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).
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.
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.
Our attention has been focused on the new thing, Double Masters. It’s about to be focused on the next new thing, Zendikar Rising. But with so much attention of the rising or the falling of Box Topper prices, I’ve seen a lot of prices for Masterpieces as examples. Some of these cards have fallen quite low from their peaks, and it’s time to consider picking a few up.
I’m going to be summarizing current prices given TCG and eBay, so if you see one cheaper than the price I’ve listed, feel free to grab it for your collection. I’m also going to be listing the highest price I can see on graphs for the card, so we know how far it’s come down.
Lightning Greaves (Currently about $90, off from a peak of $150 in March 2019) – I’m really big on the Box Topper version of this, which can be had for $15-$25 depending on where you are and if you like foils. But when I was comparing the most premium versions, I remembered the time in 2019 where this spiked, from pure scarcity. They just announced another premium version in the Secret Lair with dog-based art, and clearly that will have the Corgi market locked up.
Even with all that, you can get this version with the sweetest frame for under $100, and that is enough to have me trawling Facebook for people selling their copies. If it came down another $10 with the two premium versions coming out this summer, I wouldn’t panic. Inventions are more about personal use than heavy speculation, they deserve to be shown off with this gorgeous frame.
Solemn Simulacrum (About $80, off from near $200 in July 2017) – While I’m not a huge fan of how the art tends to lean into the ‘Sad Robot’ nickname, I can’t argue that this is clearly the most premium version to be had. There’s no other version that cracks $20, which is pretty amazing given that it’s in 20% of all EDH decks built online. This summer’s EA foil is just $10, which also feels incredibly underpriced.
Still, being able to get this under $100 would feel quite nice, and represent a pretty safe place to park value. In addition, there’s not a lot of copies out there, and the ramp on TCG is about two pages deep before you’re in $120-$150 pricing.
Gauntlet of Power (about $55, from $150 in April 2018) – Yes, it’s strictly worse than Caged Sun, and that’s why there’s been no reprints of this card since Time Spiral. Still, this is super powerful in mono-colored Commander decks and there’s not a huge inventory out there.
Planar Bridge ($60, down from $140 in April 2018) – There was indeed a time when there was a run on Inventions, and later on, a run on Invocations. I fully expect that in a couple of years there will be a run on Box Toppers in the same way. Planar Bridge is a great way to utilize mana in a combo turn, and being this cheap is something that won’t stand. Even the original was a mythic in a small set, with no reprints at all yet.
Steel Overseer ($40, down from $100 in July 2017) – You can’t convince me that this is as good as Ornithopter. The 0/2 flyer is MORE expensive than this Tempered Steel payoff. It’s only in about 4000 Commander decks, and that’s surprising to me. This effect is super-powerful, though, and scales out of hand incredibly quickly in most artifact decks. I feel like this should be at least $20 higher, and that means you should at least grab this version for your deck while it’s cheap.
Champion’s Helm ($35, down from $75 in April 2018) – First of all, let’s take a moment and assess that this card has been printed twice. First in Commander 2011, and then as a Masterpiece. The nonfoil from ten years ago is $17, and this is the only other printing. Currently there are 11 copies TOTAL on TCGplayer, only two of them nonfoil. Despite being in such super-limited quantities, it’s still in 3300 decks online. It’s overdue for a reprint, and when it happens, you’ll want to have this version ready to sell into the mega-hype.
Vedalken Shackles ($45, down from a high of $90 in April 2018) – While it’s only in 2300 Commander decks, this is a Cube staple all on its own and there’s only 15 copies total on TCG. This is another one that has not been printed that much: Fifth Dawn, a third set in 2004, and Modern Masters 2013, and this promo version. It’s not going to take much for this to rise $25, and as time passes, it’s just going to get more scarce.
There’s one more thing you need to know about the Inventions: They are almost all cheaper in Europe. The Commander demand is not as strong there, and if you’ve got the connections then you should make use of them. On average, Inventions are about 15% cheaper in Europe because of that decreased demand. I think these are good prices here in North America, and worth picking up. Understandably, if you can get in even lower, then you should. That’s basics but sometimes it helps to hear it again.
If you don’t have a friend in Europe, then may I suggest heading over to our ProTrader Discord channel and making a new friend? We’ve got a lot of international friends, and this is one of the best ways to maximize value.
Cliff (@WordOfCommander) has been writing for MTGPrice since 2013, and is an eager Commander player, Draft enthusiast, and Cube fanatic. A high school science teacher by day, he’s also the official substitute teacher of the MTG Fast Finance podcast. If you’re ever at a GP and you see a giant flashing ‘CUBE DRAFT’ sign, go over, say hi, and be ready to draft.
“What could today’s title possibly mean? It’s usually stupid pun, or something you don’t explain until the last paragraph,” I’m pretending you’re thinking. Well today, I’m going to rank the box toppers. The ones that are better in EDH are the ones I’m going to say I like more. Accordingly, I am going to do a stupid clickbait thing where I start with the worst one first and make you read the whole article to see what the best one is. Awww boo. You drove me to this, you have no one to blame but yourselves. Not you, personally, the collective you. Society. You as an individual are a lovely person and I’m so glad you’re reading my article.
This is part art part science. EDHREC ranks the cards by the percentage of total decks they could be in and are, but it also lists the raw number of decks. I’m going to take both of those numbers into account and do some “I have spent a lot of time thinking about EDH” math and then I’m going to determine the order. If it sounds not entirely scientific, that’s because there is subjectivity to what people are going to buy in the future, imo, and experience matters so I’m leveraging mine. Feel free to create your own ranking and post it in the comments. What’s that? It’s a lot of work and you don’t want to do a bunch of work just to argue with me? That’s what I thought. I’d love it if you did, but I get it if you don’t.
Some Questions I Think You Might Ask
Q: How are you determining the rankings?
A: I’m going to rank them by raw number rather than percentage, check the synergy score with the top 3 decks the card is in to see if it’s a format staple or a pet card in a really popular deck that people might not build forever and stop moving the cards around when the order “looks right.” It sounds goofy but this doesn’t have to be perfect since the difference between #12 and #13 doesn’t matter as much as the difference between #25 and #4 and I can’t imagine looking at lots of factors would make me flip those or something.
Q: Why are you doing this?
A: I want people who don’t play a ton of EDH to know which cards matter to EDH. The boxtoppers weren’t necessarily 100% made with EDH in mind but that doesn’t mean they don’t affect the format and people might not realize how much certain Legacy staples see play in EDH despite it being billed as a casual, bulk rare format.
Q: Yeah, but why are you doing THIS?
A: I’m trying to win “Article of the Year ” at next year’s content creator awards.
Let’s rank some cards, shall we?
40. Goblin Guide
Gobby Boy is just straight trash in EDH. 411 decks are probably playing him because there is Goblin synergy. This is a fine card and the repeated printings bringing the cost of a playset to $20 makes this an accessible deck to build in Modern, but this is the worst box-topper in terms of EDH and that’s what we’re looking at, right?
39. Meddling Mage
I’m surprised this doesn’t get played more in EDH, honestly, but that doesn’t change the fact that it doesn’t, and this is the real stinker boxtopper to get for any format. Goblin Guide is going to go out as a 4-of and make players of other formats happy, but this seems to be for no one. Humans in Modern? I don’t know.
38. Fatal Push
There are certainly formats where this card shines and EDH is not among them. A lot of people just have these from Standard and they put them in the deck because they have it, but I can’t justify playing this in EDH. This is in so many decks for as narrow as it is.
37. Thoughtseize
Damaging yourself to get 1 card from 1 hand 1 time? This isn’t an EDH card, and that’s fine.
36. Batterskull
This just isn’t that impressive in EDH. As a creature it’s pretty average and as an equipment it’s even more average. I’d be excited to open this boxtopper as a financier but I’m not keeping it unless I build a Kemba deck or something dumb like that.
35. Sword of Body and Mind
Artifacts throw off any attempt to do a standard numerical ranking. Of course any artifact is going to be super low in terms of percentage of eligible decks and super high in terms of included decks – both numbers are skewed. However, this is in a low absolute number of decks compared to the other artifacts and it’s the worst sword. It’s where it belongs. This is a bad box topper considering no other format really plays this card and EDH doesn’t want it much.
34. Sword of War and Peace
Compared to Body and Mind, this is much better, but it’s still in a pretty low number of decks. At least Body and Mind makes your creatures unblockable to the best decks, this makes your creatures unblockable by the worst decks. This sees more play outside of EDH than Body and Mind, which is to its credit, but EDH doesn’t care much outside of equipment tribal. Life gain and loss scales poorly into EDH.
33. Sword of Light and Shadow
All of the swords are just a little too fair in EDH. That said, this feels like it’s low on the list but it was hard to justify putting it any higher given the quality and good inclusion metrics of the rest of the cards. They didn’t make any truly abyssmal cards into box toppers so there will be good cards low on the list. The swords with numbers on them don’t scale as well in EDH 3 life, 1 life, mill 20. This can’t hang with Fire and Ice or Feast and Famine.
32. Karn Liberated
Karn is in a lot of decks because it can go in a lot of decks. Maybe you flip this and sword, I don’t know. It’s pretty wishy-washy in the middle but you are just starting to scroll a little faster by this point anyway, who cares?
31. Sneak Attack
There are better ways to cheat things into play and keep them. This card was also priced out of people’s collections forever, so that affected its inclusion a bit, and now that it’s cheaper, people have sort of moved on. This isn’t Legacy where you hit them with Emrakul and they can’t recover.
30. Kaalia of the Vast
You sort of have to ignore the inclusion numbers on this one. Kaalia is the #36 commander built on EDHREC in the last 2 years and it was very expensive. This maybe should be even higher on the list, especially since this is only an EDH card.
29. Council’s Judgment
This is played a lot outside of EDH but it’s still quite good in EDH. This is a very political card and can get rid of the permanent of each person’s that is annoying everyone, but one player can double up on their vote to mostly negate it, making this interesting every time. It’s a cheap card and not a great choice for box topper, but it will be a good card forever.
28-26. Tron Lands
These were included to let Modern players have more upgrade options for the lands and while it’s much better to have 12 lands in a 60 card deck, people have found some success with 3 Tron lands in a 99 card deck. These are no worse than a Wastes when you don’t have Tron and then they get quite good, even in EDH, when you assemble Tron, meaning there is no real downside to them. There are a lot of colorless commanders, hence the high inclusion numbers.
25. Blightsteel Colossus
This was basically a card for whales before because it was always over $50 and most players couldn’t afford it. Cards for whales are nice choices of cards to upgrade and this should free up some of the cheaper, non-premium copies. Not every deck wants these, but the decks that do REALLY want them. 2% doesn’t seem like a lot, but that’s 2% of all of the decks in the database. 1 in every 50 decks runs Blightsteel. That’s a lot for a card that was commanding a $50 price tag and beyond.
24. Sword of Fire and Ice
This is the second-best sword. 2 damage is pretty meh, but protection from relevant colors and drawing a card is good. I personally think this is overrated and Light and Shadow is underrated, but Fire and Ice is very expensive and desirable and the art on the box topper is insane.
23. Jace the Mind Sculptor
I have literally never once in my life had one of these played against me in EDH, but apparently 1 in every 25 Blue decks is packing this card that used to be a straight Benjamin. This is the most powerful Planeswalker ever, but you have 3 other opponents in EDH. Still, this is in a lot of decks, so who am I to argue?
22. Stoneforge Mystic
This is in the same number of decks as Jace? I should check to see how much Squadron Hawk is getting played in EDH. I should check our code to see if we’re accidentally scraping MTG Top8. A 3rd joke.
21. Blood Moon
Don’t play this card in EDH. You can, a lot of people do. But don’t.
20. Dark Confidant
Baffling. I can’t believe this many people play this card in EDH. Phyrexian Arena exists. I really can’t justify a card like this where board sweepers are played every turn and your best cards cost 5 mana.
19. Noble Hierarch
Bant is very good in EDH most of the time and 1 in every 9 Bant decks packs this card. That’s good because no one is playing Modern in paper right now and this is below $20 right now. This card needs all the help it can get. Sure glad I bought a bunch of these for like $20 each and didn’t sell in time. I mean, I kind of am glad, actually. I love this card, and we’re getting White Omanth soon.
18. Wurmcoil Engine
This is a reason to play EDH and a reason not to play Dark Confidant all in one card. Is there anything it can’t do? Teysa Karlov decks love this, Daretti decks love this. Unspecified future decks are going to love this. This is a very, very EDH card.
17. Academy Ruins
Gonna be a lot of Blue cards from here on out. Blue is the best color in Magic and it’s tied for the best color in EDH. I just bought a bunch of these box toppers because they look great and I like getting my cards back after someone blows them up.
16. Sword of Feast and Famine
This is the best sword and the second-best equipment in the set. No one would have complained if instead of making Sword of Body and Mind, they had made a Sunforger box topper instead. But hey, what do I know? I make bad decisions all the time.
15. Mox Opal
It’s not super exciting but this card is just fine in EDH, especially since metalcraft and colored mana go hand-in-hand in that format more than most others. I like this being under $50 even though that’s temporary.
14. Atraxa, Praetor’s Voice
This is the #1 commander built in the last 2 years. It’s in 2357 decks where it’s not the commander, which is nuts in and of itself. This might have been higher because it’s only for EDH but every other card in the top 13 is too good to displace.
13. Avacyn, Angel of Hope
This is in 7% of white decks with other commanders. Avacyn is insanely good in EDH and the box topper looks… well it looks like something you’d see airbrushed on the side of a van, but lots of people are into that.
12. Phyrexian Metamorph
This is in a lot of decks and for a good reason. Non-EDH players will be thrilled to crack one of these but EDH players will be especially stoked. This is a great card and while the price on the non-box topperis low from reprintings, it’s still a solid card to look at long-term.
11. Doubling Season
I remember opening this in a pack and being mad that I got casual garbage instead of a Plague Boiler. This is casual garbage but it turns out that just means that if there is ever a format full of casual garbage, something has to be the kind of the casual garbage. This is the EDHiest card of all time and I am glad I never got rid of the copies I was upset to get back in 2005.
10. Crop Rotation
This is a 1 mana tutor that puts the card you wanted into play. This is a 1 mana tutor. And it gets you any land. And it puts it into play. A 1 mana tutor that finds Nykthos or Cabal Coffers. Oh, and this was trash for like the first 5 years it was a card. Crop Rotation isn’t even in the Top 5 box toppers in this set, that’s how bonkers the rest of the set is.
9. Exploration
The regular copies of this card should not be under $20. I see no reason not to buy as many of the box toppers as you can afford, honestly. We’re about to go back to Zendikar and you can get an Exploration for under $20. The box topper is about as insulated from reprint as you can ask of a card and it looks better than this version, which itself looks fine. I’m bullish as hell on this.
8. Force of Will
This may not seem like an EDH card but it turns out you tap out a lot more as a control player when you need to keep countermagic mana up on 3 or 4 turns that aren’t yours instead of just 1. This is in 1 out of every 10 decks that play Blue and that’s half of the decks in the database.
7. Expedition Map
It turns out ways to get Cabal Coffers for 1 mana are popular, who knew? Being colorless, this can go in decks that don’t have Green making it even more versatile than Crop Rotation, a card that is, and I have to restate this, so, so good in EDH. Map gets played in non-EDH non-Legacy formats, so it has that over Crop Rotation, also. Super glad to have this as a box topper. The art isn’t that much of an improvement, though.
6. Chrome Mox
It turns out cards that are good in general are good in EDH. This gets played a ton and with good reason. It gets play outside of EDH which is good, but since EDH is basically the only format played in paper right now, strong EDH demand should be a factor you weigh heavily when selecting a box topper to invest in, and Chrome Mox ticks all of your boxes.
5. Toxic Deluge
I think in one of my articles I said this was played in Modern because I was thinking of Dead of Winter. This does NOT, in fact, see play in Modern, but it does NOT see play in Legacy because nothing sees play in Legacy. EDH demand is what is keeping this box topper from going in the trash, but there is a LOT of that. Roughly 40% of the decks on EDHREC are Black and this goes in 1 in every 8 of those. That’s a lot.
4. Mana Crypt
If you shelled out for foil copies of this when it was first reprinted and you’re upset that it’s being reprinted often, remember that the non-foils keep going back to $100 and also, the box topper is the new hotness so don’t worry so much, Moby Dick. WotC is well aware of who you are and what you’re about.
3. Brainstorm
This is a card that gets more play than it probably should, but I guess Aminatou is a thing. I think this is overrated in EDH but it’s easy to jam in a deck, it’s under a buck for most versions, it gets reprinted in EDH sets sometimes and also, it is the ugliest box topper of all time. Seriously, what were they thinking?
This is so bad. It looks like a cutscene from a 90s PC game. This is what you see when you die to the last boss in Shandalar. This is what the guy who made that Dire Straits Money for Nothing video has been up to lately. This is… Ron Spencer? OK, I’m going to let this one slide.
2. Lighting Greaves
1 in every 4 decks built by a person has a copy of Greaves. They can keep printing to get the baseline version under $5 every couple of years, but giving the whales who aren’t excited about the Judge foil something to aspire to was a great idea.
The art even looks good. I’m all about this.
1. Cyclonic Rift
I bet a lot of you guessed this right and a lot of you guessed wrong. Rift is the best EDH card out of all of the box toppers and it’s not even remotely close. Other formats get 0 use from this card but that doesn’t matter because it’s so good in EDH that it blows every other card away. This is a pure EDH box topper and accordingly, it might be undervalued by a segment of the whale population, meaning it could have a steeper growth curve that cards people pick up for Modern. EDH is a behemoth and getting box toppers just for the format shows WotC knows it.
That’s all for me this week. I hope this informs your box topper shopping and if you want me to never do this format again, I understand. If that’s the case, leave me a comment below. Thanks for reading, everyone. Until next time!
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…
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.
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.
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