Over the past couple of months we’ve been seeing another wave of Reserved List spikes, and although some of them make sense due to demand, mostly from EDH, (Mox Diamond, Gaea’s Cradle etc.), a lot more have just been pure speculation and targeting (Radiant, Archangel, Singing Tree etc.). I’m not here to advocate Reserved List buyouts, and I’m definitely not here to talk about whether or not the Reserved List should exist. What I am here to do is talk about which cards on the List are mostly likely to spike next due to EDH demand coupled with the ongoing Reserved List targeting, so that you can pick up anything you might want to play with before it gets really expensive, and make some money on the way up.

CE and IE Dual Lands

Prices today: $130-360
Possible price: $200-500

Collectors’ Edition and International Edition cards are a bit of an odd one. For those that don’t know, they are square-bordered cards with gold borders on the back (this is different to the gold-bordered World Championship Deck cards), printed as a Collectors’ Edition Set and not intended for tournament play. Around 10,000 Collectors’ Editions were distributed in the US and Canada, and around 5000 International Editions were distributed in Europe. They’re technically not legal anywhere, so why are CE Underground Seas $360?

There are two main factors here: these are cards for collectors; and a lot of people don’t mind you playing them in EDH and casual formats. I’ve played with an IE Scrubland in an EDH deck for a couple of years now, and nobody in any of the playgroups I’ve played with has minded me using it – anecdotal evidence, I know, but I’ve heard similar things from a lot of EDH players. They’re still official Magic cards, and so people tend to take quite a different view of them than they do with proxies. It’s also worth pointing out that in black sleeves, they’re very comparable to Beta cards because you can’t really see the square borders, and other than that they look the same, giving the Beta look whilst costing less than Revised.

As ABUR duals push upwards, these CE and IE duals remain a more affordable option for those looking to upgrade their EDH manabases, and are going to be dragged up the curve alongside their round-cornered counterparts. This is potentially an interesting arbitrage opportunity, as IE supply is very scarce in the US due to the cards never being distributed there, whereas IE and CE cards have relatively similar amounts of supply to each other in Europe. I doubt that many players in the US will pay the premium for IE over CE, but collectors looking to complete sets might.

Volrath’s Stronghold

Price today: $80
Possible price: $150

I was actually a little surprised when I checked the EDHREC numbers for Volrath’s Stronghold, and found that this was only in 8000 decks, because the power level of the card is definitely way above that. Being able to recur multiple threats from your graveyard, controlling your draw step and maybe pairing it with something like Shriekmaw makes for some real shenanigans, and definitely paints a target on you in a game of EDH.

Stronghold was a $40-50 card until this summer, and looking at a card that’s recently gone from $40 to $80 can definitely make you not want to buy it. But realistically, along with most cards like this, Volrath’s Stronghold is far from being done. There are only 13 NM listings on TCGPlayer for the card, and NM copies of the older cards are becoming more and more scarce as they’re absorbed by players, collectors and speculators alike. LP copies aren’t actually a lot cheaper at $70, so I’d definitely be buying the NM ones here.

MKM has NM copies from €55, but supply isn’t particularly deep there either. I don’t think it’ll be very long at all before we see this card over $100, and given it 6-12 months I think we’ll see $150+. After that, who knows?

Yavimaya Hollow

Price today: $80
Possible price: $150

I’m sure that Yavimaya Hollow has been talked about on the podcast and/or in articles multiple times before now, but even at $80 it’s still got room to grow. A lot of my discussion here would be similar to what I’ve just said about Volrath’s Stronghold, so I won’t spend too long on it. It’s a great utility land that should probably be in all mono-green EDH decks, and quite a lot more beyond that. Providing protection for any of your creatures from a good chunk of the removal going around in EDH is strong, and having that attached to a land and cost only 2 mana is even better.

NM copies start at $80, with LP going from $65 – looking quite similar to Volrath’s Stronghold again. MKM is actually more expensive for this one, starting at €80 for NM, but has a lot of cheaper EX copies (LP in US = EX in EU). Notably, Yavimaya Hollow does also have foil versions, being from Urza’s Destiny – the second Magic set to contain foils. Foils are super scarce, especially in decent condition, but if you can get any LP or better around $350 then I think you’re looking pretty good to ride that to $500+.

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David Sharman (@accidentprune on Twitter) has been playing Magic since 2013, dabbling in almost all formats but with a main focus on Modern, EDH and Pioneer. Based in the UK and a new writer for MTGPrice in 2020, he’s an active MTG finance speculator specialising in cross-border arbitrage.

You won’t believe this one simple trick that’s guaranteed to make you money! Vendors hate it!

Clickbait aside, if you’ve been reading my articles for a reasonable length of time, you’ll know that there are always some excellent arbitrage opportunities in flipping cards from Europe to the USA. Sometimes it can be buying cards in bulk at release for longer holds into a buylist, sometimes it can be for quick flips, but either way it tends to work out pretty well. This week I wanted to have a look at a particular set of cards that have consistently been some of the best and safest cards to arbitrage, so read on to find out what I’m talking about…

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I’m talking about Judge foils, and the last few years have proven that it’s honestly pretty hard to miss on them. Imperial Seals bought at €85 sold in the US for over $200 within 12 months, and are now closing in on $500. Rhystic Studys and Food Chains bought at €30-40 last year are now selling for $100 in the US, and so on. So what are the best opportunities at the moment?

Elesh Norn (Judge Foil)

Price on MKM: €150 ($180)
Price on TCG: $295

After Elesh Norn was first released as a Judge foil back in 2014, it wasn’t long before the card shot up and got over $700. It was the only card to ever be printed with Phyrexian text on it, meaning that it was hugely sought after, and being in pretty low supply the market drained quickly. It wasn’t until a reissue in 2017 that the price was brought back down to around $250, and then another reissue in the latter half of 2019 brought it right down under $170.

This was a slightly better pickup a month ago when there were still €110 copies on MKM, but even now at €150, I think it’s still a safe bet. The cheapest NM copy on TCGPlayer is $295, so still a very nice margin there, and there are only 9 NM copies total on TCG – not exactly a lot. By the time you get this from Europe to the US I wouldn’t be surprised to see prices well over $300, so don’t hang around if you want to get in on this one.

Demonic Tutor (Judge Foil)

Price on MKM: €90 ($107)
Price on TCG: $160

No matter how many times Demonic Tutor is printed, in whatever form, it always goes back up. Remember when the UMA printing brought it down to $20? And now it’s $32 again. 67k EDH decks is a LOT, and it doesn’t take many of them wanting the new Judge foil version to push the price up. $107 to $160 isn’t as big a gap as it might seem once you factor in fees and shipping, but I like holding onto this one a little while. I can see it pushing $200 and above within the year, which is much tastier.

The one caveat here is that we might see a reissue of Demonic Tutor in the next wave of Judge promos, so a good plan is either to flip this one relatively soon, or just buy more and dollar-cost-average when the next wave hits. It’s often the case that with a second wave, the price ends up lower than it was from the first wave, but then bounces right back up in 12 months or so. This is exactly what happened with Rhystic Study and Food Chain, but there was still plenty of room to make money on both cards, both before and after the second wave.

Sliver Legion (Judge Foil)

Price on MKM: €75 ($90)
Price on TCG: $325

Yep, you read that right. $235 difference here, but copies in Europe are draining hard and the €75 ones won’t be around for long. Only 5 listings on TCG ranging from $325 to $800 shows seriously low supply of this card, and major vendors are all out of stock. It’s not the most popular EDH card compared to some other Judge promos, but if you’re playing a Sliver deck then you’re playing this card, and your only options are this one or the Future Sight version, which I think has inferior art.

This is definitely a quick flip target if you can get it, and even if the US price retraces a bit once some more copies hit the market, I can’t see it sinking back down anywhere close to the $90 range. Again, we might see another wave of these promos sent out, but you should be able to flip this long before that happens.

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Lastly, if you’re wondering how to go about getting a foothold in EU arbitrage, you can check out my article on it here, and if you’re a Protrader you can also hop into our Discord server and link up with members on the opposite side of the pond from you. Any questions, hit me up on Twitter or in the Discord!

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David Sharman (@accidentprune on Twitter) has been playing Magic since 2013, dabbling in almost all formats but with a main focus on Modern, EDH and Pioneer. Based in the UK and a new writer for MTGPrice in 2020, he’s an active MTG finance speculator specialising in cross-border arbitrage.

Double Masters? Haven’t heard of her. Over the weekend we had the kickoff of Commander Legends previews, along with the full set of the Commander Collection: Green released. It’s only been four months since Commander 2020 was released, but it certainly feels like an age ago – we’ve had M21, Jumpstart and Double Masters released on us since then, have now started Commander Legends previews and will be soon to start Zendikar Rising previews. It seems that Wizards are really testing the limits as to how much product they can shove down our throats before we stop buying everything – but it doesn’t look like we’ve hit the bar quite yet, as although there is definitely some product fatigue, people are still buying like crazy even during a pandemic.

So although it was only four months ago, let’s jump back in time and take a look at the winners and potential gainers from Commander 2020 (also known as Commander: Ikoria).

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I remember when we first saw the free spells from C20 previewed, and thinking “hmm these seem quite good, maybe I should pick some up”, but before you could blink preorders for Fierce Guardianship had shot up to $30. Four of the five free spells are currently taking the top four spots from the set, with the green one trailing miserably miles behind. It’s pretty tragic – you would’ve thought they might have given green a small overrun effect, or token creation of some sort, but no, it got a fog. Great.

Anyway, with those cards taking up a good chunk of the EV from the set, I want to have a look at some of the other new cards and reprints that look set to do well from here on.

Verge Rangers

Price today: $1.60
Possible price: $5

White has a long and storied history of being the least powerful colour in Magic, never really getting to do anything broken and being notoriously poor at accruing card advantage. Wizards have very slowly started to give the colour some more card advantage and better tools, with Smothering Tithe proving to be a very popular EDH card, and now Verge Rangers looks set to be another boon for white.

I think that this is the first time white has been given the ability to play cards from the top of their library, whilst the other colours have all had this ability in some form or another for a while. Verge Rangers unfortunately doesn’t let you play extra lands, but it’s still a good catch-up mechanism to try and keep up with the green decks. It’s a decent body on top of that, so definitely a pretty good rate overall.

Discounting the free spells, EDHREC has Verge Rangers is the top mono-coloured card from C20, and if we’re looking at raw numbers (not percentages) then it’s the most included card full stop (a bunch of the 3 colours cards rank above it because their percentage includes are higher due to having fewer total decks they can go into). I think that this will become a long-term staple for white EDH decks, so I don’t think you can go very wrong picking bricks of these up at $1.60.

Species Specialist

Price today: $0.50
Possible price: $3

Another mono-coloured card (read: goes in a lot of different decks) to be doing well is Species Specialist. I have to imagine that this slots into pretty much any tribal-based deck that can run it, and the EDHREC data backs that up. The top commander for it are almost all tribal commanders, and I think that one of the best decks for the Specialist has to be Grismold, the Dreadsower, as it gives all your opponents plants too, and Species Specialist triggers off any creature of the chosen type dying, not just ones you control. Other good synergies are where your commander is a sacrifice outlet, like Endrek Sahr and Marrow-Gnawer, or in fact the Silvar / Trynn deck that the card comes in.

50 cents for this does seem pretty low to me, as I think it’ll be a popular tribal card for EDH and casual decks going forward, giving the ability to get some serious card advantage going. I’d be happy to sit on a bunch of these and buylist out for $2-3, possibly more, in a year or so.

Tidal Barracuda

Price today: $1
Possible price: $5

I actually really like this card and think it goes into a lot of decks, and a lot of different types of deck. Blue is the most popular colour in EDH, so we’re already winning there. Barracuda is the top mono-blue card from C20, so still looking good. Now let’s read the card.

Albeit strapped to a creature which is generally the most easy thing to kill in EDH, we’ve got quite a unique effect here: everyone can cast everything at instant speed, but not on your turn. Giving everyone else flash might sound scary, but if they’re not interacting with you on your turn then you have a lot less reason to care. I can see this leading to a lot of situations where your opponents interact with each other a lot and can’t do much about your stuff, meaning you can leave them to take each other out and then swoop in to win the game.

As well as that, it gives excellent combo protection; generally an effect we’ve only seen from white and the likes of Grand Abolisher and Silence prison-style cards. Giving that ability to mono-blue is some serious game, meaning that if you can untap with a Barracuda in play then you don’t need to worry about holding up extra counterspells whilst going off. This can also play well in group hug style decks, giving your opponents a helpful effect whilst actually helping you a lot more than them.

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David Sharman (@accidentprune on Twitter) has been playing Magic since 2013, dabbling in almost all formats but with a main focus on Modern, EDH and Pioneer. Based in the UK and a new writer for MTGPrice in 2020, he’s an active MTG finance speculator specialising in cross-border arbitrage.

It seems like I’m doing one of these articles every couple of months now, but until WotC sort out their card designs and stop printing stuff that needs banning, I guess I’ll keep going. Two weeks ago we had one of the biggest shake-ups across four formats (well, like three and a half; Brawl only kinda counts) that we’ve had in recent years, with Standard seeing the banning of Wilderness Reclamation, Growth Spiral, Tef3ri and Cauldron Familiar just two months before rotation. As well as that, we had Inverter, Ballista, Breach and Kethis banned in Pioneer, Reclamation and Tef3ri suspended in Historic and Tef3ri also banned in Brawl.

In terms of #mtgfinance, only one of those formats is likely relevant here, so let’s take a look at where Brawl is headed after this round of bans…

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Just kidding, we’re obviously here for Pioneer. Having pretty much completely ignored the format in the last set of bans, it seems like Wizards have finally listened to peoples’ pleas and sorted Pioneer out. The takeaway from these bans is probably that Wizards don’t want Pioneer to be a combo format, as they’ve axed the three big combos and taken out Kethis just for good measure.

Niv-Mizzet Reborn (Foil)

Price today: $15
Possible price: $30

Now that Pioneer looks to be headed towards being a big midrange format, players have been very excited to get their Niv-Mizzets back out. The combo decks like Inverter and Breach really pushed these kinds of value-based decks out of the format for a while, and although people were still playing it, it wasn’t necessarily well positioned. With those gone, however, it’s time to cast 5 colour spells on turn 7 again, and there’s nothing Magic players love more than being able to throw a bunch of random 1-of spells in their deck with the justification that they need something of that guild’s colour to draw with Niv.

I’m sure foil Niv has been called out as a spec before, probably on the podcast, but I think it’s in a better position than ever right now. There are only 21 vendors with copies on TCGPlayer, and only another 8 with prerelease versions. WAR was a very popular set, but this is still a foil mythic so supply isn’t going to be too deep.

The ramp on this one is steep so if you want any personal copies then go get them right now, because they’ll be $20 before you can blink. Give it 6 months and if this deck is still popular in Pioneer, I can see these hitting $30 easily. It’s also the 2nd most popular commander from the set by quite a margin, which is pretty impressive for a five colour card!

An additional tip on this one is to look at some of the foil Japanese copies on TCGPlayer, because there are some that are significantly cheaper than the English copies, which is bound to be incorrect down the road. They’ll be from JPN WAR boxes that people have cracked looking for alternate art planeswalkers, so snag those deals whilst you can.

Agent of Treachery (Foil)

Price today: $8
Possible price: $20

Another deck that’s shot back up in popularity is the Yorion/Fires/Lukka/Agent whatever you want to call it deck. It’s kind of a Jeskai control deck, but it also tries to cheat out an Agent of Treachery as quickly as possible by making tokens and then using Lukka to turn it into an Agent. Doing that on turn 5 and stealing your opponent’s biggest threat, or even a land if they’re also a control deck, is pretty sweet.

Generally these lists will be playing full suites of Narset (can I say Nars3t because the deck sometimes plays the 4 mana one too?), Tef3ri and Lukka, and some are even packing as many as 18(!) planeswalkers into the deck! Superfriends aside, these decks are all playing three or four Agent of Treachery, obviously an integral part of the list. It’s a card that was powerful enough to get banned in Standard, and Pioneer is definitely closer to Standard+ rather than Modern Lite, so the power levels are relatively comparable.

Foil Agents have had a rocky ride up and down, but can now be had as low as $8 on TGCPlayer. The ramp up isn’t all that shallow, so these cheaper copies seem like a sure thing to hit $15 before long, and on to $20 given 12 months or less. It’s worth noting, as usual, that it’s in a reasonable number of EDH decks too – 7.5k – and sits in the top 10 cards from M20 as the most popular blue card *scowls at Deadeye Navigator*.

Eldritch Evolution (Foil)

Price today: $9
Possible price: $18

Rounding things off today, I’m taking a look at the Naya Winota lists tearing up the Pioneer metagame at the moment. Ok, maybe not totally tearing it up, but definitely doing pretty well. From what I’ve seen of this deck in action, it’s quite a high variance deck but when things go right, it’s insane. Your opponent can just die out of nowhere on turn 4 after you play a Winota, and that’s kinda busted if you ask me.

The aim of the game is to get your Goblin Rabblemasters and Legion Warbosses making tokens to attack, and use the Winota trigger to find an Angrath’s Marauders or two to hit your opponent really really really hard. One of the key pieces of the deck is Eldritch Evolution, which can mean you have a Winota in play on turn 3 quite consistently, and if you’re sacrificing a Voice of Resurgence to the Evolution then you’ll even have a decent body left behind to attack with the next turn as well.

Eldritch Evolution is again a card that’s been talked about a fair bit before now, but foils are in really short supply now. We had a non-foil reprint in the Mystery Boosters, but foils haven’t been seen since the original printing in Eldritch Moon. Starting at $9 on TCGPlayer, there are only 19 vendors with copies, with another 6 for the prerelease version. This deck can only get more consistent and/or powerful over time, and I am of course obligated to mention that this is also a card in 13k EDH decks, which is a very nice backup to have. Seeing as we got the Mystery Booster printing I don’t think we’ll see this card printed again for a little while, so I think you’re good to ride this up for at least the next 12 months.

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David Sharman (@accidentprune on Twitter) has been playing Magic since 2013, dabbling in almost all formats but with a main focus on Modern, EDH and Pioneer. Based in the UK and a new writer for MTGPrice in 2020, he’s an active MTG finance speculator specialising in cross-border arbitrage.