MTGO, Watchtower

The Watchtower 05/04/20 – Unthematic

I usually try to base each of these articles loosely around a theme of sorts, or at least make something up that tenuously links the cards I talk about – but this week I’m afraid to say I was stuck. So alas, it’s an unthematic week, and I’ve just talked about some cards that I think are worth taking a good look at buying on MTGO.

Having said that, I still think that these are all some solid picks (otherwise I really shouldn’t be wasting time writing about them), so have a read and let me know what you think!

Fiend Artisan

Price today: 14 tix
Possible price: 20 tix

There were a lot of mixed opinions on Fiend Artisan in the run-up to Ikoria’s release, with a lot of people comparing it to Tarmogoyf or calling it Green Sun’s Zenith on a stick, but others saying that it was trying to do two different things but did neither of them very well. The recent results, however, have shown us that this card can definitely put some work in in a Standard environment.

Lurrus of the Dream-Den Companion decks are all over the place, and the Orzhov Aristocrats deck in Standard plays a suite of Fiend Artisans along with Lurrus as the Companion. It’s able to tutor up key pieces like Priest of Forgotten Gods, as well as being a big beatstick later in the game. The Artisan has also been showing up in Pioneer, most recently making the finals of the Team Lotus Box Pioneer tournament over the weekend in an Abzan Rally shell. It’s reminiscent of the Rally the Ancestors deck from BFZ Standard, but the wider card pool of Pioneer has made for a much more streamlined, powerful deck.

After peaking at 30 tix around Ikoria’s release, Fiend Artisan has been hovering between 12 and 15 tix since then. It’s sitting around 14 at the moment, and I think that this is a powerful card that can find multiple homes in multiple formats. I think there’s a lot to do with the card that hasn’t been explored yet, and I expect the Rally deck to gain some more traction in Pioneer over the next couple of weeks.

Jace, Wielder of Mysteries

Price today: 4.5 tix
Possible price: 10 tix

Speaking of Pioneer, and more specifically Team Lotus Box’s Pioneer tournament this past weekend, the Lotus Breach combo deck is being pushed back down after having had a week or so back in the sun. The Damping Spheres are back in the sideboards for now, but give it another month or so and people will slowly remove them again and we’ll see Breach do well again, and then rinse and repeat…

Anyway, I’m not supposed to be talking about Breach here. Dimir Inverter was by far the most represented deck on the weekend, with over double the metagame share of the next deck (Lurrus Burn). A new flavour of Inverter has appeared on the scene – can you guess what’s different? That’s right, the deck can play a Companion now. Yorion is the ally of choice here, expanding the deck up to 80 cards and filling the slots with more interaction and cantrips. As well as just being a 4/5 flier that’s a free card in your opening hand, Yorion can actually help you win by flickering your Inverter of Truth and flipping over your library again.

So what’s the pick here? Jace, Wielder of Mysteries has been trending down online since mid March, after its spike when Dig Through Time didn’t get banned. But see that little turnaround at the bottom of the graph there? I think we’ve reached the bottom and the price is going to be headed back up now. Jace has been 18 tix before and so I think that 10 is a pretty reasonable target for this play. This Yorion version of the deck has great potential, and I expect to see more of it in the MTGO leagues over the next couple of weeks.

Sunbaked Canyon

Price today: 13 tix
Possible price: 20 tix

See how I mentioned Lurrus Burn in the previous section? Well, now I’m segueing into talking about another card from the deck – but in Modern. That was a smooth transition, right?…

Anyway, Sunbaked Canyon has been a staple in Modern Burn decks since it was printed, and now that Lurrus has given the deck an extra boost it’s really putting up results in Modern. Due to the Modern Horizons flashback draft on MTGO a couple of weeks ago, the Horizon lands (along with most other MH cards) took a dip in price online. A lot of staples have recovered since then, but the Horizon lands have, for the most part, stayed down. I don’t think that they’re going to stay that way for too much longer though.

I’m calling out Sunbaked Canyon because it’s the most widely played, but this logic roughly applies to the other four lands as well. Canyon was up at 21 tix before the flashback draft, and I think it can get there again, especially with the heavier-than-usual representation of Burn in the Modern metagame.

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.

Casual Fridays

Time to Let Go

I realize that we’re currently in a really divided time. A majority of the states are going to be open in some way starting May 1, and there’s a whole lot of leeway when it comes to what businesses are allowed to function and which aren’t. 

Game stores are in a vulnerable spot, and the main factor for us to consider is that the paper Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths isn’t supposed to be released until May 14. The Commander decks are supposed to be available then, as well. I don’t think we’re going to have normal times for quite a while yet, but we will see.

We are also about five months from rotation, and there’s some big names at big prices. It’s time to get out while the getting is good…

My main goal for you is to be safe, no matter what your state/country is requiring of people. Getting in a Commander game is not worth your life. More people have died from COVID-19 in the United States than died in the Vietnam War. If you look only at the statistics and decide you like your odds, that’s your call, but remember that you’re an infection vector and could transmit the virus to someone who isn’t as lucky.

Or you’d roll a 1 on your d20. 

People want things to be normal. I like the creative ways folks are making lemonade out of these shelter-in-place lemons. We’re seeing a wide range of online tournaments. People have been busily playing Commander via webcam, or less official programs, but prices are still changing by the week.

I’m impressed at the way prices are almost acting normal. Lurrus is big in Modern and Legacy, and has a price to show it. I’d expect that price to fall once people start opening packs in real numbers, especially because people need exactly one copy per deck. Some Companions are worth playing extra copies in the main (Gyruda, I’m looking at you, buddy!) but Lurrus precludes that. 

Right now, given the proximity to rotation out of Standard, it’s the perfect time to sell extra copies of overpriced things. All of these suggestions are presuming that you’re going to keep the ones you need, but in some cases, I’m going to be raiding my Commander decks and selling cards that I can put back in once rotation happens and these prices come back to earth.

If you play Standard, keep what you need, but the profit-taking is about to happen for some of these. Sell at the highest price!

Some overpriced cards I think you should sell:

Breeding Pool ($27 nonfoil from Ravnica Allegiance)

Blood Crypt ($15)

Yes, I think you should sell every once of these that you’re not playing. Right now, Simic is clearly the best guild in Standard, it’s been given all the fun toys even when Once Upon a Time and Oko are both banned. Blood Crypt has had a bump recently with the popularity of the assorted flavors of Mayhem Devil-centric sacrifice decks, but the Pool is at one of the highest prices I can remember for a Standard land. 

Blue-Green is that good, that dominant, that prevalent. It’s not in as many decks as Fabled Passage, but the Breeding Pool decks tend to start with four of the shockland. Most decks with Passage want less than the full playset (but do stock up before Passage breaks $20!) and I’m getting out of these shocks entirely. As I said above, I’m even taking a couple of copies out of Commander decks and selling them, the value is too good and shocklands will come back to earth later this year when rotation happens. 

I have trouble imagining a world where a soon-to-rotate land with this much stock goes higher. The Gatecrash version is $25, original Dissension is $34. I’m taking the value now and I won’t be sad if it bumps to $30. My eyes are firmly fixed on when this is $10 at Halloween.

Hydroid Krasis ($17)

Get out while you can. Krasis is a fantastic card in big-mana Commander decks, but let’s take a look at the graph:

The big spike has happened, and only the popularity of UGx decks has allowed it to maintain this price. It’ll be in the $10 range by the end of summer, and at that point, you’d better not have any excess copies in your inventory. Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy is no Nissa, who Shakes the World, even though Uro is going to be a staple for the next year and a half. Too much of the ramp deck is rotating for me to want to try and hang on to the Krasis.

Again, if you’re planning on playing Krasis in some paper Magic this summer, keep your playset and dump the rest. The value needs to be extracted and applied to other worthy targets. 

Agent of Treachery ($6)

Holy biscuits, take a look at this graph and tell me you shouldn’t be selling like mad:

Agent has always been a favored ramp payoff, there’s something delightful about ramping up and then taking the thing they were going to kill you with. Drawing three from the second ability tends to earn immediate concessions, and I have been on both ends of that spectrum.

Agent isn’t played in other formats, though it’s a fun Commander card. Dump your spare copies and dump them now. This will be a dollar rare in a few months.

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.

Jason Alt, Unlocked ProTrader

Unlocked Pro Trader: Caught me Slippin

Readers!

Last week, I said I was going to spend this week talking about specs from Gavi. It seemed like a no-brainer.

Zaxama was Number 1 but didn’t have a ton by way of solid specs, so moving on to Gavi seemed like the play.

Seemed.

Gavi has plummeted all the way to 5th place and all of the shiny, new Commander 2020 commanders have been supplanted by a generic “best commander of the month” pick in Golos. A cursory glance at Golos’ page tells me that this is likely people updating their lists.

I don’t think a Triome is a reason to build a Golos deck you didn’t have before, but a Gold Commander who ramps mana getting access to 5 new Ultimatums, sick new lands and the Mythos cycle and we may have a reason to at least pop over to archidekt and register a new list.

I think Golos is just as popular as it was last week, but it seems like Gavi isn’t. The question is whether I stick to my guns or whether I take a look at Kalamax instead. How about I take a look to see if it’s worth taking an actual look?

You can take a look for yourself, but it seems like Kalamax is about as unexciting as Zaxara was last week. Also, can we talk about these names? They’re killing me. I got Lurrus and Lutri mixed up last week and now I’m expected to differentiate Kalamax and Zaxara? Who named these characters, George RR Martin? I guess that would explain why he still hasn’t finished The Winds of Winter 2 years after the show went off the air. You know what? I’m just going to give all of these stupid commanders nicknames to make my articles easier to read. OK, we did Hydraboi last week and we can either do Doublesaurus Rex or Mac and Me, so let’s look at old Dubby bones first and see if it’s worth exploring, shall we?

Dinosauriku is kind of a fun-looking commander and while a little linear, he may stay more popular than Dragonsnake due to a larger volume of cards that feel necessary in Dragonsnake. I think Terrible Double Lizard could be fun, but looking at the page, every card is like $0.25 or it’s already played so much in other formats that this shouldn’t make a difference. This deck can’t make Manamorphose go back to where it was or make Comet Storm erase a few of its 8-too-many printings, but perhaps it CAN make people finally realize Thousand-Year Storm is an absurd Magic card. I think Storm is about to go, personally.

Not every site was as hip to its absurdity as Card Kingdom who keeps raising their buylist price accordingly, but other sites will catch up. If you have a way to scoop these from MKM, they’re like a solitary Euro and if this hits $10 USD on Card Kingdom, maybe you figure out how to arb that. We’re already at $3 cash on Card Kingdom’s bulisyt, you can basically buy $4 in credit per Euro right now, but that buylist price won’t stay where it is for long. Get on it! The rest of that deck, though, I’m not too enthusiastic about.

With that said, let’s look at ET and Elliot over here and see if we can snag anything before everyone gets wise.

Most of the Cycling payoffs like Drake Haven, Astral Drift, New Perspective and Lightning Rift (WE DIDN’T START THE FIRE!) are reprinted in the deck, but there are some cards with cycling on them that are interesting.

Decree of Silence, which already popped when Solemnity was printed and is experiencing one of those second spikes we all know and love and profit from, is through the roof. It’s not a $20 card, but with the markets effectively shut down due to Covid, no one is racing to the bottom so copies are hard to come by. I have a ton left over from last time and I’m happy to sell these for $15 on Facebook and if you find these around their pre-spike price, scoop them because they’ll settle higher than that. With shops shut down, no one is trolling through the smaller stores with a few copies or snapping everything up on Crystal Commerce so it’s possible there are random copies on “Hobby Monkey” on the 7th page of google or something. If Decree of Silence was obvious, here’s one that wasn’t.

Decree of Annihilation is drying up a little bit but you should still be able to find some copies. Here is a way to get $60 worth of cards provided Decree never goes above $10, and more than $60 if it does. The Decree in there is foil, but nobody’s perfect.

Solemnity is a card that’s currently on a huge upward track as well given the combination with Decree of Silence and, I’m assuming, cards with Cumulative Upkeep? I’ll be honest, I’m not sure why it’s showing up in the Gavi deck so much, but it is, and it’s getting expensive so yank these out of bulk if you have bulk to yank from.

This deck is so narrow that they basically reprinted anything that could go with it and still needed to cough up 15 new cards to fill out a deck. Cycling is really fair, slow without Gavi and Fluctuator, a terrible way to make tokens with Gavi and The Locust God and if you don’t draw a payoff spell, you’re literally spinning your wheels. I think other decks are more exciting and I’ll find a more exciting one to get into next week, with cards that haven’t all started to go up, if we’re lucky. Until then, stay safe, stay healthy and remember we have so much time to buy these cards that Commander 2021 may be out before anyone even gets to play these cards. Until next time!

MTGO, Watchtower

The Watchtower 04/27/20 – When You Play the Game of Thrones…

We all know that Wizards have been pushing the power level of new Standard sets in the past 12 months, but Throne of Eldraine has arguably been the most pushed of the lot so far. Sure, T3feri and Narset from War of the Spark are obnoxious, and Uro out of Theros has seen an incredible amount of play…but remind me how many formats Oko is banned from now? And Once Upon a Time?

But even setting aside the bannings, this is a suite of cards that have achieved a deep penetration of pretty much every format Magic has to offer – and it’s also going to be the oldest set legal in Standard once rotation hits later this year. Those factors all seem like an excellent recipe for some juicy MTGO specs, so let’s take a look!

Brazen Borrower

Price today: 27 tix
Possible price: 40 tix

Brazen Borrower continues to be one of the most popular cards in Standard, as well as seeing play in Pioneer, Modern and Legacy as well. Side note: although Legacy might not really drive paper prices much any more, it’s a different story online where dual lands and other Legacy staples have had numerous promo printings (like Vintage Masters), and so are WAY more affordable. My point here is that Brazen Borrower being played a bit in Legacy does actually have an impact on its price online, unlike in paper.

I don’t really need to talk much about how good this card is; the results speak for themselves. A lot of the Adventure cards from Throne of Eldraine have proven themselves to be powerful and flexible in multiple formats, and Borrower is probably the best of all of them. Also, it’s one of only two Mythic Rare Adventure cards, the other of which sees so little play it’s not even worth naming.

We’ve seen this card at highs of over 50 tix, but it’s been on a steady downswing for a couple of months now. We might not have hit the floor yet, so keep an eye over the next few days/weeks, and maybe try to buy copies down the ladder. Demand for Brazen Borrower isn’t going to be significantly decreasing any time soon, and so once it turns around I think we’ll see it head back up over 40 tix without too much trouble.

Embercleave

Price today: 2.6 tix
Possible price: 6 tix

Embercleave has seen a lot of price volatility over its time in Standard, but most recently has somewhat fallen off a cliff. Maybe someone threw their sword out of the pram? (Not gonna lie, this is the first time I’ve actually properly looked at the Embercleave art and up until now I sort of assumed it was an axe…the more you know, I guess).

True burn decks haven’t been good in Standard for quite a while, and it doesn’t look like that’s a direction Wizards want to be going at the moment. This means that the majority of aggressive red decks are creature-based, which is great news for our friend Embercleave. It’s a powerful weapon (hah) for the deck, especially when combined with Anax, Hardened in the Forge, making it much easier to push those last point of damage through. It’s so powerful, in fact, that it’s made its way into Modern and Pioneer decks as well, so it could even have some legs once its standard days are over.

As I alluded to earlier, after peaking at around 9 tix a couple of months ago, Embercleave has been trending down since then and taken a sharp downturn in the past couple of weeks. Same as with Brazen Borrower, we might see this go down a little further before it reverses, but even if you buy now I think you’ll be in for a good time eventually.

Murderous Rider // Swift End

Price today: 2.3 tix
Possible price: 5 tix

I kind of wanted to do a triple-mythic article today, but I think that Murderous Rider is a better option here than any of the other ELD mythics. Although it’s hard not to include this card in your black decks in Standard, I think that Murderous Rider has found its best home in Pioneer. Mono-black used to be the top dog in the format, and although it takes up a smaller share of the metagame now, Murderous Rider is still seeing play in that and in Sultai Delirium.

I’m going to try not to repeat myself too much, but these Adventure cards are great, and I think they’ll have applications in a lot of formats for years to come. Murderous Rider has seen prices of up to around 6 tix online – not as pricey as the mythics or auto-playsets but I don’t think it’ll have too much trouble doubling up from its current price. Bear in mind I see this as a longer hold (probably at least a few months), but it should be a steady gainer.

A final note on these cards from Throne of Eldraine – the set is outside of the MTGO redemption window now which means that there’s a little less demand for some of the rares and mythics that people needed to complete their sets. This means that we may well see ELD cards continue on a slight downtrend for a bit, so this will require a bit of effort on your part if you want to maximise your gains. Look out for the floor/turning point, and buy in then. If you’re happy to buy now for slightly lesser gains and save time keeping track of prices, then that’s also an entirely valid option.

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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