It’s always refreshing to see people bringing new ideas to the table in Modern, especially when it’s a new piece of tech for an already established archetype that can shake things up a bit. Today I’m looking at just that – some innovative takes on both old and newer decks on the Modern scene.

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Tourach, Dread Cantor (OBF)

Price today: $12
Possible price: $25

Jund? In 2022? It’s more likely than you’d think. Over the past couple of weeks, Jund has become a more and more popular choice in the Modern metagame, with some of the old favourites in Tarmogoyf, Thoughtseize and Wrenn and Six, plus some newer tech in Tourach, Dread Cantor. This little two-drop is in a pretty good place in the metagame right now – as well as getting buffed from your discard spells, the protection from white is huge against decks like Hammer Time that have mostly white threats carrying their equipment, as well as being Solitude-proof.

Now can anybody tell me why the retro foil versions of this is only $2 more than the retro non-foil? No? I’m not really sure why either, but the fact is that you’d only be paying $12 over $10 for the foil rather than non-foil here, and I think that the foils will start to push upwards pretty soon to correct that. The foils are already a bit pricier than that in Europe (where the non-foils are actually slightly cheaper), and we should soon see the US market follow that trend.

This isn’t a huge EDH card but the low supply doesn’t need much demand to push the price up, and a few Modern and EDH players here and there wanting pretty versions will be enough to start draining the market. If you want any personal or spec copies then now is the time, and I think these are a slightly better pick than the borderless version of the card which has higher supply and, let’s be honest, a worse frame.

Kor Outfitter (Foil)

Price in Europe: €2 ($2.25)
Price in US: $12
Possible price: $15

Speaking of Hammer Time (as we always seem to be when discussing Modern these days), that deck has seen some new innovation as well. Kor Outfitter has been picked up as another piece of tech to put your huge equipment in the hands (or wings? Don’t ask me how an Ornithopter is supposed to carry a Hammer) of your creatures without paying the exorbitant cost for it, and although not a huge number of people have picked it up yet, the lists it’s been in have been putting up strong results.

A common with a single printing all the way back in original Zendikar, foils of these are already pretty scarce, and a NM copy is going to set you back $12 on TCGPlayer. Over in Europe however, you can grab a few at the €1-2 mark, and if you’re not too sluggish about it then you could easily ship some over to the US for a tidy profit. It’s also worth looking around in the US for any cheaper copies too; I’m sure there will be some stores that still have copies at the old price that you can chuck straight on TCGPlayer or eBay.

Wishclaw Talisman (EA)

Price in Europe: €3 ($3.50)
Price in US: $9
Possible price: $20

I don’t think that this is actually very new tech, but it’s an older deck that’s seeing a little bit more play in Modern and so I thought I’d give it a mention regardless. The Twiddlestorm deck puts Lotus Field coupled with a bunch of Twiddle effects to good use, and was a prominent force in the Modern meta a little while back before shrinking into the background a bit. Now it seems to be making a small resurgence, with a few different variants flying around and a lot of them playing Wishclaw Talisman.

Using a Twiddle effect on the Talisman enables you to search for multiple cards with it before handing the Talisman over to your opponent, sometimes even with zero counters left on it, rendering it useless to them. Some of the decks are going for a Grapeshot or Empty the Warrens win, with others opting for a Thassa’s Oracle or even grabbing an Aeve, Progenitor Ooze from the sideboard to overwhelm the opponent with Oozes.

Being a very popular EDH card, FEA Wishclaws are already $45 in the US and in very low supply, and EAs at $9-10 looking to push upwards too. Over in Europe though, you can find EAs as low as €3 (and some FEAs around €20 which aren’t bad pickups either), and that makes for some nice arbitrage. I expect to see non-foil EAs push $15 before long, and could climb as high as $20 without a reprint soon.

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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, he’s an active MTG finance speculator specialising in cross-border arbitrage.

There have been some obvious winners from Innistrad: Midnight Hunt in terms of EDH play; cards like Vanquish the Horde and Augur of Autumn were always going to see a lot of play, but I think that there are some underrated cards a little further down the popularity standings that could easily be good gainers over the next few months as people start to realise their value.

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Adeline, Resplendent Cathar (Showcase Foil)

Price in Europe: €1-2 ($2)
Price in US: $5
Possible price: $10-15

Adeline feels like a callback to Hero of Bladehold, except it’s a mana cheaper and generates an extra token (albeit without the Battle Cry effect). You’re also getting Vigilance on it too, and the fact that you can play it as your Commander has made it quite a popular choice both as a General and part of the 99. Combined it makes nearly 7000 decks on EDHREC, and is a favourite in token decks and humans decks that packs a punch once you get some creatures in play.

The foil Showcase versions are surprisingly sparse, with only 21 NM listings on TCGPlayer from $5-10. Over in Europe you can snag copies as cheap as €1, and with a few more listings than you’ll find in the US it’s a good opportunity to grab some cheap ones. I think that Adeline will have an easy push to $10 in the US over the next few months, and could head towards $15 if it sees continued popularity in EDH.

Triskaidekaphile

Price in Europe: €0.05 ($0.05)
Price in US: $0.50
Possible price: $2

I hadn’t intended this to be an arbitrage-based article, but here we are. Triskaidekaphile is a surprisingly popular EDH card, clocking in at around 4650 decks on EDHREC, and whilst it may seem like a bit of a meme card on the surface, it’s actually quite useful. No maximum hand size on a 2 mana creature is pretty nice, and it’s not imposing enough to be something that your opponents instantly need to remove, which means that you’ll likely get some decent card draw out of it as well. The win condition strapped to it is nice to play to, and is likely to make it a popular card amongst the more casual players.

With that in mind, I like picking up stacks of the regular non-foils here as cheaply as you can get them. Casual players often don’t bother with premium versions of cards, but still drive prices on non-foils when a card is popular enough. I’d be looking to get in on these under €0.20 in bulk, with a view to buylist them to CardKingdom or similar a year or so down the road.

Lier, Disciple of the Drowned (Showcase Foil)

Price today: $10
Possible price: $25

Finishing things off with a spikier card that isn’t actually much cheaper in Europe, Lier, Disciple of the Drowned has been picked up as a potential cEDH card as well as being a solid Commander and 99 inclusion for regular EDH too. Five mana is a high price to pay when you’re trying to cast lots of cheap spells quickly, but if you can ramp it out fast enough then Lier is a hugely powerful protection point for all your spells, as well as being a permanent Snapcaster Mage for your entire graveyard.

As a Showcase foil mythic, there aren’t ever going to be too many of these around and so if you’re wanting any for your collection or to play with then now is the time. In terms of speculating on this, I think that anything under or around $10 is a solid buy to hit $20+ in the next 12-18 months – demand for this isn’t going to be huge, but supply isn’t exactly on the high side either and so as people upgrade their copies, the price is going to get dragged upwards.

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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, he’s an active MTG finance speculator specialising in cross-border arbitrage.

It’s about time I changed things up with my articles, so I thought that for my first article of 2022 I’d talk about some Modern cards. Ones that are also semi-relevant in EDH. Ground-breaking, right?

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Ice-Fang Coatl (OBF)

Price today: $5
Possible price: $15

Ice-Fang has been a relevant card in Modern since its first printing back in Modern Horizons 1, and the current flavour of its inclusion is in the 4/5 colour Yorion Blink decks, many of which are running the full playset of flying snakes. Previous to this Ice-Fang has been played in a variety of different Uro (RIP) decks and Omnath decks, and will continue to see play in these sorts of builds in Modern.

Old-border foils are currently available for around $5 on TCGPlayer, but there aren’t too many copies under $7 or so before the price starts to ramp up. It won’t be long before we see $10 for this card (Europe is there already), and I think it will continue to rise towards $15 within the next 6 months or so. At a little over 4000 on EDHREC it’s not a huge EDH player compared to some of the other MH1 cards, but there will definitely be some demand for OBFs coming from that sector of players, which should help to push prices up a little bit.

Neoform (Foil)

Price in Europe: €4 ($4.50)
Price in US: $12
Possible price: $20

Speaking of two mana cards that cost GU, here’s another one for you. Neoform had its time in the sun back when the Neoform Griselbrand deck was a thing in Modern, but it’s currently seeing some play in an incredibly interesting Craterhoof Affinity deck. Yep, you read that right, Craterhoof Affinity. The deck tries to power out an early Myr Enforcer, Sojourner’s Companion or Thought Monitor which it can then Neoform into your Craterhoof to push through silly amounts of damage with huge Frogmites and Ornithopters.

It may be that this deck is just a flash in the pan, but the point stands that Neoform is a flexible card that will see at least some Modern play for the foreseeable future, on top of it being a very popular EDH card. At over 15,000 decks on EDHREC it’s easy to see why foils of this card are already $12 on TCGPlayer – but never fear, we can get cheaper copies in Europe.

Supply isn’t very deep but if you snag some copies around $5 then they should be great to either hold in Europe or ship over to the US. Even if you can find $10 copies in the US I think that they will be good to hit $20 before we see a foil reprint, as supply just isn’t high enough to keep up with demand.

Turntimber Symbiosis (FEA)

Price today: $10
Possible price: $25

Continuing with some of the more niche Modern decks being played at the moment, I wrote about Goblin Charbelcher a few weeks ago, and I hope that you bought some foils when I suggested to do so, because they’re a lot more expensive now than they were! Charbelcher is still putting up some decent results here and there in Modern, and it’s got me looking at some other cards from the deck.

Turntimber Symbiosis is seeing roughly the same amount of play in Modern as Shatterskull Smashing, and is in close to the same number of EDH decks (11.6k vs 14.7k), and yet the FEAs are half the price. I think that this should be due for a correction before long, and so Turntimber FEAs at $10 seem pretty attractive right now. Any “Oops, All Spells” decks like Charbelcher are always going to be playing four of these, and they’re a strong EDH card that can replace a land in your deck – something that EDH players love. 12 months out or less I can see this hitting $20-25, if not sooner to bring it more in line with Shatterskull Smashing.

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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, he’s an active MTG finance speculator specialising in cross-border arbitrage.

We’ve come to the end of another year, and instead of looking back on what we’ve been buying in 2021, I want to look forward to 2022. The past year has been a decent one for buying cardboard and a bad one for most everything else, but thankfully I’m here to talk about the former and not the latter. Today’s picks are going to be aimed at a one year trajectory, so we’ll check back in with them at the end of 2022 and see where we landed!

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Kaldra Compleat (Showcase Foil)

Price today: $10
Possible price: $30

For a deck full of pretty bad cards, Hammer Time is still tearing up the Modern format every week, with a few different iterations and variations being played around with but the core remaining pretty much the same. One of the ‘fun-ofs’, a sometimes food for the deck, is Kaldra Compleat – it doesn’t quite pack the same +10/+10 punch as the Hammer itself, but has a whole slew of keywords that can help to push damage through where the Hammer fails.

You’ll find it here and there in Hammer lists and is also a relatively popular EDH card, found in around 5000 decks listed on EDHREC. I like the look of its supply levels and price ramp on TCGPlayer at the moment, partially because the Showcase foils are actually cheaper than the regular foils right now by a few bucks. Showcase foils are starting at $10 whereas regular foils are up at $14, and I think that’s due for a correction. I think the Showcase versions look pretty good, and don’t deserve to be lower than the version that has more supply.

There are a decent number of $10 around at the moment, but it’s not long before it jumps to $15 and then $20, and given a year I think that this MH2 mythic will see a nice jump once supply really dries up. We won’t be seeing this Showcase version again for a while, and so picking these up now seems like a good move for an easy double or triple up.

Katilda, Dawnheart Prime

Price in Europe: €0.20 ($0.25)
Price in US: $0.50
Possible price: $1

Onto something a little less exciting for my next pick, Katilda, Dawnheart Prime (not to be confused with Katilda, Dawnheart Martyr from Crimson Vow, because those names in subsequent sets were obviously a great idea) is the fifth most popular commander from Midnight Hunt and a reasonably popular card in the 99 as well. The protection from Werewolves ability probably isn’t what you’re playing this card for, but turning all your Humans into mana dorks is pretty great and having an anthem effect on top of that is even better.

I don’t think that this will make its way into Modern Humans anytime soon (not that that’s much of a force in the format at the moment anyway), but should be a fairly popular EDH and casual card for a while. Playing it as a two mana commander that can help ramp you into bigger spells quite quickly is strong, and the third ability keeps it relevant into the late-game as well, especially if you’re playing around with +1/+1 counter synergies.

It’s close to bulk prices at the moment, especially if you’re shopping in Europe, and I think that it’s going to be a good buylist target a little way down the road. 12 months out I expect to see this buylisting for $0.80 – $1; CardKingdom will often pay close to retail for strong casual cards in non-foil and so that’s where I’ll be looking.

Damn (Old-Border Foil)

Price today: $4
Possible price: $10

Jumping back to Modern Horizons 2 for my last pick today, I think that Damn is underpriced at the moment. It’s the 3rd most popular card from the set in terms of percentage inclusion, and I don’t see a good reason that it shouldn’t be in almost every black-white EDH deck that you build. Strong spot removal with an option to board-wipe attached is fantastic flexibility in one card, and at two and four mana, spells really don’t get much better than that.

In terms of different versions, the retro foils and FEAs are the ones to look at here, and although it’s currently the cheaper version, I think that the retro foil is the one to focus on. In my opinion you can’t really beat the look of the old frames and the foils just look excellent, so at $4 I think they’re a steal. At $7 the FEAs aren’t too bad either and it might be worth grabbing a couple of those too because they’ll likely be following a similar trajectory, but my pick for today is the OBFs.

They’re actually more expensive in Europe at the moment so no luck with arbitrage there, but the $4 copies on TCGPlayer are definitely good enough to pick a stack up. A year down the road I can see these cruising to $10 and maybe higher, especially if it starts to see play in Modern (which is highly possible given the power level of the card).

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That’s all from me today, and I’ll see you in the new year with more pieces of cardboard to spend your money on. Happy holidays!

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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, he’s an active MTG finance speculator specialising in cross-border arbitrage.