19 for ProTraders – Plan Your Specs

January 14, 2019 Travis Allen

Don’t miss this week’s installment of the MTG Fast Finance podcast, an on-topic, no-nonsense tour through the week’s most important changes in the Magic economy.

While there’s no major news on the Magic front today, there’s plenty brewing. The Ravnica Allegiance spoilers wrapped up last week, and the full set will be found in players’ hands shortly. There’s plenty of tasty cardboard in this one, and I know I’m not alone in looking forward to seeing how it reshapes Standard and Modern. I’m especially excited to see Electrodominance do some work, maybe balancing out the format.

The format needs balancing too, what with the way Arclight Phoenix has been going lately. Apparently something like 17% of decks at SCG Worster were Phoenix? That’s a whole lot for Modern, where non-PT numbers tend to top out at single-digit percentages. It’s not the first time we’ve seen a UR deck reach that level of play, and the last time it did, Splinter Twin paid the ultimate price. We’re only a few weeks into really understanding Modern with Arclight as a tier one strategy, so Wizards isn’t going to be in a rush to answer it with heavy hand, especially since all things considered, it’s a fair strategy. Expect some time for the format to adjust organically before action is taken.

Amulet of Vigor

Price Today: $22
Possible Price: $40

There’s been whisperings of Amulet Titan in Modern for a few weeks now, and it managed to take first this weekend, beating out piles of Phoenix decks. It’s a strategy whose popularity was hit harder than its efficacy by the Summer Bloom ban. It would seem a good foil to Arclight Phoenix, considering that we’ve been seeing an uptick in play along with the growth of Phoenix decks.

While there have been various versions of the deck, and several strategies for deploying as many lands as possible, two pieces are non-negotiable, and I hope unsurprisingly, they’re the two pieces whose names make up the archetype’s title: Amulet (of Vigor) and (Primeval) Titan. Amulet of Vigor’s effect with Karoo lands is what makes the deck tick, after all.

Amulet has been a worthwhile spec for awhile now, and the new attention is probably going to max this card out in a hurry. If Amulet Titan really is a strong choice for battling a Phoenix-infested metagame, players will flock to it in a hurry, especially as a tested strategy that’s already proven it has the chops to compete. When that happens, the single-printed rare is going to undergo extreme supply duress. Even though prices are already $22-$23, I don’t doubt at all that prices could climb into the $40 to $60 range, especially if it’s good without leaning on “Phoenix predator” as a feature.

Spirebluff Canal (Foil)

Price Today: $20
Possible Price: $45

While we started with the Arclight foil, we’ll turn back around and hit an actual Arclight foil. Arclight is an Izzet deck looking to cast a tremendous number of cheap red and blue spells each game. It’s fast, looking to top out at four mana or so, and has an impressive array of selection. It is a perfect candidate for fastlands, as it wants to leverage them hard early, and can eschew them later when they slow down.

Of course, this is only one in a long history of strong Izzet decks in Modern. There always seems to be one hanging around, and even when there isn’t one, there will be shortly. It’s a powerful color combination, and I’m expecting to see another soon with the printing of Pteramander, Delver’s amphibious cousin. And it will be a quick, spell-heavy deck looking to satisfy two mana colors early in the game.

We are now more than eight years past the printing of Scars of Mirrodin, and we’ve yet to see a fastland reprint of any sort. If we assume the same timeline for the Kaladesh fastlands, we wouldn’t see a reprint of Spirebluff Canal before, well, we’re all dead. Which means foils are going to be in short supply (right up until there’s no one left to buy them and it’s all rather irrelevant). There already isn’t a deep pool of these, and several more weeks of Phoenix hysteria, paired with constant pressure from other Izzet strategies that pop up in Modern, is going to empty the market soon. Foil Blackcleave Cliffs are $95, and nobody is even playing Jund today. I’d consider finding your Spirebluffs soon.

Butcher of Malakir (Foil)

Price Today: $2
Possible Price: $10

Wrapping up the week we’ll look in on EDH. With Ravnica Allegiance around the corner we’re going to get a few new commanders, and they’ll for sure be hitting the “Top Commander” lists for a few weeks. Don’t forget too that EDH players take awhile to buy into their decks, unlike constructed players, who will shovel playsets into their cart at a moment’s notice. New commanders will easily take months to move large volumes of cards to those intending to play them, simply because on the whole, 99s aren’t built in one afternoon.

Anyways, Edgar Markov has held steady on popularity for months and months now. There’s a deep pool of vampires to draw from, and sitting across three colors allows some flexibility in what you’re able to include. I’m not expecting an explosion in popularity any time soon, but he’s a consistent fan favorite.

If I’m looking for specs in a tribal deck like this, I want to find cards that are excellent in the tribal build, but still playable elsewhere, in order to capture the largest demand profile. Something like Door of Destinies, a card which otherwise defies my expectations regarding pricing, is a good example. Any vampire deck is going to want to be in the Door business, and at the same time, many other strategies are too.

A not-Door of Destinies card in Edgar Markov lists is Butcher of Malakir. She’s a vampire, which is uh, about all the checkboxes that need to be checked for an Edgar list. She benefits from all the tribal synergy floating around, and even moreso, she provides an extremely powerful effect in her “Grave Pact on a stick” deal. Grave Pact is of course a long-standing EDH favorite. This is reflected in Butcher’s play stats – over 15,000 decks on EDHREC, to be specific. That’s the cross-deck synergy I’m talking about. An excellent choice in a popular tribal strategy, and also a great pickup for plenty of non-vampire decks.

[/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 2012. You can find his articles there weekly, as well as on the podcast MTG Fast Finance.

Casual Fridays

Preordering RNA Mythics

January 11, 2019 Cliff Daigle

The whole set is up! Go take a look at it, and marvel at Wizards’ ability to keep churning these things out. I’m certainly impressed, and humble too. I was totally, ridiculously wrong about Arcbound Phoenix, and I can only aspire to do better for you this time around.

That said, let’s dive into the mythics and see if there’s preorder value to be had!

Domri, Chaos Bringer (preordering at roughly $20)

Domri 2.0 starts at five and can go right up to six loyalty, if you have a cheap creature to play to defend them. That’s pretty good, but the upgraded Divination effect really has my attention: Lead the Stampede is a very good card, and while Domri’s an extra mana, it’s quite worth it.

I wouldn’t buy Domri at $20, but I’m listening at $10. This looks like a set of abilities RG really wants in Commander, and there aren’t many planeswalkers who have a non-ultimate that says to draw your two best of your top 4.

Angel of Grace ($18)

This is a LOT of stuff on one card for a mere five mana. We’ve got a 5/4 flash flying Angel, a card that is just plain good by itself. We’ve also got ‘You don’t go below 1 life this turn’ on this, a wonderful touch given that for six mana and an exile from the graveyard, you turn your life total to 10. That’s just delicious upside.

It’s relevant to note that this flashes in to block a Phoenix quite nicely, though they’re often on the attack before turn five. Lyra Dawnbringer is likely just better in a vacuum, but they do play nice together! Lyra hit some impressive heights, and this is a bit more niche. I suspect this price will just trickle downwards, and level out at $7ish.

Mesmerizing Benthid ($6)

Amusing. Don’t buy this. Yes, it’s three blockers for five mana, but it’s a delay at best. This will be lucky to not be bulk, even if hexproof is a really wonderful ability right now.

Biogenic Ooze ($9)

There’s a chance that this is a fantastic card, given that it’s 6/6 for five, but we have that at uncommon with Crested Herdcaller. You need the Ooze to live two turns and pump more mana into it to beat what the Herdcaller does, and with a four-mana wrath entering Standard, I’m not so sure.

On the other hand, it’s an Ooze lord and certain Commander decks are going to go nuts. This will fall a little but not too far.

Spawn of Mayhem ($15)

A 4/4 flying trample for four mana. Is that more amazing than Doom Whisperer at five? How about if you can get that 4/4 on turn three, given even one damage to your opponent? Let’s add some aggressive pinging in there too!

Doom Whisperer is better as a control finisher, and this is aggro to the middle of its Rakdos heart. I expect this will rapidly pop up in price as aggro decks try to take over, to $20 or $25, before control decks figure out the right mix of sweepers (Cleansing Nova, Kaya’s Wrath, and Citywide Bust all play!)

Skarrgan Hellkite ($8)

We have a few comparables here, and none of them are reassuring to this Dragon. Demanding Dragon, anyone? The pinging is cute but expensive and slow, and why does a huge dragon care about the measly two-toughness things?

Before you ask, yes, this is a huge upgrade on Colossal Might.

Plus, we’re getting Collision in this set, making huge flyers a bit more suspect. I fear this Dragon is doomed to the bulk bin.

Kaya, Orzhov Usurper ($13)

She’s very good against tokens, and has the ability to stop the endless value grind that Golgari decks can currently do…but is that enough? She does offer inevitability if she’s not stopped, but we can see that the wraths are real. Esper looks dominating right now, and I think she’ll see just enough play to stay about this price.

Dovin, Grand Arbiter ($14)

Now this is more like it. I think this version of Dovin is underpriced, given how well he’ll play into what UW wants to do. You’re going to need a good aggressive deck against him, and the way his plus plays with the token generating is a very elegant design. I think we’ll see him delaying all over the place, enough to bump him up to $20.

Rakdos, the Showstopper ($6)

A little bit of a bummer, but I think there’s a decent deck to be made around his ability…but not a top tier deck. Commander goodness all the way, and he’ll keep this price for quite some time.

Prime Speaker Vannifar ($18)

My instincts all say that this is a bad card for Standard but the purest of Commander gold. It’s slow, weak, and constrictive in Standard, but if built around, can be totally busted in the two most busted colors in Commander. That’s not a recipe for a $20 card, more like a solid $10.

Our graph can barely show the recent spike to $25!

Seraph of the Scales ($10)

Four mana, 4/3 flyer, can have vigilance and deathtouch, is an Angel, but most importantly, has Afterlife of THREE. So it’s a good size flyer with Spectral Procession built in afterwards? Holy hell. That’s pure, sweet, addictive value. It’s cheap, and not legendary, so a deck can play the full set. This has a lot of potential to climb, but lacking that fourth toughness in the land of the Phoenix is a very real drawback. I honestly don’t know what will happen. A spike to $20 wouldn’t shock me, nor would a slow fall to $4.

Emergency Powers ($5)

Seven mana is a lot, even if you can do this as an instant, or get your mana back in a permanent. If you could cast a wrath off this card I’d be more interested, but it’s already low and people aren’t biting. Yes, it’s a Timetwister effect and those are quite rare, but only the most steely of control decks are going to cast this after running their opponent out of resources. Will be bulk.

Captive Audience ($4)

While I love this, you’re not winning until a couple turns after you cast it, and even then it’s not a total given. Aggro decks have some much better choices as finishers, and while it’s funny in Commander, once you survive the three effects, this does nothing. Another bulk.

Ravager Wurm ($6)

I got into a big talk about this card during GP Oakland. It just seems so un-mythic-like for its mana cost. This is the big Gruul finisher? Somberwald Stag could fight at five mana, Reclamation Sage has the destruction at three. Yes, you’re being flexible and that’s nice, but you’re not getting a lot of stats out of your six-mana mythic. Underwhelming in price and abilities, though this might bump after Field of Ruin rotates out.

Hydroid Krasis ($12)

Oh yes indeed, this is a card. Go ahead and counter it–I already drew and gained from it anyway. This is a superlative card, one that’s going to see a lot of play. $12 is too low. I’m expecting that it’ll drop a little and then start to climb as people figure out how good it is. By next Christmas, this is back up to $20, maybe even more.

Jason Alt, Unlocked ProTrader

Unlocked Pro Trader: Stop Stopping At Obvious

January 8, 2019 Jason Alt 2 Comments

Readers,

It’s no secret that Prime Speaker Zannifar is going to impact prices. It’s a dumb, linear, obvious deck and the fact that there are obvious, slam-dunk cards for it that people who don’t even play EDH saw them a mile away means that the obvious stuff gets bought out and gets bought out hard.

Hard.

HARD.

GREEK UNDERGROUND… you know the rest

The ship has sailed on a lot of “Staples” for the deck and there’s not much point of making like a greater fool and buying an Intruder Alarm now. Fortunately, readers of mine who don’t pay attention much to EDH, preferring that I pay attention to it and they pay me to pay attention may not know that there is a secret to EDH deck building.

Vannifar decks still have to include 96 more cards. The less obvious they are to people who don’t play EDH, the more money you can make.

“But Jason,” I am pretending that you are asking “surely the people who DO play and understand EDH have already purchased those cards that are not obvious to pure speculators but which have occurred to them.” Well, here’s another secret about EDH. No, they haven’t. They will put their decklist on TappedOut (don’t put your decklists on TappedOut, by the way, use Goldfish or DeckStats) or DeckStats, they’ll debate which color sleeves to put the deck in but the one thing they won’t do is buy the cards and build the deck until they have Vannifar in their hands. I don’t know why this is, but I sure appreciate it. It allows us to figure out what they’re going to build and buy it before they do. Let’s look at the other 96 cards that aren’t obvious. Oh, and 40 of them are lands. Let’s look at the other 56 cards that aren’t obvious. Sol Ring. Let’s look at the other 55 cards that aren’t obvious.

I’m not going to show you 55 cards. Sorry, there aren’t 55 cards bound to go up, but I will show you some I think have promise.

EDHREC doesn’t have enough data to publish findings yet but googling Vannifar lists will show you that some people are already thinking pretty hard about how to make a dumb, linear combo deck with a Pod chain. I like a toolbox build but other people don’t so let’s look at the cards that are in almost every build I found.

Pod isn’t at a historic low but it’s climbing up mostly irrespective of specific demand. If this gets unbanned in Modern and you have a pile of these, you’ll look like a genius. These will go in every Vannifar deck and while far fewer Zannifar decks are going to be built than team “$20 Intruder Alarm” thinks, there will be some and you’ll move these. It looks like it’s midway through a climb anyway so smart money is betting on a graph shape like this where you know you’re getting some demand and the only question is whether you’ll get exactly as much as Vannifar gives us or more from another source. Seems low-risk to me.

This has a bit more reprint risk than I like, but I think we’re talking a short-term play here if there’s one to be made at all. This also has shrugged off a reprint in the past because it turns out it’s a very good card in EDH and does two jobs that are both important and does them in any deck due to its lack of a color identity. All of those things are pretty powerful. 11,127 is above my “magical arbitrary but meaningful to me” threshold of 10,000 decks on EDHREC and while that’s not astronomical for an artifact, there’s demand on top of Vannifar and the overall trend of the card is up.

That goes for the Commander 2013 copy as well, which celebrated its 5th birthday a few months ago and marked the occasion by tripling in value over its life.

This is better than Thornbite Staff in more decks, goes in the Vannifar deck also and there’s no reason this will ever be worth less money than Thornbite Staff. That’s all I have to say about that.

This won’t double but it will be in the decks and that’s significant. It’s not exactly doing a ton of business elsewhere and the spread continues to grow as the bottom drops out of dealer confidence in the form of lowering buylist prices. This is just used a lot, I don’t know how strongly I feel about the current metrics, but you may feel differently.

This seems to be in every list I come across and it also appears to be ticking up slowly. It’s not super likely to get a reprint and it’s a mythic from a set that there was no real pressure on anyone to buy so for those reasons alone, even irrespective of Vannifar, I like this. Vannifar makes me like it Vannifar more.

This card is also in a lot of Vannifar lists I see online and it’s likely EDHREC data will bear that out soon. This can’t get much lower as a mythic and the $1.50 foils seem awfully inviting and somewhat rare. If Thornbite Staff can flirt with $15, I don’t think $1.50 on these is out of the question, but I also don’t think you have any possibility of this going up for any reason other than Vannifar which makes me hesitate.

This was $50 once. It was also $10 once. Which one do you think it will be again first? Remember, this is the top of most pod chains when you turn your 6 drop into Avenger of Zendikar then hit this. Of course this doesn’t give your creatures haste, but if you need haste, there’s a card you should take a look at.

So this is on its way out of control and while it’s not on the Reserved List per se, reprint likelihood feels low to me and people are buying the Legends version like it IS one the Reserved List. Chronicles copies seem like endangered species and Chronicles hasn’t just been around for longer than most Magic players have played Magic, Chronicles came out before a lot of them were born. This is a $30-$40 card waiting to happen. You already have to pay in excess of $20 for a Near Mint copy on TCG Player so while the damaged copies no one wants are confounding metrics, you can safely pick off the Near Mint copies, clean out Card Shark and other peripheral sites no one does a good job of keeping an eye on and try not to trigger an avalanche.

Check yourself. There are a lot of cards I didn’t mention but some of them might be cards you personally think are worth looking at. Do you think the supply of Quirion Ranger is at a tipping point? Want to make some ballsy buys of Reserved List cards like Palinchron? Found a mispriced Staff of Domination? There are more cards that can go in the deck and I didn’t cover them all, so do some research, wait for EDHREC to give you the answers, ask around, build your own list. Do anything but gripe about how you missed the boat on cheap Intruder Alarms. You should have bought them at $2 when I said to in a QS article 6 years ago like I did. We all make mistakes. Until next time!

Watchtower

The Watchtower 1/7/19 for ProTraders – Plan Your Specs

January 7, 2019 Travis Allen

By: Travis Allen
@wizardbumpin

Don’t miss this week’s installment of the MTG Fast Finance podcast, an on-topic, no-nonsense tour through the week’s most important changes in the Magic economy.

2019 brings with it plenty of exciting Ravnica Allegiance spoilers. So far the biggest jump has been on the heels of Prime Speaker Vannifar, a creaturefied Birthing Pod. Astute readers immediately jumped on Intruder Alarm, which when paired with Vannifar should provide you a win on the spot. She sacrifices a creature to find something bigger, when that enters play it untaps her, she sacrifices sit again, etc etc. Throw a persist creature into the chain to double the bodies you have available to you. Really, the difficulty isn’t finding the win, it’s finding the setup necessary to put both cards on the table together.

Engineered Explosives (Promo)

Price Today: $70
Possible Price: $120

While they may already feel like old news by now, Ultimate Masters Box Toppers are still quite fresh in the Magic timeline. Only officially released thirty days ago, box toppers have been available for purchase in quantity for a few weeks right around Christmastime. Yet it feels like we’ve collectively moved on to Ravnica Allegiance already. I assure you though, while Allegiance is the fun thing to look at and talk about on Twitter, movement on cards like the box toppers is still going to be happening.

Explosives doesn’t need me to outline the card’s qualifications. It’s a top 25 in Modern, common in Legacy, and a staple in Cubes everywhere. There’s a reason non-foil copies are $28 despite having been reprinted a month ago.

Take a look at Inventions copies and you’ll see they’re around $120 at the moment. Those are great copies which look excellent and are truly unique. In contrast, UMA Box Toppers are clocking in around $70 right now. They’re not quite as dramatic a departure from the standard Magic appearance, but that’s no knock against them. Their borderless design is going to appeal to a wider range than the Inventions copies will. Supply is decent for a card of this nature right now, with roughly 50 on TCGPlayer (far fewer than that under $90 though). We’re rapidly approaching the end of new box topper supply if it hasn’t already stopped, which means this is as deep as the pool is going to get. When people see the borderless box toppers are $50 cheaper than the Inventions copies, they’ll gravitate towards these. It won’t be long after that before the UMA promos end up close to the Inventions.

Stony Silence (MM3 Foil)

Price Today: $13
Possible Price: $22

Six slots down from Engineered Explosives on the list of top Modern cards is Stony Silence. Like Explosives, long-time players need no introduction. Not only has it been a core piece of Modern since the format’s inception, along with Affinity, it continues to find new applications as the format evolves around it. As of late it’s useful as a tool to battle Krark-Clan Ironworks, a deck whose entire gameplan is activating artifacts. Not a bad card in that match-up, I’d say. So long as KCI keeps churning, and keeps winning, this will become more and more important.

Furthermore, we’re heading into a period where there’s an expectation that Modern staples will begin to pick up steam at the same time that the Magic index generally rises anyways. If there’s one card type that’s looking good over the next few months, it’s Modern staples.

You’ll find a few foils of this hanging around the $13 mark, but not many. (And possibly none by the time you read this.) The Modern Masters 2017 foils hit $15 quickly, and then…they’re out. Innistrad foils start close to $20, where you’ll find about two playsets, and then…they’re out. Supply is shallow on foils on both copies of this. With MM3’s arguably better art, newer frame, and cheaper entry point, this seems guaranteed to pick up to the $21 to $26 range.

Thing in the Ice

Price Today: $12
Possible Price: $23

It’s Modern Monday today, and we’re finishing with Thing in the Ice. And non-foil to boot! How often do you see me recommend those? Non-foil Modern cards. What year is it, 2013?

Thing in the Ice is just outside the top 30 cards in Modern, and an easy top 10 creature. It had modest application in Modern when it was printed in SOI, and has only managed to increase in utility with the introduction of Arclight Phoenix. That deck is proving itself capable time and time again lately, and is looking a lot like Grixis Death’s Shadow at this point. It’s going to have an insane few months, and while the format will eventually stabilize and adapt to it, it will remain a meaningful component of the Modern tapestry. That’s all very good for Thing.

You’ll find a couple Things hanging around $12 and $13, but not many. It’s into the $15 and $16 range rapidly, and supply dries up not long after. Most major retailers are out of stock. There’s been a huge run up in price on this since the development of Izzet Arclight, but frankly, if the deck keeps up, I see no reason why this won’t be a $20 to $25 card.