By: Travis Allen
@wizardbumpin

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Don’t miss this week’s installment of the MTG Fast Finance podcast, an on-topic, no-nonsense tour through the week’s most important changes in the Magic economy. And if you enjoy playing Magic, make sure to visit https://scry.land to find PPTQs, SCG Opens, and more events on an interactive map with worldwide coverage. Find Magic near you today.

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Overall Easter weekend was on the quieter side of things in the world of Magic. There was a team limited grand prix overseas, which was fun for the people over there I’m sure, but as far as we’re concerned, it would have been more relevant to watch a stream of kitchen table Magic.

There was a Modern MOCS yesterday too, which had some less-than-predictable results. Hollow One and Humans were the decks to beat, with the best performances by a sizeable margin. Storm and Jund face planted. Ironworks…showed up? And Tron probably upset some people.

Tom Ross wrote an article on Friday about some cool Modern decks, and it’s worth knowing he wrote that. That ran on DailyMTG, which is a lot of eyeballs.

Retract

Price Today: $3
Possible Price: $10

Tom’s article over on the mothership certainly got people talking this week, because I sold four playsets of Puresteel Paladin in two days after not having sold any in who knows how long. If Magic players today are anything like I was ten years ago, seeing a fairly cheap combo deck like that got a lot of casual players excited to build it, especially since it’s “adaptable” to be affordable. (That means cutting the moxes, which of course ruins the entire deck, but that’s the type of detail those same players will happily overlook.)

Anyways, if this deck picks up steam, whether on kitchen tables or final tables, Retract is the weakest link. A single printing in Mirrodin means supply is as low as possible in Magic’s most popular competitive format, Modern. It’s a cornerstone card in the deck, and I’m not sure you could ever build the strategy without a full playset. It’s a just about the ripest confluence of factors around a card spiking you could ask for. (Save for the deck, being like, good.)

Supply is decently high right now, but that’s in part due to Retract having had the briefest of moments in the sun a year ago. That jump brought the card up from $2 into the $10+ range, which dredged every spare copy in existence up. That supply is now sitting around in the hands of some vendors and various market operators, and much of that is available online right now. In other words, there’s not really any supply beyond what’s visible in the market.

Diplomatic Immunity

Price Today: $.5
Possible Price: $4

If you poke around over at EDHREC, you’ll see that Zur the Enchanter has been popular the last few months. He’s an odd commander that pushes players into notable card choices. One of them that jumped out at me is Diplomatic Immunity. Immunity is from a different time period in Magic’s design history. It gives itself and the creature it enchants shroud. That’s it. An annoying enchantment. Truly, Magic is the greatest game.

Diplomatic Immunity is a gold standard in Zur, since it helps ensure he hangs around for more shenanigans on follow up turns. Not only can Zur fetch it, but there’s a whole enchantment subtheme with the deck, so it fits in well. Overall you’ll find Immunity in about 2,000 EDH decks, which isn’t a remarkably deep pool, but it’s not insignificant.

What catches my eye here is that like Retract, it’s a single printed card. It’s a common from Mercadian Masques with no second printing. If Zur continues to see new decks being built, supply is going to drain on Immunity. We’re not going to see a $20 card here, but a jump from pocket change to several dollars is possible. Selling these one at a time on TCGPlayer or eBay would be annoying, but buying in at $.45 and then dumping a stack to a buylist for $1.50 a few months later would be awfully sweet.

Rhystic Study

Price Today: $10
Possible Price: $20

Anyone that’s ever listed copies of Rhystic Study for sale on TCG knows how hot a commodity this is. It’s one of the most popular blue EDH cards, which is really saying something. It’s also basically a meme unto itself; “You pay one for that? Pay one for that? Pay one for that?”

Given how quickly these move, as 1-ofs, there’s no doubt that EDH players are vacuuming them up at an alarming rate. So far there’s been enough churn to keep the market liquid, but I wonder if we’re approaching a turning point on that. Players have to be getting rid of these pretty fast to keep up with the demand in the market right now. EDH players often like to stash their cards, not sell them, so I’d expect a healthy attrition on a staple like this. A constant upwards price movement for years supports my suspicions.

$10 for a common may seem crazy, but this has moved far beyond its printed rarity. There’s not a lot left out there at this price, or less than $20 in general. If this trend continues, this will be a blue EDH staple that’s at least a Jackson before too long.

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Travis Allen has  been playing Magic: The Gathering since 1994, mostly in upstate New York. Ever since his first FNM he’s been trying to make playing Magic cheaper, and he first brought his perspective to MTGPrice in 2012. You can find his articles there weekly, as well as on the podcast MTG Fast Finance.

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By: Travis Allen
@wizardbumpin

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Don’t miss this week’s installment of the MTG Fast Finance podcast, an on-topic, no-nonsense tour through the week’s most important changes in the Magic economy. And if you enjoy playing Magic, make sure to visit https://scry.land to find PPTQs, SCG Opens, and more events on an interactive map with worldwide coverage. Find Magic near you today.

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With Dominaria around the corner and tax refunds burning a hole in everyone’s pocket, there’s been a lot of activity in the marketplace. Returning tribes with a long history in Magic — goblins, merfolk, etc. — are getting people excited (I guess that’s the right word) to look back at some forgotten gems of the past. Skirk Fire Marshal comes to mind, an amusing goblin that I’ve put to good use in Zada. Foils from Onslaught were bought out a few days ago. Will the return of goblins in Dominaria get people playing with that card all of the sudden? I’m dubious. When you’re paying $.50 for foil copies and listing them for $15 though, you only need to be right once.

 

Tireless Tracker

Price Today: $13
Possible Price: $25

Tireless Tracker is hardly an unknown quantity. She was Shadow Over Innistrad’s sleeper, and since having woken up, has been on a tear. She spread through Standard quickly, and then moved on to Modern and EDH. Today she’s impressively the 11th most played creature in Modern, and can be found in 6,000 decks on EDHREC.

I shouldn’t need to sell you on the utility of Tracker. Everyone in the Magic community seems to be aware of it. Less than they should be, in fact? Browsing results from GP Phoenix I see a Bant Knightfall list isn’t bothering with Tracker. That’s an odd choice to me. Knightfall is a deck looking to turbocharge landfall triggers. Wouldn’t that be excellent with Tracker? What do I know, I”m just a finance writer.

Non-foil copies of Tracker have made it to $13, which is a respectable price tag indeed. It’s not often that I find myself writing about nearly-legal Standard rares already in the double digits, but I’ve got to say, there’s room to grow. She’s widespread in Modern, and as a value creature (rather than a combo piece), likely entrenched. There’s plenty of players taking her up in EDH with more to come, and even cubes are finding room for her. Before long Tracker’s going to be a $20 or $25 rare, and eventually we could be looking at a $30 or $40 card without reprints. (Although that will take several years, and is unlikely to come to pass.)

Bring to Light (Foil)

Price Today: $3
Possible Price: $10

GP Phoenix saw an occasionally forgotten archetype show up again, which was Bring to Light Scapeshift. Rather than hope to draw one of four Scapeshifts, the build uses Bring to Light to act as Scapeshifts 5-8. Or in this case, 4-7, as there were more BTLs than Scapeshifts. Since BTL can fetch not just Scapeshift, it provides the deck with some flexibility. Maybe it’s not the right time to cast Scapeshift, but you desperately need a wrath? BTL can do that!

I’ll be clear that a few people showing up with BTL Scapeshift each weekend isn’t going to send prices soaring. I learned that lesson with Ad Nauseam. I picked up a pile a year or so ago when it was building in popularity, but even holding the format’s position as the best true combo deck couldn’t budge the non-foils enough to turn a meaningful profit. Of course, BTL does more than combo in Modern, and I’m talking foils.

Foils are a richer vein, since every combo deck has its die hard fans, and they’ll eat all the foils out of the market given enough time. There’s also much less risk of them showing up again at a later date, since we’re not getting foils in Archenemy or whatever product is on the horizon any given month. There’s also EDH, which BTL is remarkably strong in.

That BTL isn’t as or more popular than Demonic Tutor is probably an indictment against the player base at large. Green and Blue are the two best colors in EDH, and with the rules change allowing decks to generate any color of mana, so long as BTL is legal in your deck, you should probably be playing it. Even three colors is a deal, since you’re tutoring and casting a three drop for five mana. At four colors it’s way above curve, and at five mana it’s basically cheating. Sure it doesn’t let you go get your Avenger of Zendikar, but it lets you get basically anything else.

Anyways, between nascent Modern demand and continued EDH support, foils will keep climbing towards $10 or so.

Aetherflux Reservoir (Foil)

Price Today: $10
Possible Price: $20

I wasn’t expecting to be able to recommend this, as I figured the price would be too high already, but I didn’t expect what I found.

What I found was almost no supply. Prices on foils have been slowly climbing since release, and took a tick up from about $7 to $10 at the start of the month. There’s now only a handful of vendors for pack foils left. The promo supply is basically empty too.

Even if I am just overlooking a buyout that happened last night or something, the price is still in good shape regardless. $7 to $10 for foils are well positioned for a card that’s already in 10,000 EDH decks. That level of penetration that fast is remarkable. And given how popular lifegain strategies tend to be — Oloro remains one of the most popular generals ever, years later — I expect that popularity to remain strong.

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Travis Allen has  been playing Magic: The Gathering since 1994, mostly in upstate New York. Ever since his first FNM he’s been trying to make playing Magic cheaper, and he first brought his perspective to MTGPrice in 2012. You can find his articles there weekly, as well as on the podcast MTG Fast Finance.

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By: Travis Allen
@wizardbumpin

---

Don’t miss this week’s installment of the MTG Fast Finance podcast, an on-topic, no-nonsense tour through the week’s most important changes in the Magic economy. And if you enjoy playing Magic, make sure to visit https://scry.land to find PPTQs, SCG Opens, and more events on an interactive map with worldwide coverage. Find Magic near you today.

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After an exciting few weeks with Masters 25 spoilers coming in fast and furious, and Dominaria spoilers immediately after, the past seven days have been a bit more quiet. Nothing new was released today on the Dominaria front, so we don’t know anything now that we didn’t a week ago.

Over on Tumblr Rosewater said that Unstable has been through three printings so far, and if it’s clear there’s enough demand, they’ll fire up a fourth, which got fans of the quirky set jazzed up. If there is such a printing, it’s likely to be the last. There will not be a better chance to get foil basics than the fourth run.

Masters 25 is finally in players hands, and aside from a suspect collation error, there doesn’t appear to be a “priceless treasures” set gimmick. No bonus’ or perks or anything exciting that we didn’t know prior to release. Which means what differentiates Masters 25 from every other masters set is a decrease in card quality, I guess. Happy 25th anniversary, Magic! Your cards are of worse quality today than they were in 1993.

 

As Foretold (Foil & Non-Foil)

Price Today: $7/20
Possible Price: $15/50

Without a doubt I’ve mentioned As Foretold in the past. Yet I still feel compelled to bring your attention to it today, because I want to make sure you’re aware of what’s going on.

192 players showed up in Rome for an MKM event, and a Living End deck landed in the 3/4th place spot. What’s cool about this is that it wasn’t your typical Living End build. Rather than the Jund lists we’re familiar with, this was (basically) a mono-blue version. It’s got an Urborg, and some Collective Brutalities in the board, and of course Living End, but other than that, basically every spell the deck is going to cast is blue. It uses Street Wraith and 10 other Amonkhet block cycling creatures as the horde, and then uses As Foretold to cast the eponymous spell (and Ancestral Visions as well).

I’ve been a fan of As Foretold for awhile, and this is yet another use case. Is mono-blue Living End set to take over Modern? Who knows. Probably not. But it reinforces how good As Foretold is looking. Non-foils are hanging around $7, and supply is certainly moving downwards. I’ve no idea how long it will take to get into the sub-20 copy range, but it’s headed in that direction. Foils meanwhile are nearly gone, with scant few available at $20. They’re likely to pop first, possibly up to $50, with non-foils set to at least double up a few months later.

Desert Cerodon (Foil)

Price Today: $.75
Possible Price: $4

I’m talking about Living End a lot today. I’m allowed to.

Not only did a new mono-blue version pop up, but I’m seeing the standard version on mtgtop8.com here and there as well. I suspect that being able to cascade into Living End at instant speed will always be at least semi-relevant.

After Amonkhet, the deck went through some changes, particularly to its creature suite. Three of the cycling bodies are now from Amonkhet; Archfiend of Ifnir, Horror of the Broken Lands, and Desert Cerodon. Archfiend of Ifnir was a Buy-A-Box and also had prerelease foils, so supply is higher there than it would be on a normal rare. Horror was also just printed in Masters 25, so there’s an additional glut of supply. Now only two creatures remain unreprinted: Monstrous Carabid, which I’ve discussed here before, and Desert Cerodon. Which I’m discussing now.

At maybe $.50 to $.75 each, it wouldn’t take too much to triple or even quadruple. Normally I’m not a fan of $1 to $4 spikes, since so much of your profits is eaten by overhead (price of a stamp, the time, etc.). What’s nice here is that you get to sell playsets if you sell any at all. Paying $2 for a set that you then ship for $15 is much, much more appealing. “The Dream,” as they say.

Legion’s Landing

Price Today: $6
Possible Price: $13

And now for something I do quite rarely — discuss Standard cards.

Recently it came to my attention that Dan Fournier brewed up his own Wescoe Check, making use of Sram’s Expertise and Legion’s Landing. He’s put the deck through at least two versions now, with a 5-0 in his first league, and those two cards have remained a steadfast playset in each.

Several of the cards in the list are set to rotate, such as Angel of Invention, but Legion’s Landing obviously won’t be. Rotation would kill the deck, of course, but that’s not actually a barrier to prices on Landing spiking. People recognize that the deck won’t make it past October, but Landing will, and if it’s good here and now, it will still probably be good (and importantly, Legal) later this fall.

If Dan’s got white lightning on his hands here, people could begin flocking to a cool token-based Standard strategy with Legion’s Landing at its core, with the hope that it will pivot to a new strategy in the Fall.

I promise nothing, nor am I telling you this is a home run. It’s an interesting card in an interesting deck, and worth keeping an eye on.

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Travis Allen has  been playing Magic: The Gathering since 1994, mostly in upstate New York. Ever since his first FNM he’s been trying to make playing Magic cheaper, and he first brought his perspective to MTGPrice in 2012. You can find his articles there weekly, as well as on the podcast MTG Fast Finance.

[/hide]

By: Travis Allen
@wizardbumpin

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Don’t miss this week’s installment of the MTG Fast Finance podcast, an on-topic, no-nonsense tour through the week’s most important changes in the Magic economy. And if you enjoy playing Magic, make sure to visit https://scry.land to find PPTQs, SCG Opens, and more events on an interactive map with worldwide coverage. Find Magic near you today.

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Boy, what a week in Magic, huh? Just as the Masters 25 spoilers wrap up and we all were taking an opportunity to complain about how underwhelming the set looks, we get a third of Dominaria dumped into our laps, immediately followed by Wizards verifying the authenticity. Then on top of that, a spicy meatball of a Modern Open this weekend in Dallas.

I’ll tell you this much, in my research for the article this week, I’m finding myself quite annoyed with Iconic Masters. Sure the set was unfocused and bland and severely overprinted. But it also included all sorts of odds and ends that I wasn’t speccing on, and generally you shouldn’t have been either, which are now completely dead as options. I woke up thinking about Serum Powder. IMA. Ponza won? I see a lot of Obstinate Baloths in SBs. IMA. Trinisphere? Ok well that wasn’t in IMA, but it was already bought out. Dang.

 

Insolent Neonate (Foil)

Price Today: $3
Possible Price: $10

Have I talked about this card before? Maybe. Probably. Regardless, it’s still worth keeping an eye on. Hollow One scored 9th and 14th in the Open and Classic, regardless. Each week I’m finding this deck in the top standings. I figured it would be a flash in the pan the first time (which is the healthy and correct attitude towards this stuff), but it’s showing up regularly now. Of course we could still see it fade into oblivion for sure, as it’s only been a few weeks, but at the same time, it’s not worth fully discounting yet.

Most of this deck is quite fresh. The spell package is a bit older (specifically Goblin Lore), which were the first cards targeted when this list hit the community. You’ve got Vengevine, which was $25 to begin with, so not a lot to work with there either. Other than that it’s mostly a fresh set of dudes. That means you’ll be unlikely to see major gains on most of the cards in the list.

Given that, you’ve got to look a little deeper. If it really gets popular, prices will rise. Where will they go? Well, Insolent Neonate is as closed to a locked four-of that you can get in a strategy like this. He does everything the deck wants to do, and he does it quickly. Even better, he does it in several other decks as well. Dredge won the Classic, and you know what it played four of? That’s right. One extremely insolent neonate.

As it’s from Shadows Over Innistrad, supply is higher than some of the other cards we look at each week. Still, there’s demand from a lot of sources, and they all want the full four copies. Even an SOI common can see its price taxed if we’re looking at multi-format foils. Heck, just look at Tireless Tracker these days.

Sword of the Meek

Price Today: $6
Possible Price: $20

Hiding out a little further down the standings is a Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas deck. We see these pop up every now and then, though none have stuck around long enough for anyone to really take notice. With Jace’s unbanning and the printing of Whir of Invention, have we moved into a new era of Tezzeret?

Whir of Invention of course is the Chord of Calling for Artifacts. Where this is especially useful is with Thopter Foundry and Sword of the Meek in the deck, a combo that used to be the scourge of Modern. Sword of the Meek was unbanned a year or so ago, and ultimately didn’t accomplish much. Modern was just a little too fast for the combo to be able to take over a game itself. Or perhaps the combo was strong enough, but the support wasn’t there for it? Hard to say at this point.

With Tezzeret in the news again, it’s worth looking over the list to see where opportunity lies. Tezzeret himself is hanging out at $20, and while I suspect success would push him to $40 quickly, that’s a big gamble to take for most. If you’re looking for some action though, it’s worth thinking about.

Anyways, Sword of the Meek is worth monitoring, as it it managed to dodge reprints in EMA and IMA and A25 and MMA and MM3 and the VMAs and whatever else. A single-printed Future Sight uncommon is definitely the type of thing that can jump hard with some provocation. Anyone remember $60 Mishra’s Baubles?

Serum Powder (Foil)

Price Today: $3
Possible Price: $10

Ok so I know I complained about IMA at the start of this post. We’re going to do an experiment though. If a here-to-fore unused card is printed in IMA and then suddenly gets popular, can the foils move?

On camera at 7-2 on Sunday morning players were treated to Serum Eldrazi. This is the deck that utilizes Eternal Scourge and Serum Powder to shoot for reasonable starting hands that also set up having 3/3s to cast for free out of your mulliganed hand. New players aren’t going to be confused by any of this at all. It was an especially rosy opener Sunday, when the pilot Powdered a Scourge, put a Gemstone Caverns into play for free, dropped an Eldrazi Temple, and then cast the Scourge on turn one. That sounds like the closest this deck gets to Magical Christmas Land, but who knows, maybe that’s not an uncommon opener.

In any case, this is an amusing deck built around the shell of the remarkably strong Oath of the Gatewatch Eldrazi. We know the core of the deck is solid. It’s really a question of whether this is better than the other Eldrazi variants. One advantage this list has at the moment is how much it’s going to infuriate Jund and UW control. Jund relies heavily on destroying every creature their opponents play, generating advantage with Bloodbraid Elf and Dark Confidant as it goes to eventually chip someone down. If the Eldrazi player can just keep casting Scourges from exile, and their Reality Smashers and Thought-Knot Seers also eat card advantage from Jund, perhaps it’s enough to turn the match in their favor? At the same time UW control is going to rely heavily on Path to Exile, which of course the Scourge is resistant to as well.

Is this deck the real deal? I’m not sure. Can foil IMA cards move? Also not sure. We should pay attention though, because this may be the first deck to give us an idea of how much muscle it takes to move an otherwise saturated product.

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Travis Allen has  been playing Magic: The Gathering since 1994, mostly in upstate New York. Ever since his first FNM he’s been trying to make playing Magic cheaper, and he first brought his perspective to MTGPrice in 2012. You can find his articles there weekly, as well as on the podcast MTG Fast Finance.

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