By: Guo Heng Chin

Welcome back readers! This is the second part of the Hunting for Commander Foils series where we evaluate foil Commander staples to see if they hold any financial potential. You can find the first part here. Today we shall continue where last week’s article left off, shiny artifacts.

Taking into account the comments I have received for the first article in the series, I am going to slightly alter the format of the discussion. The first article was written in a pseudo-set review style in an attempt to cover as many cards as possible by working down the list used to rank the popularity of the cards. While I eschewed foils that are too expensive (no point harping about a $118 foil Sensei’s Divining Top if the majority of readers would not be willing to spend that much for it) or are stagnant price-wise, I covered foil staples that are already relatively expensive like Solemn Simulacrum.

My intention were to evaluate if it is worth acquiring your personal copy of those cards even though they may not be good spec targets anymore. However, it gave the impression that the article was discussing ships that have already sailed. Plus it seemed that a set review style would be too long-winded; last week’s article barely made its way down the top ten cards.

So I am opting for a more succinct approach this week: I shall focus only on the foil Commander staples on the list that are undervalued, a topic I think readers of this column prefer.

Before we get to the cards for this week, an obligatory shout-out to the super useful database in which we will be extracting our cards from:

The list comes from an extensive Commander statistics database created and maintained by MTGSalvation.com EDH Primer Committee member scoeri. Every month, scoeri runs a script which trawls mtgsalvation.com for user-posted Commander decklists and breaks them down into various categories, giving an invaluable snapshot of the Commander metagame. You can find the lists here under the forum post Statistical Breakdown of the Commander Metagame. The database was last updated on 31 October 2014 with 3023 decks from 1473 users (decks posted or updated from 31 October 2013 – 31 October 2014). I am indebted to scoeri for the awesome database.

As with last week, we will be using the colorless list for the purpose of this article as the list includes artifact creatures while the artifact list only contains noncreature artifacts. Last week, we made our way down the list to Expedition Map. This week, the criteria will be stricter and we shall only discuss artifacts that possess financial potential. We will be skipping over popular, obvious and already sailed artifacts like Chromatic Lantern and focus on foil staples that are still cheap like this sacrificial deer:

Hart of Gold

Foil Theros: $1.12

Number of Foil Printings: 1

The humble draft mana fixer, Burnished Hart has been getting a lot of love on the EDH subreddit and it is easy to see why: most Commander decks would like to have access to mana-fixing, and a double Rampant Growth on a bear (bear-hart) that fits into decks of any color has the making of a Commander staple, if it is not already one. Though more expensive than Armillary Sphere in casting and activation cost, the fact that Burnished Hart is a creature gives it synergy with a wider range of strategies: besides the usual artifact recurrence with Academy Ruins, it can be reanimated,  pulled out from your bottom (of your deck, hopefully most of the time) with Grenzo, Dungeon Warden, it triggers Sidisi, Brood Tyrant (which by the way has been growing in popularity as a Commander) and many more interactions a humble Armillary Sphere is not capable of.

Theros is still a Standard-legal set, but going for slightly more than $1, I see only upside for foil Burnished Hart. While I do not think foil Burnished Hart will grow to the double digit price of other common artifact mana-fixers like Dimir Signet and Azorius Signet due to the significantly larger print run of modern day sets like Theros, I am confident that foil Burnished Hart will exceed the price of other common rarity foil artifact mana-fixers on the top fifty list like Wayfarer’s Bauble, which is already less popular than Burnished Hart as of writing and is going for $3.81. The shiny fawn will take a while to become a full-fledged hart, get it now when Theros is abundant in supply and foil Burnished Harts are aplenty in bulk foil boxes before it becomes a $4 – $5 card. I know I am getting some myself.

Trading Cards in a Game of Trading Cards

M13 Foil: $2.79

M14 Foil: $1.98

Number of Foil Printings: 2

Trading Post is the Batman’s utility belt in Commander. Need to block a rampaging 12/12 Hydra Broodmaster? Here’s a goat. Need more lands? Sacrifice that goat of yours who is going to die anyway to get back your Wayfarer’s Bauble. Need more gas? Sac that worn out Worn Powerstone to further fuel your conquest. Life’s got you down? Toss away that 10th land you drew for 4 life.

Trading Post feels a bit like a Planeswalker in the sense that it generates incremental card advantage once per turn when it hits the board. Of course, I’m not claiming that Trading Post is anywhere near the power level of a Planeswalker (maybe except Tibalt) but it ekes you advantage over a prolonged game, and most Commander games tend to go long.

Trading Post is a Swiss Army knife that most Commander decks could find use for and yet foils of it could be acquired for less than $2. Granted M14 has just rotated out and being printed in both M13 and M14 created a huge supply. Nevertheless $2 is pretty close to bulk for foil rares, what more for a popular Commander rare. I suspect foil Trading Post will become one of those foil rares that surprises people when they look up its price a few years down the road. There’s always a risk of reprint, but at $2, how much can you lose? Plus foils do retain their value better than normal copies.

Foil Trading Post have a lot of room to grow, though I doubt it will be able to hit foil Staff of Domination prices due to Trading Post’s higher supply and the fact that Staff is ran as a one-of in Legacy and Vintage MUD decks (not that Vintage counts for much). However I do think that foil Trading Posts could hit $8 – $10 in the coming years.

Trading Post is also a pretty fun card to play, and its appeal as a ‘one-stop shop’ probably contributes to its popularity among the casual crowd. Did I mentioned, Trading Post has synergy with the artifact creature Burnished Hart too?

Signets That Shine

Ravnica Block Foils: $2.51  – $14.58

The cycle of signets from the original Ravnica block are some of the most popular artifact mana fixers in Commander, with four of them in the top fifty most played colorless cards list (five if you refer to the artifacts list).

But their prices are starkly different. You have foil Dimir Signet at $14 and foil Azorius Signet at $10. Foil Izzet Signet is around $7 and the rest are under $5. A foil Gruul Signet is a measly $2.51 and foil Selesnya Signet is no better at $3.16. They all have seen the same number of foil printings. So why the huge price gap between the most and least expensive signet?

The price pattern shows that the signets with green in them are the cheapest of the lot. Perhaps already having access to plenty of mana fixing, green-based decks do not run signets as much as the non-green decks do.

A quick glance through another database by scoeri breaking down the statistically average composition of the decks of the top fifty commanders validated the hypothesis. The green-based decks rarely included signets in their list, while the non-green decks often ran all the signets their color identity allows. Furthermore, the four signets in the top fifty most played colorless cards list (and the fifth signet if you count the artifacts list) are all non-green.

That makes the green-based foil signets a bad investment, regardless of how cheap they currently are. However foil Rakdos Signet and foil Orzhov Signet seem to be significantly lower than the other four non-green signets; they the only non-green foil signets available for under $5 but they see similar amount of play with the two most expensive signets, Dimir Signet and Azorius Signet. Boros Signet sees less play than both Rakdos Signet and Orzhov Signet and is $6.

Check out the top fifty most popular commanders over the past year, from the same database referred to by this article:

As mentioned above, most of the non-green decks run all the signets their color identity allows.  From the list we can see that popular non-green decks running Dimir Signet and/or Azorius Signet tend to also run Rakdos Signet (Nekusar, the Mindrazer, Jeleva, Nephalia’s Scourge, Marchesa, the Black Rose) and Orzhov Signet (Oloro, Ageless Ascetic, Sydri, Galvanic Genius, Kaalia of the Vast, Sharuum the Hegemon).

These Ravnican guild signets did not appear in Return to Ravnica and each signet bears the name of their respective guilds, so it is highly unlikely for the signets cycle to see a foil printing outside another visit to Ravnica, which probably would not happen within the next five years or so, a.k.a. a long, long time. So far they have been reprinted in Commander and Archenemy, both non-foil supplementary products.

I am of opinion that Rakdos Signet and Orzhov Signet are mispriced and are due for a market correction.

Closing

With the signets, we conclude the artifact segment of Hunting for Commander Foils series. Do comment on if you’ve enjoyed the approach I took for this article, and any suggestions for future articles are more than welcomed. You can find me @theguoheng or just drop a comment here.

Join me next week as I discuss the epic fails (and whatever little wins) I have experienced throughout my time in Magic finance and the lessons I have learnt from them. In the mean time, I can’t wait to finally unpack that Built from Scratch deck I have purchased over the weekend but have yet to find time to bring it out for a test run. Artifacts for the win!

By: Guo Heng Chin

Commander 2014 is dawning upon us in just a few days, and it is exciting times for Commander players. While the new Commander cards have been discussed extensively, Commander is a deep format and there are a treasure trove of potentially undervalued cards in the format. Welcome to the first article in the Hunting for Commander Foils series. The series will comb through some of the most popular Commander cards to discover undervalued Commander foils.

Why Foils You Say?

Besides, foils provide an extra layer of insulation against reprints. Take Solemn Simulacrum for example: the artifact incarnate of Jens Thorén was printed three times but the original Mirrodin foil with Jens Thorén’s face on it still demands a hefty $26.78, while the faceless art foil from M12 is currently at $15.15.

Most popular Commander cards are at risk of being reprinted in the now annual Commander preconstructed decks. The Commander preconstructed decks will not contain any foils, so your foil Solemn Simulacrums have a better likelihood of retaining their value compared with their non-foil versions.

Artifact Power

I for one am excited for the red deck from Commander 2014, Built from Scratch. It is the most artifact-centric deck of all five Commander 2014 precons and I have an affinity for artifacts due to the nostalgia they evoke: I first picked up Magic during Urza’s Block, the era when artifacts were broken. That was the time of Kai Budde’s explosive Mono Red Artifact Wildfire deck that exploits the likes of Grim Monolith and Voltaic Key to generate insane amount of mana before locking out your opponent’s lands with Wildfire and Mishra’s Helix. A bit selfish, I know. But hey, there can only be one winner in every game of Magic. Oh, the deck beats its opponent to death with a dragon as well.  It couldn’t get any sweeter than that.

The following year featured two Mono Blue Artifact Tinker decks in an epic World Championship finals showdown between Jon Finkel and Bob Maher. Their decks ran a similar artifact acceleration package and land disruption as per Kai Budde’s Mono Red Artifact Wildfire, except they win via Tinkering for Phyrexian Colossus or 19/19 Phyrexian Processor tokens.

While I started kitchen table Magic during Urza’s Block, my foray into Magic beyond the kitchen table began during Mirrodin. I have fond memories of splurging out my hand on turn one with Affinity. I never won much though; mirror matches were particularly difficult for a newbie like me. Its complicated board states and mind-boggling combat math with Disciple of the Vaults, artifact lands and Atogs were just too much to handle. And there were a lot of Affinity mirror matches. However, playing aggro never felt better than the few months Skullclamp was legal. Fair enough, the Affinity era was not the epitome of a healthy competitive metagame, but it sure ranks as one of the most overpowered meta in Magic’s history.

Wizards has gotten better with their balancing act these days but artifacts still evoke a sense of forlorn in me, as a subset of cards that used to possess so much power, but is now powered down, nullified in the modern era of Magic. Nevertheless artifacts still play a crucial role in Magic’s most popular casual format, Commander. By virtue of their colorlessness, artifacts fit into any Commander decks, providing a slew of off-color abilities like ramp, card selection, life gain, sacrifice outlets and now even taking extra turns to decks that usually do not have access to them.

Today’s article will discuss the financial potential of some of the most popular artifacts played in Commander. MTGSalvation.com EDH Primer Committee member scoeri have been running a pretty nifty script which trawls the site for user-posted Commander decklists and breaks down most played cards in various configurations. scoeri shared the list under the forum post Statistical Breakdown of the Commander Metagame (highly recommended for anyone interested in Commander stats). The database covers decks from the previous twelve months and is updated monthly, with the last count taking place on 31 October 2014. The database currently contains 3023 decks from 1473 users (decks posted or updated from 31 October 2013 – 31 October 2014). Shout-out to scoeri for the awesome database.

Here’s a snapshot of the top 50 colorless cards most played in Commander.

I chose the colorless list rather than the artifacts list as the colorless one includes artifact creatures. The list is exhaustive and for the sake of space and brevity, this article will cherry pick cards which financial relevancy could be discussed. While Sol Ring tops the list, there is not much to say about it as Sol Ring was reprinted to death in every single Commander decks Wizards release. Gilded Lotus and Darksteel Ingot are both in the top 10, but they are relatively cheap and stagnant over the years for the same reasons. The cards discussed are also preferably legal in both Multiplayer Commander and Duel Commander so there is a larger market for the foil version of the card, but exceptions could be made for extremely popular cards in either format.

Lastly, the foils discussed are still within affordable range for most players to acquire: Sensei’s Divining Top is the fourth most-played artifact, but a foil Champions of Kamigawa copy has a price tag of $118 and a From the Vaults: Exiled foil sets you back $53. There is not much point expounding the virtues of a foil that only a small segment of readers could afford.

The Top Dogs

Mirrodin Foil: $26.78

M12 Foil: $15.15

No. of Foil Printings: 2

The second most popular artifact in the list, lagging behind only Sol Ring. While the foil price for the original Mirrodin version have been stagnant, the foil M12 copy have been slowly trending up in price since the start of 2014. Originally a blue-green card, Solemn Simulacrum gives decks access to two important abilities which are almost universally desired by any Commander decks: blue’s cantripping, and green’s mana ramp and color fixing. It comes with no surprise that Solemn Simulacrum is played in 32% of the Commander decks tallied by scoeri.

Verdict: $15 is a bit steep as a spec target. However I would like to get my own foil copy or copies at $15. I personally would not get the $27 Mirrodin copy, but I am sure there are some diehard pimpers out there who would prefer the original art.

Mirrodin Foil: $19.41

FNM Foil: $17.99

No. of Foil Printings: 2

Third down the list, being played in 31% of the decks counted, Lightning Greaves is a staple in Commander decks built around a Commander that attacks, have an activated ability that requires tapping or is a combo piece.

Verdict: I do not like like Lightning Greaves as a spec or acquisition at $18. Lightning Greaves would be hard pressed to see another foil printing as Wizards is replacing shroud with hexproof. Furthermore, players unwilling to splash $18 – $20 for a pair of shoes might just opt for a pair of $5 foil Swiftfoot Boots.

Darksteel Foil: $16.76

From the Vault: Exiled Foil: $14.98

No. of Foil Printings: 2

Skullclamp is one of the reasons why I love my Purphoros, God the Tokens and Prossh, Kobold Babymaker Commander decks. One mana, sacrifice a token, draw two cards ranks as one of the best guilty pleasures of running a tokens deck. While not nearly as ubiquitous as Solemn Simulacrum, Skullclamp is played in 25% of the Commander decks counted.

Verdict: $15 is a steep entry for a spec, but unlike Solemn Simulacrum foils, we are unlikely to see another printing of foil Skullclamp. Skullclamp was a mistake and is extremely unlikely to see another reprint outside the Commander decks, which contains no foils. Darksteel’s print run is likely to be significantly lower than the current print run of Standard sets, and FTV:Exiled is a limited edition product.

Also unlike foil Lightning Greaves, there is no other card that achieves the same effect (or even close to) as Skullclamp. If you can get any copies at $15 now, go get it.

Zendikar Foil: $13.35

No. of Foil Printings: 1

Expedition Map grants the power to search for any lands to any deck. And its pretty cheap to activate. Most Commander decks run utility lands, be it Cavern of Souls to make your Commander uncounterable, or Academy Ruins to recur incessant artifacts. Expedition Map is a $13 foil common, a price also buoyed by Modern Tron.

Verdict: Unlike the other cards discussed above, the price of foil Expedition Map is at risk of being tanked by a reprint. It is a common, which means a reprint will see a larger influx of foil copies than the cards discussed above. Lightning Greaves and Skullclamp are uncommons but their ability makes unlikely to be reprinted, while Expedition Map’s ability could fit anywhere. Its status as a Modern Tron staple is double edged: while it keeps the price high, it also means that foils of the card could be reprinted en masse not just in normal sets, but also in Modern Masters II.

We are just scraping the tip of the list, stay tuned next week for the second part of Hunting for Commander Foils: Artifacts.