As a player that has leaned into green since I started playing some 25 years ago, to see the color succeeding so wildly across multiple formats that it keeps getting banned is weirdly satisfying. Two of the four cards added to the Pioneer ban list are green, all three Standard bans last week were green, and even the Legacy ban was green. I imagine rooting for a color is a bit like rooting for a sports team, just abstracted slightly.
In any case, the general consensus is that Standard is considerably better now that Oko, Once Upon a Time, and Veil of Summer are all gone. It calls into question how much frequent bans in Standard (or any format) do to chill sales and erode public confidence in the brand and product. Is a constant cycle of pushing cards with the expectation that some will break formats, the rise of those cards, the eventual banning, and the “clean slate” format that emerges the new ecology of Magic? In essence, and more simply, “we Yu Gi Oh now?”
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Travis Allen has been playing Magic: The Gathering since 1994, mostly in upstate New York. Ever since his first FNM he’s been trying to make playing Magic cheaper, and he first brought his perspective to MTGPrice in 2013. You can find his articles there weekly, as well as on the podcast MTG Fast Finance.
Magic’s structure was the very first collectible card game, commonly called a CCG or now a Trading Card Game, the TCG in TCGPlayer.
A whole lot of Magic’s value is tied up in the collectibility of these cards, in how we can get some unique or special or exotic versions of a regular card.
Interestingly, though, not all collectibles are created equal, and definitely show unequal levels of growth. Let’s dive in, shall we?
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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.
When we build decks, we think about cards that can be more effective because of how they work in conjunction with the rest of the deck rather than how powerful they are on their own. Nothing in the Cat Food deck in Standard is THAT powerful on its own now that Oko, OUAT and Veil are out of the format but working together in the context of food shenanigans, the deck is annoying and it’s only going to get more annoying now that it’s all you’ll play against at FNM. Synergistic interactions are obvious to us in the context of building decks, so why don’t we think the same way when we plan specs? Instead of talking about the most popular deck in EDH right now, I should be looking at overlap because there are some cards getting double- or even triple-hit right now and that’s worth knowing about. Which cards, you ask? Well, don’t worry, I’ll figure it out for you. Come along with me on a journey of cardboard-based discovery.
A real quick and dirty way to do this is using a website I found called “Compare 2 lists” which, and you won’t be shocked by this revelation, compares two lists. You’re not going to get every single card, but if you compare the average decklists generated by EDHREC, you can get a good idea very quickly as it’s just a matter of highlighting and copying and pasting. You can dig down a little deeper, and you can save yourself some time by comparing decks that have something in common. You may find some synergy you didn’t find before and it may cause you to drill down on some decks you didn’t think you would. I think the two list comparison tool is our coarse grit sandpaper and physically looking at the pages is our fine. Let’s do some coarse work, shall we? Here’s our list.
The top of the list is starting to look very similar week to week and with Target and Wally World restocking the Brawl decks, I don’t expect they’ll be built LESS as people get their hands on the decks for the first time. Just a gross, cursory glance at this list shows there are some common threads. A lot of the black decks involve tokens or saccing creatures – Korvold, Alela, Syr Konrad, Edgar and Marchesa are all better if you’re saccing creatures and most of them generate the creatures. I think that’s a good place to start.
When you compare the lists, you’ll get an output screen like this.
We are concerned with the bottom right box – the cards that are in both lists. The hope is that cards that aren’t just staples will pop out at us. Let’s do this real fast at first and see what we see.
1 Bojuka Bog 1 Phyrexian Arena 1 Sol Ring 1 Solemn Simulacrum
There are some fairly interesting cards here but a lot of these are sort of staples. I don’t need to tell you Skullclamp goes up in price until it’s reprinted.
If you want to do some of this analysis your self quickly, try clicking on the various themes in the upper left. You may get a bit more synergy if you’re comparing Syr Konrad to Korvald Aristocrats, for example. However, we’re just looking for cards that are in the majority of the decks, not a sort of fringe build. The permutations with the most interesting cards are Korvold and Konrad and Alela and Marchesa, but I plan to go through and see cards that are interesting and appear in more decks if possible.
One more thing you can try will give you a ton more noise, but if you feel like digging the signal out, you can compare every card from the page, not just the average deck. You do this by sorting by text rather than pics which is the default.
When you do that, you can paste the entire EDHREC page for the commander into our comparison tool. I’m going to compare Korvald and Konrad first and pare down the noise.
Korvald and Konrad
Altar of Dementia Animate Dead Ashnod’s Altar Bake into a Pie Black Market Blood Artist Blood for Bones Bolas’s Citadel Butcher of Malakir Carrion Feeder Crucible of Worlds Decree of Pain Dictate of Erebos Dread Return Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder Entomb Falkenrath Noble Final Parting Fleshbag Marauder Grave Pact Liliana, Dreadhorde General Living Death Mana Crypt Memorial to Folly Merciless Executioner Nihil Spellbomb Pawn of Ulamog Phyrexian Altar Phyrexian Reclamation Phyrexian Tower Pitiless Plunderer Plaguecrafter Priest of Forgotten Gods Reanimate Reassembling Skeleton Revel in Riches Shriekmaw Sifter of Skulls Skullclamp Solemn Simulacrum Torment of Hailfire Victimize Viscera Seer Westvale Abbey Whisper, Blood Liturgist Zulaport Cutthroat
This is a much bigger list. I tried to cut out Black staples for the most part and what I was left with was a recipe for 2 decks that both want to play Grave Pact effects on top of making every player sacrifice creatures. Let’s look at Alela and Marchesa.
Alela and Marchesa Anguished Unmaking Anointed Procession Ashnod’s Altar Aura of Silence Austere Command Authority of the Consuls Aven Mindcensor Bitterblossom Blind Obedience Bolas’s Citadel Burnished Hart Cathars’ Crusade Despark Dictate of Erebos Divine Visitation Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite Ethereal Absolution Fumigate Generous Gift Ghost Quarter Ghostly Prison Gilded Lotus Godless Shrine Hall of Heliod’s Generosity Hushbringer Isolated Chapel Karmic Justice Kaya’s Wrath Land Tax Lightning Greaves Luminarch Ascension Mana Confluence Mana Crypt Mana Vault Marsh Flats Merciless Eviction Mind Stone Mirage Mirror Mortify Necropotence Norn’s Annex Oblivion Ring Rest in Peace Return to Dust Revel in Riches Sensei’s Divining Top Silent Clearing Skullclamp Smothering Tithe Sphere of Safety Sun Titan Swiftfoot Boots Sword of Feast and Famine Sword of the Animist Swords to Plowshares Talisman of Hierarchy Teferi’s Protection Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth Utter End Vault of the Archangel Vindicate Wayfarer’s Bauble Westvale Abbey Winds of Abandon Wishclaw Talisman Wrath of God
I am seeing some themes here. Endrek Sahr could be in all of these decks, for example. They all can make a lot of tokens. I am going to use a different tool to compare all 4 lists at once. The output is uglier on this tool but it’s worth it to at least look at the cards in all 4 decks.
Ancient Tomb
4
List A, List B, List C, List D
Arcane Signet
4
List A, List B, List C, List D
Ashnod’s Altar
4
List A, List B, List C, List D
Bojuka Bog
4
List A, List B, List C, List D
Bolas’s Citadel
4
List A, List B, List C, List D
Burnished Hart
4
List A, List B, List C, List D
Commander’s Sphere
4
List A, List B, List C, List D
Damnation
4
List A, List B, List C, List D
Demonic Tutor
4
List A, List B, List C, List D
Diabolic Intent
4
List A, List B, List C, List D
Diabolic Tutor
4
List A, List B, List C, List D
Dictate of Erebos
4
List A, List B, List C, List D
Evolving Wilds
4
List A, List B, List C, List D
Expedition Map
4
List A, List B, List C, List D
Lightning Greaves
4
List A, List B, List C, List D
Mana Crypt
4
List A, List B, List C, List D
Mind Stone
4
List A, List B, List C, List D
Necropotence
4
List A, List B, List C, List D
Reliquary Tower
4
List A, List B, List C, List D
Revel in Riches
4
List A, List B, List C, List D
Skullclamp
4
List A, List B, List C, List D
Sol Ring
4
List A, List B, List C, List D
Solemn Simulacrum
4
List A, List B, List C, List D
Swiftfoot Boots
4
List A, List B, List C, List D
Temple of the False God
4
List A, List B, List C, List D
Terramorphic Expanse
4
List A, List B, List C, List D
Tomb of Yawgmoth
4
List A, List B, List C, List D
Toxic Deluge
4
List A, List B, List C, List D
Urborg
4
List A, List B, List C, List D
Vampiric Tutor
4
List A, List B, List C, List D
Wayfarer’s Bauble
4
List A, List B, List C, List D
Westvale Abbey
4
List A, List B, List C, List D
There are a few cards here that aren’t staples, here. Revel in Riches makes me want to look at more than just Grave Pact effects in the decks. Bolas’ Citadel is getting a lot more play than maybe we’d anticipated – it’s currently around $2 but it’s the 6th-most-played card in War of the Spark. Here are a few picks I found based on digging through each page.
Attrition works well with all of these cards and while it appears to have plateaued a bit, the general trend is upward. It’s been a while since this got reprinted and there are a lot of decks, and not necessarily the ones on the Top Commanders page, either. Attrition is strong and it dodged a reprinting in the Mystery Booster set, which sends all kinds of signals. I am very, very bearish on Attrition.
Sold out on Card Kingdom, price increasing on Channel – all signs point to EDH moving the needle a lot on this card. Could it dip at rotation? Possibly, but that’s been happening less as EDH is a bigger and bigger percentage of the paper Magic being played and cards being identified earlier and earlier. I think we may have even missed the boat here, which is nuts given how recently this was printed. I don’t like foils but the foil doesn’t even cost twice as much as the non-foil right now. Don’t expect the multiplier to stay sub 2x if this goes on a tear.
I can’t figure out how this is so cheap on TCG Player with so many copies when it’s so expensive everywhere else. Can’t we just arbitrage this stupid card at some point? This is so cheap on TCG Player I had to make sure it wasn’t in Mystery Boosters.
This has a lot of printings, but at a certain point, it will stop mattering.
We love to catch stuff at its bottom, don’t we? We love that reverse-J shape that tells us we’re at the best possible time to buy and that it’s about to reverse and turn into a beautiful U-shaped graph. Do you like this card at its bottom? I sure do.
That does it for me this week. This was a lot of techniques to absorb and I thank you for hanging in there with me. Keep peppering me with questions and comments in the comments section. Until next time!
Well, how’s that for a changeup in Standard? Three green cards in one fell swoop is staggering, to be honest. Standard bans are almost always one or two cards at a time, and rarely within the same color. For green to show up to Standard with not just one, but three cards that so violate the rules, is unlike any other event in Magic’s history, really. Many of us remember Darksteel as the most uproarious Standard upset ever, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this ends up wresting that throne away over the next few years. With such a major change it’s hard to even know where to turn for possible specs; we’ll need Magic Arena and the pros to give us an idea of how things shape up from here.
Blighted Woodland (Foil)
Price Today: $3.50 Possible Price: $9
Since the Pioneer B&R list isn’t out at the time of writing, I’m going to focus more on EDH this week. Over in that world, it turns out that the Throne of Eldraine commanders have been holding steady in the top deck slots, with Korvold, Fae-Cursed King clocking more than twice as many Atraxa decks. Alela, Artful Provocateur, Kenrith, the Returned King, and Chulane, Teller of Tales round out four of the top five, with Golos, Tireless Pilgrim sneaking in at third. Even Syr Gwin, Hero of Ashvale is holding steady in sixth. It’s impressive how long this new set of commanders has remained the most popular in the format.
I made a point of dipping into the lands today to see what we could find, and unsurprisingly, I didn’t come out empty handed. Blighted Woodland jumped out at me, with nearly 16,000 lists under its belt. Woodland ticks several boxes; it ramps your mana, it’s a land you can use right away, it fixes your colors, you get to sacrifice a permanent, and it’s recurrable with Loam and other effects, among other benefits. It may not be the sexiest EDH card, but there’s no denying that it does a lot of things players want in a land slot.
As an uncommon from Battle for Zendikar, there’s been sufficient supply to keep prices suppressed for awhile. BFZ sold a lot of packs, after all. Now we’re at a point where there isn’t much more than 30 foil copies left on TCG, with prices starting around $3.50 to $4. Prices head into the $6 range quickly, and then simply run out. With one foil printing, expect this to continue draining, with low chances of a reprint on the horizon.
Rhythm of the Wild (Foil)
Price Today: $7 Possible Price: $15
There’s no question that Smothering Tithe is the best card out of Ravnica Allegiance, by a significant margin. That card has become as iconic as Doubling Season almost overnight. Quietly behind it in second place is Rhythm of the Wild, with almost 8,000 lists on record. That’s a surprisingly high number, especially considering the sets adjacent to RNA. Other than Tithe, there are like three Standard expansion cards with printed after the Amonkhet block with more play than Rhythm. This is more impressive when it’s noted that Rhythm is a two color card, having landed in, if I’m reading EDHREC properly, 30% of all RG(x) decks that have been created since the card was printed.
Rhythm does a lot for its caster. Disabling counterspells alone can be tremendous against certain decks, invalidating entire defensive strategies from some decks, and irking others. At the same time, Riot gives your creatures haste where they most need it — mana dorks, important activated abilities, opportune turns for attack — and power where haste isn’t necessary. And not just power either, but a +1/+1 counter, which can be further manipulated and improved. All of this isn’t restricted to EDH either. We’ve seen it in both Modern and Pioneer, and it’s not unbelievable to see this becoming a tier two or three card in the latter. I mean, it turns your Incubation Druids into reusable Black Lotus’. T1 dork, T2 Rhythm, T3 double Incubation Druid means you’ve got 11 mana on turn four — and whatever creature you cast will have riot.
There’s roughly 30 vendors of foil Rhythms on TCG as well, although one of the vendors has a 25 copy wall at $10. Given these prices, this stock, and how fresh Rhythm is, watch to see these get picked off fairly aggressively over the next several months. Those 25 $10 copies don’t need to be bought out fully before the lowest price ends up at $15.
Sram, Senior Edificer (Foil)
Price Today: $4 Possible Price: $10
Ok, I can’t resist dipping my toe into Pioneer. I don’t know yet what’s getting banned and what isn’t, but given this Standard upset, I have some suspicions. Assuming something green gets banned Pioneer is going to get a good shakeup going, and everyone camping out on Nykthos decks may need to look elsewhere. As an old fan of Cheerios in Modern, seeing the deck pop up in Pioneer brought warmth to my cold steel heart.
Pioneer Cheerios has a similar build to Modern, with a couple missing pieces. Puresteel Paladin and Mox Opal are gone, so the power level is certainly deflated. In their place you have Sram and Mox Amber, though Amber is leaned on less heavily than one might expect. Your other main vector of attack than Sram is Monastery Mentor, a tool that Modern cheerios used occasionally. Two Sai, Master Thopterists round out the build, providing a slightly less combo-y line of attack than the Modern build. Paradoxical Outcome and Reverse Engineer hold the shell together, providing some potent card draw in a deck full of 0s and 10s. I personally find myself wondering about moving up to the four full Ambers and adding Emry, but I’m writing finance articles, not strategy, so probably best not to listen to me on that.
For the privilege of owning a foil Sram you’ll pay about $4. There’s only 16 people selling copies on TCG today, though you’ll find 45 at CFB. Beyond that lump it’s slim pickings, and while that represents 11 full decks worth of foils, that’s really not a significant amount of cards when you consider the scale of hunger for Pioneer cards across the world. We haven’t had a true combo deck in Pioneer emerge yet, especially now that Felidar is banned. Is Cheerios going to be the first to make its mark?[/hide]
Travis Allen has been playing Magic: The Gathering since 1994, mostly in upstate New York. Ever since his first FNM he’s been trying to make playing Magic cheaper, and he first brought his perspective to MTGPrice in 2013. You can find his articles there weekly, as well as on the podcast MTG Fast Finance.
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