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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Heck of a weekend, wasn’t it? We started off Sunday morning with the bad guys winning (Lantern Control, not-Gerry), and finished off the day with the good guys winning (not-Patriots). And while they didn’t riot as hard in Bilbao as they did in Philadelphia, people enjoyed the return of the Modern Pro Tour just the same.

Before the top 8 even started, there were plenty taking to social media to express a desire to see something from Lantern banned, and that sentiment only increased with each successive round. Calls to do are are shortsighted, I assure you. While it doesn’t have the most ideal play pattern, the games are (typically) quicker than Eggs, and there’s plenty of reasonable interaction you can be playing. Especially when you consider how few people are even going to bother sleeving it up and showing up with it.

Collective Brutality (Foil)

Price Today: $35
Possible Price: $60

It’s sort of wild that it’s come to this, but it’s hard to escape the conclusion. Collective Brutality rapidly established itself in the Modern scene, and its popularity there has only grown. Looking through the PT IXR results, this much is clear. Of the top 8 lists, five are playing Brutality. The three that aren’t are UR Pyromancer, Humans, and Humans. Across the top performing decks, roughly 50% are running some number of the card. Did you catch that? Half of the best decks at PT IXR had Collective Brutality.

Calling $35 foils as having an upward trajectory is never a position I’m eager to find myself in, but there’s no denying it. The card is too popular in the format not to see continued gains. It was released in Eldritch Moon, the summer 2016 set. Don’t forget that summer sets are consistently the least opened sets in Magic. And when do you think you’re going to see it again? It’s highly suspect it shows up in Masters 25, and if it isn’t there, then what are the other options? We don’t have any other reprint sets on the horizon. That’s good reprint positioning for the eight most popular card in Modern.

Supply is low, it’s been popular for awhile, so there isn’t a glut of copies looking to hit the market if the price rises, and it’s used in all sorts of strategies, from midrange to control to combo. It’s likely Collective Brutality continues to rise, and could climb as high as $60 or more within 2018.

Mantis Rider (Foil)

Price Today: $7.50
Possible Price: $20

It’s been a wild ride for Humans, having started out the year as a “what deck won the tournament?” early in the year to being the most popular deck this weekend. I’ve been following it the whole way, discussing which cards I liked at which point of the deck’s run, starting with the easiest and scarcest cards. Now we’re here, and I’m talking about a Khans of Tarkir rare.

Humans was the most popular deck of the event, but it wasn’t the hottest performer. While it did manage to put two copies into the top 8, it didn’t have unreal conversion rates or anything. (Props to Hollow One for that. 100% for 13 decks I think?) An average conversion rate isn’t going to stop players from picking up Humans to play at their local store. It’s clearly a solid strategy, fun to play, and has game in most metas. Add in that most of it is quite affordable, and you’ve got a great onramp deck.

I was suspect that Mantis Rider would be an integral part of the strategy, as it seemed like a sort of filler card that was there as a serviceable human that could get kills, but would flex into a more useful, more technical slot once it was clear what the deck needed. Apparently that’s wrong, as Mantis Rider has been a four of in basically every humans list I’ve seen.

Foils haven’t moved much from their perch at $7 to $8 for a few months now. This is Khans of Tarkir, so we’re not going to see $70 or anything, but with Humans having proved themselves as a strategy, the deck is here to stay. Foil Mantis Riders will begin being eaten up, and a price tag closer to $20 won’t be far behind.

Utter End (Promo)

Price Today: $3
Possible Price: $15

Even with all the excitement of the Pro Tour, we can’t forget about our old friend EDH. It was the MTG finance engine of 2017, and we’ve got no reason to expect any different this year. Today I stumbled upon Utter End, a removal spell found in over 17,000 EDHREC lists (which makes it the 13th most popular multicolored card in the format).

I probably don’t need to go on for long here. 17k decks says a great deal. The rest of this comes from the fact that I’m talking about a Game Day promo, which is a promo type we’ve never seen reprinted with their full art treatment in, like, 10 years? Admittedly the art isn’t as cool as it could be, but you can’t have it all.

Copies are $3, which is pretty dang cheap for a such a popular card. Especially so when you notice how few vendors there are. 18 as of this writing. That’s a combination for explosive growth – a low buy in and not a lot of sellers. Probably won’t be like this for long.

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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If you’re watching social media, you’ll notice most of the pro community arriving in Spain. Players begin battling this Friday. Spain is six hours ahead of the east coast, which means by the time you’re watching at 9am on Friday, they’re done with draft and starting Modern. That works out well honestly; nobody cares about the draft anyways, so tuning in around the start of Modern is great.

On the Modern front, you’ve also got SCG who just announced a No Banned List Modern event at their “SCGCON” in June. That piqued interest immediately, as it’s not something that’s visited often, and it’s fun to see how things shake out in what’s essentially a new format. Fan favorites tend to be Hypergenesis, Infect, Storm, and Dredge.

Reflector Mage (Foil)

Price Today: $5
Possible Price: $15

When Humans first debuted as a Modern deck a few months ago, I laid out a few cards I liked, but advised caution. Spiking an event is possible for any strategy, and sustained results are needed before lasting price changes occur. Well, Humans has kept up its end of the bargain, with a slew of results since that first trip out. Just this weekend it was the Modern selection for the winning team in SCG’s team trios.

I want to tell you that Aether Vial is a good choice, since it’s always going to be a four-of and it’s great in other strategies too, namely Merfolk, which is also having a renaissance of its own, but it’s simply not worth it. The price to get in is too high, and the probability of future reprints is only slightly behind basic island.

Instead, I’ll talk about foil Reflector Mages. He’s been floating around in a variety of formats since having gotten kicked out of Standard awhile ago. He’s in several thousand EDH decks, a popular cube selection, and floats around Modern even without the Humans strategy. With Humans as a tier one aggro strategy, that means Reflector Mage is now a four-of in a tier one Modern deck on top of his other uses.

You’ll pay about $5 for foils right now on the low end of the market. With the upcoming Modern Pro Tour possibly putting the spotlight on a strategy that so far hasn’t hit the big stage yet, and continued popularity from other places, I suspect we’ll see foils above $10 before too long.

Merrow Harbinger (Foil)

Price Today: $2
Possible Price: $8

It’s been a few weeks since Rivals of Ixalan hit shelves, and Kumena continues to be a popular general over on EDHREC. I don’t anticipate that he’ll be a long-standing top ten general, but he’s popular enough right now that merfolk prices are swimming upstream.

Merrow Harbinger is going to be nuts in any Kumena deck, if only because it fetches what I imagine is the best card in the deck, Merrow Commerce. (Thanks, tribal!) If fetching in 60 card decks is good, then fetching one-ofs in 99 card decks is insane. Of course, you can also go get another lord to pump up your team, or any other merfolk that would be helpful at the moment. Master of Waves probably won’t be a bad choice often either.

Foils are about two bucks at the moment. I’m a big fan of scooping these up at that price anywhere you find them. You’ll at least be able to get $5 or $6 out of them soon, and possibly even more, depending on how popular Kumena remains.

Birthing Pod

Price Today: $7.50
Possible Price: $20

With SCG’s No Banned List Modern announcement, people are gassed up to see what could spike. The obvious answer is Hypergenesis, for several reasons. It’s ancient, has one printing, is an entire archetype to its own, is only $2, etc. It’s not bad, honestly. I know you’ll see it elsewhere though, so I looked around to see what else was an option.

Aside from the obvious Hypergenesis, Infect, Storm, Dredge, and Caw-Blade, where else might people go? Birthing Pod was always popular when it was legal, and while it definitely needed to go, the people who ran those decks found them fun and interesting. It also may have the power to keep up with some of those other strategies (although no promises there). This could certainly send a few people in Pod’s direction.

It’s not just this event that has me noticing it, though. More importantly than this event, I see that it’s in over 13,000 EDH decks. That makes it one of the most popular green cards in the format. Add in that it’s only got a single printing, and low (but not non-existent) supply, and the ingredients are there for a healthy rise. At $7.50, you may be able to ride this right up to $20.

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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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[/hide]

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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Between Rivals of Ixalan’s arrival and the ban list update, Standard got quite a shakeup. This is no more apparent than in the top 8 in the SCG Standard Classic, which saw two copies of Mono Red (obviously), the return of Mardu Vehicles, two different takes on dinosaurs/big monsters, and in a callback to Theros, WU Auras. Tenth place even had a full set of Favorable Winds(!?). Standard certainly looks promising, as any week one event that ends with two red decks in the top two slots means that nobody has figured out the actual best deck yet. Given how many Ghalta, Primal Hungers were floating around in the top 16, I have high hopes.

Meanwhile there’s a Modern Pro Tour in like, two weeks. First one in awhile. That should be fun. It’s the first Pro Tour I’m likely to watch, since uh, probably the last Modern Pro Tour. The format may be terrible for Wizards’ bottom line, but it sure is fun to watch!

Desperate Ritual (Foil)

Price Today: $5-6
Possible Price: $12

One of the decks that seems to have gained the most ground in the last few months in Modern is Baral Storm. Whether you’re playing the Gifts version or not, it’s definitely been gaining metagame percentage for awhile, and is now one of the top ranked combo decks in Modern. Things are only looking better for the deck with Blood Sun, which allows it to play main deck pseudo-Blood Moon without disrupting it’s own mana base, while also cantripping in matches where it isn’t useful. Will Blood Sun actually make the deck? Got me, but it’s a new tool at their disposal.

A Modern Pro Tour is coming up, we know that. We also know Storm has been targeted by bans like eight times or something silly in Modern’s history, yet still exists as a tier one list. We also know that it’s a favorite of HoF-caliber players. Finkel has shown up with UR Storm at like every Modern Pro Tour? Or close to it. Having the best players in the world on an archetype is going to make it look good, even if it’s not.

Between the rise in the strength of the deck since Baral’s printing, and a few conditions on the immediate horizon that could trigger price spikes, I wanted to find somewhere the money could go. Right now I’m liking foil Desperate Ritual. It’s the best fast mana in the deck, and we haven’t seen any copies since 2013. Depending on whether you’re looking at MMA or COK, prices are in the $5 to $7 range. If Storm does well at PT ROI — especially with Blood Sun, which will get people more jazzed to try the deck than if it didn’t have a cool new card — we could see foils empty out, and I’d expect prices to land in the $12 to $20 range if that happens.

Meddling Mage (Judge)

Price Today: $35
Possible Price: $80

Modern certainly looks different than when I was playing regularly. Humans has become a legitimate tier one deck, and is possibly the second-most popular aggro deck in the format. I remember reading Sam Black’s theoretical article on the topic way back when Mana Confluence was released. Wild.

Anyways, it’s looking like the consensus list has four Chris Pikula’s main these days. It’s not surprising, as the card is a kick in the teeth for any combo deck and some amount of irritating for everyone else. Add in that it’s on theme with the tribal component, and you can lead into it with Kitesail Freebooter to see what’s in their hand, I understand why it’s a mainstay in the deck.

Non-foil copies from Alara and Planeshift have hit about $20, which is certainly a change. I remember the ALA copies costing $3 or something. Foil PLS copies haven’t been cheap in forever, but ALA copies have hung around $20 for some time. They’re still just above that, but with non-foils starting at $17, that gap is going to widen soon. We’ve seen this trend before. A card grows in popularity as part of a good deck, and demand is based on people playing the card in tournaments. Non-foil prices move first, and eventually catch the foils. Players start buying foils because why not, and then the foil price jumps out ahead by 25 to 100 percent.

Meanwhile, the Judge foils are sitting over there at maybe $35. With ALA pack foils at $22 to $25 and primed to move hard, Judge copies are tempting. Especially because A. they’re fairly old (a single run in 2006), and B. they look cool. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to see the Judge copies hit $75+, especially if Humans has a good run at the Pro Tour.

Deepchannel Mentor (Foil)

Price Today: $2
Possible Price: $9

I’ve always got to check in with EDH for at least one card. One of the hot decks right now is Merfolk, helmed by ROI release Kumena, Tyrant of Orazca. Sounds like a friendly guy. Normally I wouldn’t expect a UG creature to be a tyrant, but hey, that’s why I’m not on the Wizards flavor team.

Kumena and his new slew of merfolk is driving people to the tribe in 99 card decks. The community has flirted with merfolk a few times, but the commanders have never been strong enough to stick. Kumena may change that. He makes commander damage easy, he’s a card drawing engine built in, and even permanently powers up your squad. Pair him with Merrow Commerce to completely take over a game.

If you’ve been listening to MTG Fast Finance (and why haven’t you? We just had @ToddStevensMTG on to talk ROI) you’ll know that a few merfolk cards have jumped since Kumena was spoiled. One hasn’t so far that I think is a good choice, and that’s Deepchannel Mentor. He’s a little pricey at six, but essentially makes your entire team unblockable. Considering that Kumena’s third ability is all about powering up your squad, and every Kumena build is going to be running as many Seedborn Muse effects as possible to abuse this, you’ll be able to turn your 12 dorky merfolk into a serious threat awfully quick. If you’ve got ten or fifteen guys on the field and drop a Commerce or Seedborn, tap your team twice a turn for three turns, then cast Deepchannel Mentor, everyone is going to be dead on the spot.

Deepchannel is another old merfolk, and foil copies were sparse before Kumena showed up. If you can catch them under $3, which is still possible, they should be good for $10 before 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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[/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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Rivals of Ixalan spoilers are off and running, and they’re fast and furious. With only a week of spoilers, we’ll have the full set by this weekend, if Twitter is to be believed. Each morning’s deluge makes for an exciting, if perhaps slightly rushed, week.

In the inverse of clouds and their silver linings, the dark clouds lurking on the periphery of our otherwise lovely summer day of spoilers is that Standard finance is arr eye pee RIP’d. All of these Rivals cards are going to be sweet, and there will be some awesome budget-friendly builds out of your preferred content producer, but ultimately they’ll all be irrelevant because energy is stupid and the most expensive Standard deck is barely more expensive than a playset of fetchlands.

Master of Cruelties (Foil)

Price Today: $15
Possible Price: $25

Changes in life totals that set function by setting the value to a specific number, rather than a change of a specified degree, are a good bit more powerful in EDH than in normal Magic. Sorin Markov or Magister Sphinx setting a player’s life total to 10 is half a point below the midpoint in Standard. In nearly best case scenarios, setting someone’s life to 10 deals about 10 damage. In EDH, where the starting life total is 40, changing the value to 10 is a reduction of 75%, dealing 30 damage if the player is at the starting life total.

Master of Cruelties works the same way, but instead of reducing it to 10, it reduces it to 1. Considerably more savage.

He’s been popular since Dragon Maze’s release, and has found life in both 60 card and 99 card decks. EDHREC reports 4,200 decks running him, which is a healthy number. You essentially get to kill one creature each turn during combat if you’re playing fair, and if you’re not, you just make him unblockable and essentially kill someone in one swing.

What’s most appealing here isn’t his raw power or how many decks make use of him, but rather the supply. I count six NM copies on TCG right now, all around $15. I wouldn’t expect to see a major surge in price, but this could easily restock around $25 to $30 in the next few months.

Archetype of Finality (Foil)

Price Today: $2
Possible Price: $8

When the new year starts with world leaders threatening each other with the size of their nuclear button, deathtouch creatures feel appropriate. Archetype of Finality makes sure you’re the only person at the table with deathtouch, perhaps one of the best keywords in EDH, behind hexproof and maybe haste. Giving all of your tokens and various 1/2 value creatures deathtouch is remarkably obnoxious, since it means you can attack fairly safely and also serves as a useful rattlesnake. In a deck like Meren, which is full of small value creatures, it means it’s much harder for your opponents to crash in with their 6/6s and 9/9s.

Her play pattern is a bit less thrilling than Master of Cruelties, with only 2,400 EDH decks listed, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t still sufficient demand to push prices up over time. I love that we’re looking at the original Born of the Gods printing here, since those enchantment creature frames look phenomenal in foil.

Less than 10 copies remain on TCG right now, which is promising. I don’t expect them to fly off the shelves, but they should all sell this year. What’s especially exciting is how cheap she is right now. With copies at $2, she could feasibly quintuple and people would still be willing to pay the new price tag, since it would barely be $10.

Invocations

 

Price Today: $30s
Possible Price: $80s

While I don’t have any specific Invocation I’m eyeing today, overall they’re a portfolio worth keeping an eye on. There’s no arguing that these were received poorly at launch, as they were the least legible, least cohesive, and least interesting Masterpieces set released. Prices reflected that, and most bottomed out quickly and hard.

We’re now pushing a year since Invocations was released, and are likely near the bottom of their absolute floor. With collectibles of this nature, especially ones that start with such an inflated price, it can take awhile for them to settle. Once they do, the slow trickle begins, and two years later you find yourself with copies worth twice what they were in not-distant memory.

Given the overall reaction to Invocations, I’d expect Wizards may never revisit the frame. We don’t know whether or not they will with Expeditions and Inventions, but if they do decide to go back to some or all of these, Invocations will be a distant third. They’ll stand in Magic’s history as a divisive and maligned frame, and the least-Magic frame in Magic. There will be demand for that from collectors and purveyors of odd things, which is where the slow trickle will stem.

Over the next one to three years, I’d expect prices on many of these to turn northward, perhaps quite considerably. Keep an eye out for any that look underpriced, and where buylist is getting awfully close to retail.

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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.