Watchtower

The Watchtower 01/27/20 – It’s Another Pioneer Episode

I know I focused heavily on Pioneer a couple of weeks ago, but this week we’re heading into a triple Pioneer GP weekend which means there’s going to be a big spotlight on the format, and we could definitely see some more price spikes. I was planning on talking about Inverter of Truth today, an integral part of the so-called ‘Splinter Twin’ deck with Thassa’s Oracle and Jace, Wielder of Mysteries, but it seems the best action on that has already gone. Never fear, I’ve got some different picks lined up for you to take a look at instead!

Stonecoil Serpent (EA Version)

Price today: $6.50
Possible price: $15

Izzet Ensoul was one of the earlier decks to do well in Pioneer – it was fast and aggressive, but also had multiple angles of attack and could close out games with Shrapnel Blast after getting a couple of hits in with an Ensouled 5/5. However, once everyone realised how broken Oko was, artifact-based decks just weren’t a viable thing to be doing in Pioneer. Walking Ballista? It’s an Elk. Darksteel Citadel? That’s an Elk too. Everything’s an Elk. Even you.

But now that he’s gone and the deer have been set free, we’re seeing Izzet Ensoul come back to the forefront of the meta. One of the most powerful and flexible cards in the deck is Stonecoil Serpent – it can be played as a 1/1 on turn one ready to grab some scissors on turn two, but is also great in the late-game when you can pump more mana into it. The best thing about Serpent is the abilities on it, and the fact that people always forget about at least one of them (the number of times I’ve seen people chump attack their fliers into it is quite something). The Trample is great for getting through damage when it’s been Ensouled, and the combination of Reach and Protection from multicoloured makes it one of the best Niv-Mizzet blockers in the format, as well as fading key removal spells like Abrupt Decay and Kolaghan’s Command.

I really like buying the non-foil Extended Art version of Stonecoil here, for three reasons:

1) There are far fewer copies around than the normal versions, and are only a few dollars more.
2) EA cards are one of the most tournament-friendly ways for players to pimp their decks out without using foils.
3) They really do look great.

The EA Stonecoils were once up at $15 due to their use in Ensoul and Hardened Scales, but have since fallen by the wayside a bit. I fully expect them to be able to reach that price point again, and if you fancy foil EAs at $22 I wouldn’t blame you – they’re in even shorter supply and also look fantastic.

Leyline of the Void

Price today: $9
Possible price: $18

Leyline of the Void has had its fair share of days in the sun, most recently during Hogaak’s reign of terror over Modern last year. Incredibly, even as mainly just a sideboard card, it was the most played card at Mythic Championship IV, showing just how powerful it can be against graveyard-heavy strategies. Dredge is still a good deck in Modern, and might be getting better with the inclusion of the new Ox of Agonas from Theros Beyond Death.

Leyline of the Void hasn’t been particularly relevant in Standard, but it’s still a powerful hoser in Modern and has started showing up relatively frequently in Pioneer too. Mono-black aggro is still one of the best decks in the meta, and Leyline is good both in and against the deck. It’s generally seen with 2-4 copies in the sideboard, for the mirror match as well as against other graveyard-based decks like Dredgeless Dredge, Breach Lotus Storm and Golgari Soulflayer.

For a card that used to be well over $50, the reprint in M20 (along with Hogaak getting banned) tanked the price quite a bit, and now they’re sitting at around $9. I think this is most likely the floor for this card, and it’s going to creep up steadily until it’s doubled before you know it. Particularly for Modern and to a lesser extent Pioneer, it’s a card that is mostly played as a 4-of, which means that supply will dry up much faster than an EDH-only card, for example. If you think you’re going to play with this card at some point in the future, pick your copies up now. If you’re not, pick some up anyway!

Paradise Druid (FNM)

Price today: $1.50
Possible price: $3

I’ll round today’s article off with a small-ball pick: Paradise Druid. Yes, it’s an uncommon, but this is a card that’s seeing quite a lot of play in multiple formats. It’s a Standard staple (although that won’t be moving the price much), but it’s also become a key card in a couple of Pioneer decks too. Niv to Light and Ascendancy Combo decks both use it in the same role as Sylvan Caryatid – a hexproof dork that makes any colour of mana. Without Birds of Paradise in the format, Druid is the next best thing after Caryatid, and having Hexproof means that it can reliably survive to produce the mana you need in these four and five-colour decks.

We’re also seeing a small amount of play from this card in a new Standard deck – a Bogles type shell with Setessan Champion. This plus inclusion in around 3000 decks on EDHREC means that a fair few players need copies of this.

As FNM promos go, this is one that a lot of players will slots into one or more of their EDH decks, or complete a set to play with in Standard or Pioneer. This means that there are lots of copies being played with and fewer copies in the hands of vendors, making for a shallower supply. If you grab some of these at $1.50 and give it 12 months, I could see buylists heading towards the $3 range for a nice double up.

That’s all from me this week, and I promise I’ll have some non-Pioneer specs for you next Monday.

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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This Week In Theros

I’m really not a fan of the huge lag between the reveal of cards and the time when they can begin shipping. I also don’t enjoy that I can’t do paper drafts during prerelease weekend, or the time after prerelease. Making me wait a whole week for updates to my Commander decks, my Cube, and anything else I have going on is just plain cruel.

And now that I’m done yelling at clouds, let’s look at the things that jumped up in price this week!

Before we get too deep, there’s some caveats to make about these prices. Since it’s only allowed to ship these starting today, the TCG prices and the other vendors aren’t in alignment. Also, some prices have changed since I reviewed them Thursday evening. Please, be kind.

Ashiok, Nightmare Muse (up to $17 from about $11)

I liked Elspeth last week at $7 but I should have seen Ashiok as the finisher in UB control or some Esper build. I’ve had the privilege of losing to this card in Limited, and I love any planeswalker who gets a card from the plus or the minus ability. It’s not difficult to get them into the ultimate range, and while I don’t think it’ll hold at $17, this is a nice bump and a sign that the format isn’t too aggro yet.

Dream Trawler (Up to $4 from about $1)

Speaking of finishers, can I interest you in a Time Wipe or bust? I’ve won Limited games with this, and I won’t be shocked if it’s the finisher du jour in formats besides Standard. You’re gaining five on the attack, plus the extra card. It’s very difficult to beat in combat, it’s extremely difficult to race, and that mana requirement is the only thing stopping this from being $10. Decks aren’t playing a full playset of this (yet) and that’s to be expected on a six-drop. I think this price is going to recede to $3 or so, but more likely is that everyone starts playing the heck out of this card and it pops to $7 this first weekend. It’s very difficult to make money on a short term jump like that, I don’t recommend you try.

Thassa’s Oracle (Up to $4 from about $2)

Look, you can name your own combo with this card. It’s not difficult to figure out the game state that ends up with you victorious after a certain amount of silliness. Commander players eat this up, and let’s not overlook that we’ve not got this bad boy and Jace, Wielder of Mysteries in the same Standard. I’m exceedingly leery of trying to make that work when Murderous Rider and Mystical Dispute are everywhere, but I appreciate the optimism that people are showing.

I do not think the Oracle can hold $4 long-term, but what I’m going to be watching is the price of the EA foils. Right now those are in the $80 range on TCG, and supply is appropriately tiny. “I win the game” cards always have a certain cache to them, it’s a challenge that a large number of people can’t ignore.

Setessan Champion (up to $3 from $1)

There’s a Bogles deck in Standard! Thankfully, there’s only one real hexproof creature in the deck, not two, but this deck will wreck your face if you’re not prepared. Season of Growth plus this card is a card advantage nightmare if you don’t have the right tools, not to mention the Alseid making everyone hate the little 1/1 for 1. All that Glitters is a superstar here, you’ve got a Rancor replacement in Setessan Training, and really, be thankful that there’s nothing else in this environment with Hexproof under five mana. Be very aware of this card, because if there’s anything with hexproof in the next four sets, this is an automatic four-of and will jump in price accordingly. I’m not buying now, but when it settles back down, I’ll be considering buying a brick of them for later buylisting.

Underworld Breach (Up to $5 from $3.50)

It seems inevitable that someone will break this card. Yes, it’s infinite milling with Brain Freeze and Lion’s Eye Diamond as long as you mill yourself a little. You’ll buzzsaw their deck first. There’s three Extended Art foils under $60 on TCG and I think that’s good value, especially with the ramp up to the $80 range. I also think this is easier to abuse than Thassa’s Oracle, so we will see where the relative values land.

Going up to $5 is no big deal at the moment, but when word breaks of someone who crushed a PTQ using this in some weird combo, it’ll jump again, hard. Happily, as a key combo piece, it’ll always be a four-of and you’ll be selling these by the playset instead of just the singles.

I also like the flipside of the card’s potential: If it does nothing for the next three months, then it’ll be dirt cheap when Ikoria comes out and I can vacuum up lots and lots of copies.

Nightmare Shepherd (Up to $4 from $1.50)

Finally, the mayor of valuetown. I don’t know if I have the courage to play this in a Commander deck, but I would certainly love the feeling of knowing I’m going to get all my triggers all over again. Your combo choices are many and plentiful, in Standard and elsewhere. The favored thing to do will be to curve Ayara into this and then Gary the Grey Merchant, which should end the game relatively easily. Don’t forget that it’s a 4/4 flier for four, with no drawbacks at all. No random discards, no “you can’t win the game,” or other such problems. Just a steady and delicious stream of unending recycled creatures for maximum value. Korvold’s new best friend.

One more thing about Theros: I’m not picking up the foil lands yet, because I want to see what the supply will be like. Right now, they are going for $6-7 on eBay in foil, and that’s kind of absurd. The early box openings are showing that there’s just one or two foil lands per box, and if enough people dump copies down into the $3 range, I’ll be listening. It doesn’t matter if you like the art personally, don’t let that get in the way of the profits to be made.

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: Theros Beyond Surprising

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Readers,

This is the part of the spoiler season is where I check EDHREC data and do a double take. I could have taken a stab at guessing how the week one deck distributions would shake out but I would have been way off. For the set, my guess would have been.

  1. Uro
  2. Athreos
  3. Kroxa
  4. Thassa
  5. Klothys

I got exactly one of those right and the others were WAY off. If you’re guessing that I had the #1 deck in my Top 5 but just not in the #1 spot, YOU’RE way off. Here’s how it shook out.

I liked Siona, but Siona at number 1 is pretty breathtaking. Uro below Kroxa, Thassa below Dalakos and Athreos below Purphoros are all pretty big surprises, which is why my accuracy rate started going up when I based my picks on what people were doing and not what I assumed they would do.

What people ARE doing is building two Siona decks for every one Uro deck, so let’s dive into Siona, shall we?

Number one with a bullet is this auto-include. This is sold out on every site but TCG Player but it still hasn’t quite crested the $3 mark there. With copies in Commander, Explorers of Ixalan and Gideon’s spellbook, it’s going to be pretty tough for this card to get over $5 but I think with a potential feeding frenzy we could get there. I think this is a little volatile, too recent and too abundant to care about and while it may feel good to snag a forgotten $1 copy or two, I think your best case scenario is a buylist double up after fees and while that’s good, that’s unlikely to be something you do with more than a dozen or so copies at most. If you can buylist 100 of these and make a buck or two a copy, you’re going to feel OK but I think the potential to be left holding the bag is too high to recommend this. Cards like this are a target, though, especially older ones.

The time period where one store runs out and restocks and another store still has copies at the old price is fascinating because you can see jumps in real time if you check often enough. This card doesn’t know if it’s $2 or $10 but I suspect even if it’s played less than we think, it’s old enough to end up wedged between the pre- and post-spike price and that’s a nice payday for the quick and the witty. I like this a lot more than S.B.F. and I think this may be the best spec of the article if you can find these. Stores that aren’t super organized will still have these in their bulk rares, so check there first.

Old Theros was a while back and a second spike on a card that has less stock than people think is primed for movement. I’m a real champion of this as a spec and there aren’t cheap copies to ferret out like there were last time so this is going to be purely controlled by the supply on TCG Player hitting a tipping point or not.

This is one of those specs that got away. I loved it, saw the price was flat forever, never said anything to anyone about it to prove I liked it, bought 0 copies on purpose and when it spiked, it seemed so obvious in hindsight. I have a tendency to second-guess myself even on specs that are super obvious and sometimes it’s just a matter of TCG Player restocking as fast as it sold out, something moderate, organic demand has a tendency to do. If there were a way to sort by cards that move briskly but don’t fluctuate in price much, I bet this would be among those. You had a chance to get in for half a buck and I bet no one recommended it and that feels pretty bad. I want to say this is done going up, but we’ve established I don’t know anything about this card.

I don’t love this as a spec. I do, however, want to point out that this was never affordable, 0 boats were missed, no one could have made more than a buck before fees here and that’s crazy. EDH cards that are this powerful don’t fly under the radar anymore. Is that partly my fault? Yeah, but we also have to address the reality we live in and the reality is that new cards aren’t usually great EDH specs. I like Siona making Rether $8 but I don’t like Siona, savez?

Crashing Drawbridge

This isn’t a spec but it’s hilarious because the deck makes infinite tokens at sorcery speed and this is the only way to win that turn in Green and White without using them to make infinite mana or gain a ton of life. When I brewed the deck for CoolStuff I was durdling by recasting Rancor and saccing the creature to Phyrexian Altar until I could kill them with Aetherflux Reservoir. This is neat.

Perhaps we should have had the “second spike” discussion last week but I was writing about something else. There’s still money to be made and all of the copies haven’t been accounted for yet.

That does it for me. This deck is being built twice as much as decks I thought would be built more and while that won’t necessarily hold (there could be an early spike due to excitement around the Shielded By Faith combo, a combo I’ll point out needs Crashing Drawbridge) it’s good to know what’s really getting built.

Until next time!

Watchtower

The Watchtower 01/20/20 – Specs Beyond Death

Theros Beyond Death is upon us, and despite the official set release not being for another four days, everyone is well underway trying out the new cards on Arena and MTGO. Now that we have sets coming out earlier on the online platforms than the paper release date, it’s more difficult for us as speculators to get in on the cards that perform well early on before they see a price spike, and that means that we need to be even more on our toes when it comes to evaluating and acquiring the new cards. With that said, I think there are a few cards from THB that are definitely worth paying close attention to.

Klothys, God of Destiny

Price today: $10
Possible price: $20

The first card I want to take a look at is Klothys, God of Destiny. At first glance she already looks pretty decent – an indestructible enchantment that can make you mana or drain your opponent each turn, and if you get up to the required seven devotion she can start throwing hands. But once you start thinking about the play patterns that this card can enable, I think it’s even better than it seems. Albeit costing two more mana, she’s rather reminiscent of our old friend Deathrite Shaman – she can exile lands from graveyards to make mana, and given enough resources can provide a four point life swing every turn. I’d pay 3 mana just for an enchantment that did that, so the fact that there’s also an indestructible 4/5 body attached to it that can smash face later in the game is just pure upside.

The one caveat with Klothys is that there isn’t really an obvious existing shell for her to slot into. Despite this, I think she’s more than powerful enough to see play in any or all of Standard, Modern and Pioneer; she made the Arena Decklists top 10 list for Standard play and has been talked up by the Pioneer Cast too. She’d be great in an aggressive Gruul shell in Standard or Pioneer, and could possibly even find a home in Modern Jund, feeding on fetchlands and offsetting Dark Confidant triggers.

There are plenty of copies available at $10, and the gorgeous non-foil showcase version is only $15 too. If Klothys sees decent Standard play she’ll be a $15-20 mythic, and if we get a multi-format star then I don’t think $30 is at all unreasonable.

Eat to Extinction

Price today: $2
Possible price: $8

Eat to Extinction is comparable to Vraska’s Contempt from back in Ixalan; both 4 mana black spells that exile a creature or planeswalker at instant speed, with a bonus effect tacked on. The two life gained from Contempt helped shore the midrange and control decks up against what was a very strong mono-red deck in Standard at the time, enabling slower strategies to battle on in a field of aggro. Effectively surveilling one probably isn’t as strong as that, but does still provide some additional value for you, particularly if you’re looking to enable Escape cards.

Vraska’s contempt was selling for a touch under $5 on release of the set, but saw a quick climb up to $10 and even flirted with $20 at its peak in Standard. It’s not hard to see Eat to Extinction following a similar pattern, especially seeing as exiling rather than destroying is going to be more important than ever in this Standard format. With the Escape mechanic looking to do some serious work (Uro appears to be one of the best cards in the set) and multiple indestructible Gods running around, instant speed exile effects are going to be necessary and powerful. The fact that it hits planeswalkers too is important – even though Oko no longer holds his crown, Nissa and Teferi are still hugely prevalent in Standard, and having answers to them is a must.

Woe Strider

Price today: $1.50
Possible price: $4

For the first time since Nantuko Husk was reprinted in Magic Origins, Wizards have given us a free sacrifice outlet strapped to a creature in Standard. The premise of that effect is powerful in and of itself, but Woe Strider gives us a lot more on top of that. A 3/2 for three mana that brings along a 0/1 Goat is fine, but giving the card Escape as well and coming back as a 5/4 makes it a hard card to deal with. Not having to pay any mana or life in order to sacrifice creatures can make for a strong engine – so what can we combine it with to gain value off the ability?

Mono-black has already shown to be one of the early decks to beat in this new Standard format, and one of the breakout cards from the deck has been Nightmare Shepherd. Shepherd has already seen sharp price movement, but Woe Strider is still being figured out in these decks and so is lagging behind a bit. Pairing Nightmare Shepherd with Woe Strider and creatures that have enter-the-battlefield triggers like Ayara, First of Locthwain and the old devotion cornerstone Gray Merchant of Asphodel can quickly get out of hand, resulting in some, uh, Recurring Nightmares. If even that’s not enough for you though, try throwing a Bolas’s Citadel into the mix too. You can play your black creatures off the top of your library and use Woe Strider to scry away anything you don’t want, and it gives an extra three pips of devotion for your Gray Merchants, so you’ll only need two or three Gray Merchant triggers before your opponent is really rather dead.

I wouldn’t be expecting a huge spike on this one, but seeing as it’s currently only $1.50 I’d want to be buying a few and looking for a buylist out here – could be a nice double or triple-up.

A final bit of advice: when it comes to evaluating new cards, listen to the pros. Watch their streams and read their articles; they’re generally a lot better than financiers at evaluating whether or not a card will do well or find a home in a particular format.

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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