Readers!

There are (slightly) more Brother’s War previews. More importantly, there is significantly more data for cards we already knew about, which is upon what I’d like to focus tonight. I’ll be honest, I’d love to be able to focus at all. I yelled myself hoarse for 8 hours watching Battlebots on Friday, got 8 hours sleep total the whole time I was there and ate sushi that was under a heat lamp in a 7/11. I’m not feeling my absolute best but if you think for a second our Pro Traders aren’t getting both barrels of the MTG Finance cannon this week just because I’m feeling a little like I was in the desert where drugs and alcohol are thank you gifts for losing money at craps and a Gatorade is $6.59 in the hotel, you’re sorely mistaken. Not as sore as the left side of my neck for some reason, but sore all the same. Let’s get this preamble paragraph wrapped up in a bow so I can dump a bunch of high quality picks on you then got to bed before midnight like a cartoon mouse who was turned into a stagecoach for the night or something. I don’t know. That movie came out before I was born I think. I’m not going to look that up because as we said, I’m not at my best. Remember Doc Ellis pitching a no-hitter on LSD? Well I’m not on LSD. This is going to be a many-hitter, and not just because the cards I pick are going to be hits, either. Also the reason you thought of first. Let’s do something data before I write a 2,000 word opening paragraph and go eat handfuls of shredded fiesta blend cheese and stare at the label on the apple cider.

An Old Dog Learns New Tricks

Just kidding, I just wanted a paragraph heading to break up the text. There is literally nothing new here despite a few more decks being added. I think the deck will be good, and popular, but it won’t be the most popular in a world where there is a card bearing the name “Urza.” Why am I giving you a whole paragraph on a card I don’t want to talk about again? I already told you, to break up the wall of text.

While this card isn’t giving us anything new, really, the old stuff is quite good and I think you should go back to last week where I talked about it. Don’t fear, there is plenty of gas in the other two commanders we have decks for.

Urza is Next

I’m bad at using the subheading tool, I literally have no idea what I should write there. Urza is next, but you could have figured that out using your peripheral vision. This isn’t going great, I can feel people looking at that red X in the corner. Don’t do that, I’ll give you specs, I promise. Just give me like 10 second to see if burping makes this stomach ache go away.

Yeah, it’s Urza. Yeah, it’s artifacty. This is going to make some old cards go up a lot and after it happens, everyone will be like “Well, yeah, artifact set, what did you THINK was going to happen?” but I don’t see any of those people actually saying now what they think is going to happen, so I will. I think Artifacts are going to be big business next year. Let’s look at Urza for guidance on which ones.

There is a very good case for a few of these, not the least of which is

Could this hit $10? I mean, maybe. It has a very robust play profile on EDHREC (34-35k decks – not too shabby) and it’s cheap and it’s half of its historic high. These are literally all of the things I want one or two of in a spec and this has all of them. Seems like a slam dunk, provided this isn’t reprinted. If it is, it may take some time but it will shrug the printing off. Cards with Improvise in Brother’s War would really surprise me, though- I’m betting against it happening.

This was $30 for an entire day – what if that day could be some time in November or December and this time you’re a seller at $30 and not a buyer at $15? It’s just a thought. I can’t guarantee this will go nuts, but if you bought everything I said about Whir of Invention, I don’t know why you’d start nitpicking when it came to a card with an identical case made for it. These spiked and went right back down which means dealers are stuck with these. When you buy before the spike, you’ll sneakily get a lot of copies. When you sell into the hype, the dealers you got these from for $3 will buy them from you and the cycle will feel complete. Why pick a side between Mishra and Urza when you can be the one selling weapons to both sides? Which would make you the CIA….

This will absolutely shrug off this recent printing as surely as I was right about this hitting $10. I was wrong, though – it went to $12 before it was reprinted, not $10. I feel more shame about that than you could possibly ever make me feel, so don’t even bother trying.

Mishra is doing artifacty stuff, too, you know.

Tell Me About That Artifacty Stuff

Woof, I will literally pay someone from the community to write headlines for me. That did not feel good at all.

Mishra is a deck I would build Goblin tribal, personally. You need a wide swath of expendable bodies and you want to be doing artifact stuff to tutor for Phyrexian Dragon Engine; this is a very goblin deck. Still, you don’t want to know how I’d build it, do you, or you’d read my article series every Thursday on Coolstuff Inc.com your source for cool stuff and hot other stuff. It’s free to read my articles over there. I’m not saying I don’t get enough readers over there. I actually have no idea, they won’t tell me. Could be a lot. Could be I should be telling those people to come here. Right, you want to know what people are playing.

I see a bit of a Goblin theme here. If Krenko is getting played, what about Krenko?

If the only thing you did in MTG Finance was ride the waves of $5 buy-ins and $10 cash-outs Krenko gets you, you would make a few bucks per copy per year, seems like. This still shrugs off printings, and since it rarely gets below $5, I like it at $5 and I’m not going to apologize for it.

If this spikes again, it will be to $12 and it will stay there, mostly. I think we missed the biggest opportunity to get these for $1 and sell them to a buylist for $2.25, but the buylist on these has never bee higher. $3 for these on CK with the buylist at $2.50 and a new excuse to play Goblins, plus the possibility of the non-EDH interaction that made it spike in 2021 re-occuring makes this a slam dunk imo.

Sets are all busted, now. Green is getting a card that turns Rampant Growth into a better Sylvan Scrying among other bonkers cards. Once people start to brew, next week’s article is going to be wall-to-wall gas, Until then, check out the Brother’s War stuff on EDHREC – there are more picks than the ones I wrote about. Until next time!

Readers!

Mark Rosewater loves to do a cryptic teaser blog post every time a new set comes out, which is often. Usually it’s all inconsequential but speculation is the art of using the past to delve clues about the future for information. Yes, I said art. You can be scientific about it if you want, and I think my typical series using lots of numbers from EDHREC does a good job of that and I’ve been very successful with my insights the past few years. Are you going to argue? You’re reading my writing, clearly something made you care about my opinions.

I like to post his entire post and see if we can ferret out any nuggets. Remember, we don’t have to nail it, we just have to think about what other people are thinking about. It’s a few days removed from the post but I bet there is still plenty of meat on the bone. Here’s the list, you lucky so and so’s. That apostrophe can’t be right, it looks like a grocer’s apostrophe but EB White insists. Shoulda said “lucky sumbitches.”

• over ten legendary Human Artificers

• another card with “end the turn”

• a command with X in its mana cost

• a spell that mimics an element of the effect of a creature that was originally printed with the picture of a World Champion on it

• a Teferi with a new way to gain loyalty counters

• equipment with “Equip Soldier”

• a new Onulet

• protection from everything returns

• a white creature that taps to let you and an opponent draw a card

• one colored artifact

Next, here are some rules text that will be showing up on cards:

• “create a tapped Powerstone token for each other creature you control.”

• “Put a +1/+1 counter on target Assembly-Worker you control.”

• “Whenever one or more creatures with mana value 3 or less enter the battlefield under your control,”

• “Permanents you control have ‘Ward – Sacrifice a permanent.’”

• “Whenever you cast an artifact spell with mana value 6 or greater,”

• “For each card type among noncreature spells you’ve cast this turn,”

• “Create a tapped 3/3 colorless Zombie artifact creature token.”

• “Look at the cards in each pile, then turn a pile of your choice face up.”

• “gains your choice of flying, vigilance, deathtouch, or haste.”

• “Whenever you cast a Beast or Bird creature spell,”

Finally, here are some creature type lines in the set:

• Artifact Creature – Ape

• Creature – Mole Horror

• Artifact Creature – Phyrexian Wurm

• Creature – Phyrexian Human Assassin

• Creature – Minotaur Barbarian

• Creature – Elf Druid Soldier

• Creature – Human Artificer Scout

• Legendary Creature – Human Wizard Advisor

• Legendary Creature – Elf Druid Scout

• Legendary Creature – Human Artificer Advisor

So this is a lot of stuff, and we can immediately ignore some of it. In fact, I’m only going to respond to the stuff I think is actionable.

• another card with “end the turn”

This feels like an Obkea-esque card, and it’s distinctly possible we could see an Obeka-style commander soon. If it’s another Time Stop, that could be OK, too, but those cards are considerably worse in EDH than in 2 player Magic where it’s a combination Counterspell and Time Walk. Just in case, the price of cards like Final Fortune (though Blue-adjacent cards are better than Red ones) or Sundial of the Infinite (which goes in Blue decks).

This is safe as milk imo. The spike in late 2020 is from Obeka and while it went down a bit, it didn’t stay down. One printing, flirted with $8 recent, I’m super duper OK paying $5 or $6 for this future 10 spot. It will go up bit by bit if this new “End the turn” card doesn’t enable new shenanigans and it will increase precipitously if it does. I like a win-win more.

Both cards got a second wind in 2022 that they’re in the midst of shrugging off so the copies won’t be in the hands of dealers. A run of any size on a rare card like this will be amplified 100 fold, but there might be safer places to park your money.

• equipment with “Equip Soldier”

Some people’s brains shut off when they saw this. I really think there is not much here, but anything could happen when people think there is going to be some sick tribal soldier. Still, “equip soldier” likely means there will be quite a few soldiers in this set, and with 50 or so Legendary creatures likely, there’s bound to be a new soldier deck.

Rather than try and figure out what is going on here, I thought about why they might say “equip soldier” and it occurred to me that it was likely due to there being 2 equip costs – 1 for soldiers and 1 for non-soldiers. Rather than focusing on which Soldiers I want to equip, I thought about trying to find easy ways to equip equipment in a non-Soldier deck.

Sigarda’s Aid doesn’t need any help from a new weird equipment that’s hard to equip, it’s doing fine on its own. However, it’s down from a historical high of $14 and basically just waiting for paper Modern. Hammertime is a relatively cheap deck to build and it can lucksack you to some really easy wins, making it perfect in the hands of a complete lunatic. You know the wild card you invite because it’s cheaper to split gas and hotel 4 ways and they have an unhinged Day 1 at a GP and then 0-5 day 2? Soon we’ll have tournaments for that guy to go nuts at again. Sigarda’s Aid seems safe but reprints can always dash our hopes if we’re not careful.

• “create a tapped Powerstone token for each other creature you control.”

This card is both the reason we know what a Powerstone token does and the card most likely to benefit from that being a real thing in Brother’s War. This is a $4 mythic Karn Planeswalker that could get real relevant, or even medium relevant. Did I mention it’s a $4 mythic Planeswalker? Now, that’s not unique – there are a depressing number of Mythic Planesalkers under $5. But the point is, that if you buy in at $5 and nothing happens, you’ll lose out on some opportunities with the money tied up, but if you’re inclined to gamble, this is like buying a $4 lottery ticket that will sell for $5 in 2 years. Sign me up for risks like that. Yes, there is a cost to having money tied up, but it’s a lower cost than lighting a Benjamin on fire because you specced on something way riskier.

• “Permanents you control have ‘Ward – Sacrifice a permanent.’”

Privileged Position this ain’t, but historically, cards that make it hard to target your permanents sleep for a bit until they’re discovered by Commander. Will that lull happen this time? Doubtful with Commander being the most popular format, but you never know.

This little bulk rare that could exceeded $20 both before an after a reprinting in a guild deck (remember those?) and I think while them having to pay dearly to kill something isn’t the same as stopping them entirely, it’s likely that this new spell is a great deal cheaper and therefore comes down before they can deal with it and when they do have some expendable perms later, your Greater Auramancy or Privileged Position can shield the new card that gives everything Ward. Is that boring? Eh, maybe, but not as boring as playing Farewell in your deck.

• “Whenever you cast an artifact spell with mana value 6 or greater,”

I won’t go down the entire hit parade for you, but I did the favor of linking my scryfall search so you don’t have to. I also have a favorite.

Foil Thopter Assembly fits the bill for me. It’s unlikely to be reprinted in foil ever again, the promo is ugly, it bounces itself letting you replay it for a ton of value and whatever happens with that trigger when you play it or replay it and it’s about a buck below its historic high, which will get higher if this new card breaks it. Pairing this with Time Sieve may be 2012 tech but people will remember if you do it to their faces and are left with a cloud of Thopters to vex them to boot.

I don’t know if any of this will pan out, but it’s fun to speculate and I think I did a better job of backing up my assertions than most people who try to do this. Next week we’ll be looking at more numbers, so let’s just enjoy this week and I’ll see you in Vegas, unless you’re at the event in which case you won’t see me because I’m going to be at a taping of Battlebots and multiple casinos. Check my twitter for me to live-tweet my location even though it’s a really bad idea. Until next time!

Readers! A lot can change in 7 days. From last week’s article, here is a graphic of the 5 most recent sets in the EDHREC dropdown menu.

And here is, and I’m definitely padding the word count to create somewhat of a buffer between the two images in case you’re on, like, mobile, I guess? And you have big old Kind Charles fingers and can’t select one without the other? I feel like I did it, and not a second too soon because you have to get a lot of this BS. This is that same menu 7 days later.

Superlative. No notes. Is there a reason for this glut of products apart from 40k being delayed?

Super duper. OK, then. Since we’re all whales, now and Ol’ Cap’n Ahabsbro seems to want to see us all dead. If Magic goes away, I need to get a real big boy job and I have 0 skills. I’m like an indoor cat who ended up outside with a dog whose internal monologue is voiced by… I want to say Scoot McNairy. Actually that sounds pretty chill. I’m like a 38 year old with no relevant experience in the last decade who can’t pass a drug test. That’s what I’m like. And I’m scared.

The cure for the “I wasted my life on a children’s card game that doesn’t love me back” blues is more hot specs. With new sets every week comes new specs every week. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Looks like the community is spoiling to build around this creature all the Vorthos people recognize from the Ice Age comic book that came with a free pack of Fallen Empires but I’ve never heard of. The only way to get a deck built is to build it before the set’s out because by the time you have the physical cardboard, they’ve spoiled 2 more sets and 8 more secret lairs. Let’s look at these specs, shall we?

No real shock here. Kayla likely gets built as a mean, stax style deck that you can sac your own pieces to get them back. Everything that makes her better at doing what she does is 2 or 3 mana and an Artifact or Creature. This is basically a Tiny Leaders deck, but like a mean, antisocial one. If people figure out how to build this deck like not a complete sociopath, I’ll report on those specs, too, I guess, but for now, feast your eyes upon my pics.

This card is under $10 and should not be. Every time it goes under $10, it goes back over $10. Is this going to get reprinted again? Perhaps. But what you should really be asking yourself is how many times does it need to get reprinted not to trend towards $15? At least one more, so make this one count.

I could type more because of that thing I said earlier about a buffer between images, but this graph is 1,000 words and I don’t want this piece to turn into a snooze to read if we’re at 1,500 words already.

This is $1 above its recent floor an $20 below its historical high. I don’t know where it will equilibrate, but it’s not going to be $8.

There are basically very few wrong answers here, honestly. Half of these are cards I liked a long time ago. Some of them are way underpriced. WAY underpriced.

I thought this was a $5 last year and nothing has happened since then to make me feel otherwise. Unfortunately, nothing has happened since then.

I don’t know, this just doesn’t seem like a bulk rare to me. It’s in a lot of decks, it’s about to be in more, and it’s good. Illusionists’ Bracers were cheap forever, I stand by this pick and I’ll either be vindicated or out of a job because the game collapsed under the weight of the products they release because no one wants to buy Monopoly or Nerf guns right before a recession.

Speaking of bracers,

This is in a lot of decks. This should be $10 everywhere, maybe more, so sniping cheap copies seems like a good play. They somehow have never reprinted this, which makes me a bit nervous considering they have a chance to reprint it every set, now.

I think this commander actually has a ton of potential. I really like the idea of a Boros type of Birthing Pod, and with it as your commander, you’ll get a ton of value. For reference, here is the rest of Kayla’s page. Thanks for reading, nerds. Until next time!

Readers!

Something I haven’t done in a long time is look at the data for Top 100 most-included cards on EDHREC. And why would I? The top card is Sol Ring, there are a bunch of Signets, tutors, removal spells, Rampant Growths and a few spicy creatures like Dockside Extortionist. Everyone who has played even a single game of Commander can probably name all 100 cards, right. Right? Well, what if I told you that there are a lot of cards on the list that have been printed for the first time in the last two years, some of them that I have mentioned before and some I haven’t? Do I need to sell you on this concept, really? I got your click already, you’re hooked, I just need to not blow it by losing your interest. I’d prefer you got something out of this article, so I’m going to look at the EDHREC top 100 cards of the last week and show you which cards from 2021 and 2022 are heating up and whether or not I like them as specs. It’s happening, so be prepared to be surprised by a few of these – it wouldn’t be a whole entire article without a few curveballs, otherwise I’d just list all 100 cards and call it a day. Instead, I’m digging in the content mines without a circle of protection: black lung anywhere in sight. I do it for you, readers, so let’s see what I unearthed, shall we? That was rhetorical; we shall.

#25 – Ignoble Hierarch

There will come a certain point where a rare that is unlikely to get reprinted soon given its price trajectory over the year that’s in tens of thousands of decks will officially become so cheap that it’s absurd not to buy them. Silly me, I thought that point was $5. I bought some, not a ton, but some. The showcase versions is trash, but the old border version is very good-looking. If this is like $1 or $2 and it’s in a quarter of Jund decks moving forward, which seems ow considering it was in more than a quarter of jund decks this week.

28% isn’t a ton more than %25, but $3.39 is a hell of a lot cheaper than $10 so the popularity by way of discovered demand when the card becomes too cheap not to play should help that number increase beyond 28% as people build more Jund. This is in a ton of decks, it’s cheap, it’s getting help from Modern and it’s tough to reprint. At some point the fact that Modern Horizons two was absolutely bonkers and every pack was a winner will be outweighed by the sheer demand, provided people don’t abandon EDH in droves. It’s a fun format, it’s hard to see that happening.

#42 – Esper Sentinel

Esper Sentinel has 4 times the demand (OK, 3.72) of Ignoble Hierarch and commands 10 times the price. As the price for Hierarch sinks, the price for Sentinel really went nuts, peaking at twice what it is now. I still think this card is overpriced at $20 but it’s a little tough to reprint, also. I think rather than look at this card as a spec, I want to use it as a stick to measure what the ceiling for Ignoble likely is. If Esper Sentinel is $20 in 4x as many decks and can hold $20 (if this approaches $10 it becomes so buyable it immediately goes back above $15 in the frenzy) we can expect to get $5 minimum for Hierarch. The showcases are ugly and they’re everywhere but no product is perfect. I think Sentinel is a buy under $20 for any reason other than a reprint and cEDH ubiquity also plays a huge part in Sentinel’s inflated price, something Ignoble can’t quite claim. Neither can this next card, but being in a weird set is a big boost.

#46 Esika, God of the Tree

Coming in just a few spots behind Esper Sentinel this week is Esika, a mana fixing maven. With the multicolored decks coming out hard and fast and showing no signs of stopping, Esika is in under 10% of the 5 color decks released in the past two years, however…

This week she is in twice that ratio, meaning her use over time is trending up. This is a $15 card masquerading as an $8 card and I’m tired of pretending it’s not. Except this will be $15 on Card Kingdom in a few months and we’ll all wonder when it happened. Soon, I think.

This is also available in a very good-looking showcase version, which is kind of rare, really.

I love the showcase art, and while it’s not for everyone, it’s trending up sharply in price, which will happen because it’s the preferred version and the less-preferred version will lag behind. There is time to get in on both, though there’s more time for the plain jane version. I love both, honestly- these shake out to $15 and $20+ respectively fairly trivially in my opinion. I also like a few of the other Legendary creatures from Kaldheim because they bothered to make creatures that could go in the 99. At the time I thought they made too many Legendary creatures in Kaldheim but I’d give anything to go back to before we got literally 70 of them every 2 months.

#50 Damn

This is almost the same price as Ignoble Hierarch and is in twice as many decks. Which card is mispriced? I think perhaps Damn looks good given this comparison, especially given that it goes in more decks.

Both versions of this card look so slick it’s tough to choose a clear winner here. I don’t think you need to – this is played a ton – in 20% of all Orzhov-containing decks over both time periods, and I think it’s a little tougher to reprint than you might think. I like this a ton, especially the $4 EA copies on TCG Player given how they’re already 150% of that on CK.

#72 – An Offer You Can’t Refuse

Not a ton to say here. It’s so easy to get treasure tokens and so hard to get a 2/2 flier that everyone seems to just want to jam this over Swan Song because it’s a $1 uncommon. I don’t rally have an issue with this. Will its price go up? Yep. I don’t know how much, but this is becoming a bit of a staple and I’m all for it.

I doubt you regret snagging these under $2, there are way worse uncommons worth way more, recent ones, too. One problem with this is that it’s a “quiet” and unsexy staple and people tend to buy those one at a time for decks rather than in swaths for speculation purposes. It’s a them card, not an us card. But maybe we make it an us card and just buy the things, I don’t know. Could work.

#74 Void Rend

Speaking of quiet an unsexy, this little guy is chugging along at the $2 mark which is about where the Uncommon we just mentioned is. This is played the same proportion in absolute terms although the mono-Blue An Offer You Can’t Refuse is nearing the 40k mark already. Rares are a third as abundant as Uncommons and this is played a third as much. Will the prices go up together? It’s interesting, but also, good rare removal doesn’t stay under $2 for long and while this is held out of a lot of decks by its Esper color identity, it goes in quite a few by virtue of it being hard to think of an Esper deck that doesn’t want to point and belete a permanent, and being uncounterable matters quite a bit, too. In a head-to-head match, this beats An Offer You Can’t Refuse, and I’ll break the tie that way and you can’t stop me.

#92 Timeless Lotus

This is lava hot right now and, despite being a new card, is showing up in a lot of the 5 color decks. There was a 5 color precon and we’re in the middle of the mania surrounding that and I sort of feel like this is a clunky rock. I’ve advocated for Crystal Quarry before, however, so who knows who’s right? You don’t have to take my word for it, just look at how many people are playing the card. Check the percentage of usage for a few weeks – 35% is entirely unsustainable, and this card’s color identity keeps it out of a lot of decks, but we like Esika so why not like this, too? Morophon is a card, after all.

That does it for me this week! I’m running really close to the automatic cap where wordpress automatically cuts the article off, but before I go I just want to thank