $30 but that’s being very optimistic) if he makes his presence felt at the Pro Tour before crashing down in a few weeks’ time as redemption hits.

Sowing the Seeds of Oblivion

This is a sexy one. I admit, I wasn’t too excited when I first saw Oblivion Sower spoiled for the Duel Deck. Then I played against it last Friday in a Bant ramp brew and I was quite impressed. A decent sized body (blocks Rhino and Tasigur) at six mana that comes attached with an uncounterable ramp spell is a force to be reckoned with in a ramp deck. Unfortunately, being in the Duel Deck significantly limited Sower’s ceiling. Having said that, Polukranos, World Eater spiked briefly after Makahito Mihara made top 8 of Pro Tour Theros with Green Devotion.

Betting on Oblivion Sower at $6 seems like a risky bet. Polukranos fitted in multiple strategies (Devotion and Red-Green Aggro) but Oblivion Sower seems optimal only in ramp strategies as the extra lands Sower nets you is not too useful if you don’t have a large endgame to resolve.

On the other hand, Jeremy (@LengthyXemit) mentioned that Japanese pro player and owner of Hareruya, Tomoharu Saito bought out Oblivion Sower at last weekend’s Grand Prix Madison. For the uninitiated, barring his competitive misdemeanours, Tomoharu Saito is one of the foremost brewers in contemporary Magic and his decks are held in high regards by casuals and pros. Heck, he even has a hashtag for his brews, #SaitoWayFinder. Saito buying out a card is a huge signal for the potential of that card.

Personally, I’m going to take the middle path and aim to complete my own playset of Oblivion Sower before this weekend. Feel free to spec on Oblivion Sower if you have the guts and the resources to spare. Just remember to liquidate your copies quick if Sower becomes a hit at the Pro Tour this weekend.

Consecrated Sphinx 2.0

Sire of Stagnation‘s price is not just stagnant, it is dropping. Starting out at a lofty $12, the Eldrazi Sire could be obtained for just $4 today. Version 2.0 does not necessarily indicates improvement, and Sire of Stagnation is a worse Consecrated Sphinx. Nevertheless, Consecrated Sphinx is from an era bygone, I think Sire may be better than it seems, despite the qualms about the fact that its trigger is under your opponent’s control, mainly because if they don’t have a removal (and burn is pretty bad against Sire with its seven toughness), they are trapped in between a rock and a hard place. Then again, most decks in Standard could function optimally at six mana, so they could easily just sandbag their lands until they draw into a removal.

The only place I can imagine Sire seeing play is in the sideboard of control decks. Sire is not to shabby in the control mirror as your opponent would often want to have much more than just six lands. They’d be forced to waste a removal spell on it. Then again, tapping six mana to cast a durdly creature is not what you want to do in a control mirror.

However tempting a $4 potentially playable mythic looks, I am not optimistic about Sire of Stagnations’s price.

Your Opponent Can’t Even

Siege Rhino, Hangarback Walker, Den Protector, Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, Hidden Dragonslayer, Dromoka’s Command, Valorous Stance, Dig Through Time, Ojutai’s Command, Utter End.

What do the cards above have in common? They are popular cards from the top 8 decks of the previous two weekend’s StarCityGames Open that are hosed by Void Winnower.

I am quite surprised that Void Winnower is languishing at $4. Granted, we have yet to see Void Winnower in a deck with a decent finish. I do think that Void Winnower have the potential to be a player in the current Standard metagame.

The pros of Void Winnower:

• Void Winnower requires very specific answers.
• Unlike Oblivion Sower and Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger, you can reap Void Winnower’s full value from a See the Unwritten.
• The Brainstorm Brewery episode from the previous week, which had Craig Wescoe on as guest, saw the crew discuss Void Winnower’s potential as a reanimation target in eternal formats.

The cons of Void Winnower:

• Void may be overshadowed by Ulamog in Standard as Ulamog only costs one more mana. Then again Ulamog is easier to answer (though it does set your opponent back in board position) and Winnower may just be ran alongside Ulamog.

Void Winnower is one-of-a-kind, and cards like these tend to either be really cheap as it sees no play, or be quite expensive when its true potential is discovered during testing. I am on the side that Void Winnower is undervalued at $4. In Standard, Void Winnower is a hard to answer threat that turns the tides upon resolution and is the only Eldrazi that synergises with See the Unwritten. More importantly, a mythic rare at $4 requires just a little push for it to spike. I wouldn’t buy a horde of Void Winnowers. I am aiming to pick up a few more copies this week in trade and cash.

Thank you once again for reading. Share your thoughts in the comments segment below, or catch me on Twitter at @theguoheng.

By Guo Heng

“Wizards is really trying to kill speculators huh?”

I woke up last Friday to this message a fellow mtgfinance enthusiast at my LGS . The Battle for Zendikar Event Deck’s list was announced on Thursday 8 a.m. PST (which is around 11 p.m. Malaysian time on Thursday). As I glanced through the decklist, I had a sinking feeling in my stomach. And I was sure as hell it wasn’t because I have yet to ingest my compulsary dose of morning caffeine.

If you have yet to see the decklist, check out Corbin’s (@chosler88) post about the Event Deck for his thoughts on the impact of the reprints.

Here are the notable cards that you’ll be able to find in the value-fest that is the Battle for Zendikar Event Deck:

What!? Since when do Wizards chuck in mythics in Event Decks. Two mythics!? 

I was dismayed to see Whisperwood Elemental included in the decklist.  I was bullish on Whisperwood Elemental as a mythic with an incredible potential for price growth in the new Standard landscape we are hurtling towards this October. Whisperwood has the making of a breakout card in financial terms. It’s a Standard staple with a track record in aggro and midrange decks. It’s a mythic from a small set.  And it was hovering around $6 – $7 for the previous few months, probably as low as a small set Standard staple mythic could go. Whisperwood Elemental could spike to the $15 – $20 range if it becomes the premier green five drop in the Battle for Zendikar Standard, an outcome which I am quite confident about considering Whisperwood’s power level and the new unconditional creature removal being sorcery speed.

It all changed when the Fire Nation attacked Wizards decided that they are going to reprint mythics in Standard supplemental products. Whisperwood is now $5 and I doubt it would be able to hit even $15 anymore. While the influx in supply from the Event Deck is marginal, it does affect the perception regarding the financial potential of the Elemental. I also pity the fool who went in deep on Warden of the First Tree.

The most recent supplementary product designed for Standard, the Magic Origins Clash Pack, packed a little more value than usual with Standard and Modern staples like Windswept Heath, Collected Company and Siege Rhino, and Standard and Modern playables like Dromoka’s Command and Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit. But it was not too much of a surprise as high value rares like Hero’s Downfall and Thragtusk had seen reprint in these products. The inclusion of a fetchland was also not novel. Verdant Catacombs was in the Magic 2012 Event Deck.

Why Spec on Standard Mythics?

In the era where rare is the new uncommon, playable but homeless Standard mythics makes for better short-term spec targets compared to rare as mythics offer a significantly better multiplier at only a slightly increased cost.

Take Perilous Vault for example. The Magic 2015 mythic dropped all the way to $3 in September 2014, right before Khans of Tarkir rotated in. The colorless nuke found a home when Blue-Black Control made its debut at Pro Tour Khans of Tarkir in October and subsequently tripled in price to $10. It’s not a majestic spike, but 300% growth within a month or two is decent return for a $3 investment.

Sometimes you don’t even need to wait for rotation to happen, as with the case of See the Unwritten, a card which fellow MTGPrice writer, James Chillcott (@MTGCritic) and I have been bullish about. It recently spike from $3 to $8 (about time!) on the anticipation that it would be used to cheat in Eldrazi et al.

Now that Wizards is encroaching into mythic territory for cards deemed fit to be reprinted in Event Deck/Clash Pack products (they alternate each product between sets), the notion that playable Standard mythics at rock bottom are relatively low risk short-term specs no longer hold true. With mythics are no longer immune to an Event Deck/Clash Pack reprint, buying into future Perilous Vaults and See the Unwritten just got a lot riskier.

Walking the Speculation Planes

Ultimately Wizards’ priority is to ensure that competitive staples are sufficiently accessible to keep the competitive scene as inclusive as possible (plus it sells products). As a competitive player, I do welcome that move as it means that I would be able to secure my playset of Hangarback Walker at a reasonable price after missing the boat on that one.

As a financier, Wizards’ increasingly trigger happy inclination to reprint and repress price of staples forces me to reconsider my approach to short-term Standard mythic specs.

The risk with Event Decks/Clash Packs reprints resides in the fact that it is hard to predict when, or rather which Event Deck/Clash Pack would reprint which mythic. There is a class of Standard mythics that follow a more predictable reprinting.

Standard planeswalkers reprints are reserved for the spring Duel Deck,  which means that they still make relatively safe short-term/rotation spec. Playable planeswalkers at rock bottom often spike come rotation,  along the lines of Xenagos, the Reveler and Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver during the previous rotation.

The announcement for next spring’s Duel Deck comes late October or early November, so make sure you cash out of any short-term. planeswalker spec by then.

Siege Rhino is still in Standard and who better to accompany a crash of rhinos than Sorin, Solem Visitor, who is just $8 now. Now that Stormbreath Dragon is a myth of Standard past, it may be time for Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker to soar the skies for good as the premier sticky red five drop. Oh also, did I mentioned that now your opponent can’t kill your Sarkhan with his Form of the Dragon on the stack?

The Upside

Wizards’ increasingly trigger happy reprint policy is not all doom-and-gloom for financiers. Even if you do not grind Standard, there is a positive note to the phenomenon. Granted, the biggest casualty is the increased risk in short-term speculation. The other side of the coin is that Wizards’ aggressive reprint of high value Standard rares in their Event Decks/Clash Packs widens the window in which you could pick them up for long-term spec.

A good number of expensive Standard rares in recent times were expensive because they found a home in Modern. Collected Company hit double digits (and hovered near $20 briefly) but Den Protector did not because Collected Company spawned new archetypes in Modern and made Elves tier one while Den Protector is strictly worse than Eternal Witness in Modern. Tasigur barely sees Standard play but the amount of eternal play he sees made him the most expensive rare in Fate Reforged. And I don’t think many would complain about Windswept Heath dropping back to $12 after the Khans of Tarkir fetches trended upwards during the summer. You can bet that Tasigur, Collected Company and Windswept Heath will appreciate at a decent rate in the following years as Modern staples.

These Event Deck/Clash Pack reprints creates another window, or extends the current window to pick up these cards as long-term investments. For financiers without a huge budget, or those who have to split their budget between specs and maintaining a competitive Standard card pool, this is likely to be welcome news. Personally, I could never pick up all the specs I have on my specs list for the month as I grind the competitive scene as well and I can’t just sink 90% of my Magic budget into a truckload of Tasigur when he bottomed at $6. Tasigur dropped from $8.50 to $6.50 after last week’s announcement, giving me another window to pick him up at rock bottom amid securing Battle for Zendikar staples.

Do share your thoughts in the comments section below, or catch me on Twitter at @theguoheng.