Dragons on the Rise

So here we are, neck-deep in Core Set 2019 previews and I’m trying to recover from Vegas.

Hopefully you saw me, my sign, and my love for Cube Draft.

What I also did was some serious work on upgrading the manabase of my favorite Commander deck: The Ur-Dragon.

700 decks! We will talk about this.

Happily, Wizards decided to reward me, by giving us a Core Set with lots of draconic goodies. Dragons have to be one of the most popular tribes in Magic, and today I want to look at the previewed goodies and the effects on some older cards.

New Cards

Sarkhan, Fireblood (preselling for $16)

This is, in a lot of ways, an upgrade to Dragonspeaker Shaman, a card I already love dearly. I rarely get to cast two Dragons off the Shaman, and a planeswalker tends to be much more resilient than a lowly 2/2.

I doubt I’ll replace the Shaman with Sarkhan, but more immediate is that this price is garbage. Standard doesn’t need this for Glorybringer or other five-drop Dragons, though you’re going to see builds where he’s a four-of and enabling all the Dragons of all the colors. He’ll be lucky to maintain a $7 price tag, being so niche, but the foils are going to top $25 and stay there.

Sarkhan’s Unsealing ($1.50)

This is a future bulk rare/$3 foil that is in the vein of ‘how many red Enchantment payoffs can a deck have?’ Where Ancients Tread. Warstorm Surge. Sunbird’s Invocation. Flameshadow Conjuring. And so on, and so forth.

Is this good? Absolutely. I’ll let you do the math and the decisions about your deck.

Lathliss, Dragon Queen ($3)

This won’t be bulk–she’ll be a terrifying Commander in her own right–and the foils are worth stocking up on. Do be aware that this is the definition of a win-more card, as you’ve got a big Dragon in play, and you have to cast more Dragons to get even more Dragons! Utvara Hellkite can at least come down and give you some Dragons when you move all-in.

The New Elder Dragons (wide assortment)

Crap: Chromium and Arcades: These two do unique things but they aren’t lining up well with what Dragon decks want to do. I’m not going to play them, but I can see Chromium being a Standard finisher.

Meh: Palladia-Mors: Interesting, but not powerful. The hexproof loss is permanent, and triggers even if you’re just blocking or using it in a fight.

Auto-Include: Nicol Bolas and Vaevictis the Dire: Nicky v.5 is just a huge beating. Yes, you can respond to his ability with removal, and yes the walker version of him costs 11 mana to get to. Holy crap is he powerful and worth all the problems. I strongly suspect that we’ll see many EDH decks devoted to him. Vaevictis is Chaos Warp for each player, and that’s an effect I love. Do you enjoy it as I do? Likely not, but play with it for a while and see.

Nicol Bolas the Ravager is already $30 and is likely to hold a lot of that price. The casual appeal will be quite high, and that’s a market which will drink up supply and not circulate copies. I think $20 is the reasonable ending.

Dragon’s Hoard ($2 right now, but going to be bulk and a $6 foil): I couldn’t ask for a better combination of abilities. This is so damn fantastic, a tribal enabler that every other tribe will be jealous of. I hope foils have a chance to get cheap but I doubt they will.

Old cards that are due

Sarkhan Unbroken (currently $10): Dealers had posted this on their buylists for $8 by the end of GP Vegas and I suspect it’ll be $10 this weekend. Small supply, a lot of Dragon players already have theirs, and he’s just awesome in this sort of deck. He’ll be doubling to a $20 retail pretty soon, and please keep in mind that the reprint risk is real. Foils at $24 are a prime target, and given that there’s less than 40 on TCG, that supply could vanish real fast.

Dragonlord Silumgar ($6/$17): Cube-worthy, really awesome, requires a Dragon deck with these colors. About 60 copies on TCG for the foils, a card I want to have a few of in stock when they spike.

Steady upward growth, has spiked…oh yeah.

Temur Ascendancy ($3 in foil, for now): Look, just go buy one right now. There’s 27 on TCG, and this is in 5000 decks on EDHREC, and it’s the card I want most in my deck, with the possible exception of Dragon Tempest. The combination of playability and low supply means that someone is going to spend about $100 (plus the kickback!) to sweep these up. Get yours first.

Kindred Discovery ($8): You know this is a good card in any tribal deck which has blue. It’s an incredible source of cards, it was in one Commander 2017 deck. Get yours now.

Scourge of the Throne ($20): Get yours before they hit $30 in nonfoil and the foil is pushed up to $100.

Just follow my lead, okay? I bought one at the GP.

The Ur-Dragon ($4): I’m pretty stunned that this is so cheap, and only the head of 700 decks on EDHREC. I get that it’s nine mana, but it makes everyone else cheaper! I strongly suspect this is about to pop to $10, and that’s going to be very good for the value of the sealed deck.

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Unlocked Pro Trader: Black Sabboth

Readers,

I have a different article (that still would have been late, sorry) half-written because Las Vegas required a lot of post-con recovery time and I didn’t really get it. The good thing is, since my article was late, I was privvy to a card being spoiled and decided to audible into writing about it. Some of the cards are disappearing so it’s best we think about these picks, stat before it’s too late. Sometimes EDH prices move slowly and sometimes they’re obvious and obvious means people who don’t know anything about EDH are going to buy them. I bet a lot of these panic picks don’t pan out so sell as fast as possible but if you can get some of these for cheap, you almost certainly profit even if the cards do what they usually do and plateau halfway between the pre- and post-spike price.

I think there is still a little bit of time if you are a Pro Trader and get in on this stuff now and I think some of the other stuff will need a big nudge and will only get there if the deck materializes.

My “EDH Guy” Analysis

This deck is going to suck. Have you ever played a deck where you can’t really do much if your commander is dead? Well, literally 2 minutes ago, Jim had the same thought.

 

You are incentivized to run really bad cards and they’re only useful if your general is out. Drawing cards is cool but I draw a lot of cards with my Enchantress deck and that deck eats other decks’ dust like it’s its job. If Arcades is out, congratulations, you’re now allowed to win an EDH game the slowest and stupidest way possible, by attacking with creatures. Big, stupid creatures, most of whom have no useful abilities because they were designed to have a good casting cost to power and toughness ratio and a lot of their abilities trigger when they block.

What this deck has going for it is that it’s fast. Arcades comes down early and if he dies, it’s only 6 to resurrect him and Alpha Strike early. Unfortunately, you’re not killing anyone so you’re just going to beat fair decks.  You’re going to beat basically tribal decks unless those tribes have some sort of synergy, in which case you’re boned. You do have a mostly full grip and an incredibly good rate on your creatures. a 5/5 flying dragon costs like 6 mana whereas a 0/5 flying wall costs like 2.  Wall of Blossoms and Wall of Omens, normally playable cards, are doubly good. Wall of Junk and Quicksilver Wall suddenly are draw machines. The good news is that I bet this deck gets built a lot because it’s obvious and whether or not it gets played at all is irrelevant. This is splashy and where there is a splash, there are ripples and we’re all about ripples here. So let’s look at the ripples and ignore whether this deck has any long-term chops. You don’t write Emergency Articles for decks with long-term chops, anyway.

It’s Probably Too Late For These, But…

Very low supply and very obvious, foil Rolling Stones from 7th and 8th are basically dried up, You’ll find them on obscure sites but a lot of obscures sites are on TCG Player so even then they’ll probably get sold on TCG Player and you’ll get an email saying they’re out of stock. It’s probably true some of the time – who expects to sit on foil Rolling Stones for 10 years then sell 12 of them in an hour? If you can grab these, sell into hype. It’s hyperbolic to say that no one foils their EDH decks but it’s also intellectually lazy to pretend foils are a good play at all, especially on goofy cards that are only good in one deck. People target foils because they’re lower supply and therefore they can buy them out and say “see, the card’s moving!” and get people to buy the non-foils. Finance people buy foils, EDH players buy non-foils. I mean, unless you simultaneously think this deck is bad but that’s OK because casual players buy cards and you also think those same people are going to not only build a deck that does nothing when your commander is dead, but they’re also going to foil it out. That said, the foils selling out will get people talking about the card and if you get foils at their current price, you can probably sell them, to another financier, later.

This is in the same boat but it doesn’t have the benefit of having trended up over time like Rolling Stones had. You can snag a few of these foil if you’re lucky. The non-foil is in Khans and Iconic Masters and that’s a lot of copies that the demand from this goofy deck can’t provide. I imagine the non-foil copies may have some upside but that’s probably driven as much by speculative buying as it is actual demand which, again, can’t touch supply. I think the foils of this will disappear quickly, maybe too quickly for an article written within hours of Arcades being spoiled. I also don’t think it matters, particularly. I think these will be hard to sell.

This card is not on the Reserved List and that confuses a lot of people. Does anyone even know what rarity this is? Anyway, people want to live in a world where they get a 2 mana 6/6 that cantrips when your controllers is out. This isn’t Brawl, folks. A 2 mana 6/6 is a slightly better Woolly Thoctar, you know, sometimes. I just can’t get excited about this deck. I’m really trying, but I think people are excited because Shield Sphere is obvious and it makes them feel smart. Shield Sphere is Waiting in the Weeds 2018 edition.

These You Have A Chance At

This is a second spike in the making. Buy these right away if at all. The price is creeping up because this hits their creatures and like none of yours (Even Arcades), this is on the Reserved List and it spiked once already (if you’ve been a Pro Trader long enough, you made money on this card when I called it ahead of time last time and you could have a second chance to make money on the same card). I think these are drying up and they’re pretty good in the deck, if there’s a deck.

This was just reprinted and the price came way down, but I think it’s actually going to get played in the deck if there is one. However, it’s less obvious than Shield Sphere and that coupled with the high supply could mean this is a slow mover and any growth will be predicated on more demand than I think the deck is capable of. However, lots of people are telling me on Twitter I’m grossly underestimating the demand of Wall Tribal so if that’s true, here’s a spec that won’t get bought out in the first wave of obvious stuff and has some long-term chops.

This got a reprint but that was all the way back in Commander 2013 so I think supply on this is lower than a lot of the other cards in play. It’s no Shield Sphere, which has the same number of printings as Alliances Force of Will, but the supply is reasonable compared with more recent cards. I think this would be good in the deck and I think it’s a little less obvious than some of the other cards people are all over. This could be gone by now, but it could also make you some money. TCG Player will sell out first, so go deep, Check sites like Miniature Market, Card Shark and ABU.

This already spiked. I don’t remember why but it did and now it could spike a second time. Copies were rooted out of their hiding places when the buylist price of this card hit $2, it’s all-time high. I’m not sold on this deck but this card is in it if it’s a deck and despite being an uncommon, it’s from Coldsnap, an old, terrible set whose booster boxes aren’t worth opening.

With Arcades out, this makes a 1/1 attacker that cantrips every turn. Cool? I mean, this goes in the deck so go through your giant pile of Homelands stuff you don’t want to bulk out but isn’t worth anything, yank these out and throw them up on a selling platform, or just buylist them in a week and let the dealer who buys these from you for $0.50 deal with them never selling. This is an old card but it’s also garbage outside this deck. If Arcades is the next Nekusar, there’s money here, so only bet on these picks if you think that’s happening.

If I were Josh Lee Kwai, I would play this on Game Knights and it would end up $15. Luckily (for Josh) I’m not him and what I think is good in a given deck doesn’t really matter. This is the reason I tend to wait for data on EDHREC. Usually we have time to see for sure what other people are playing and buy smart and I don’t want to turn into some old curmudgeon shaking my fist at the heavens because people won’t play this sick new tech I figured out but no one found out about. This should get played if the deck is a deck. Will it? I don’t know. I am giving you lots of caveats on picks like this when I think they should get played but might not. There is time to buy these because no one is running out to do it, so if you think the deck has real demand, here’s a riskier pick that there’s still time to buy.

Think about how people might actually build the deck. Besides flashy walls, what else is good?

Check out Doran’s page, first.  While Doran’s creatures don’t have defender, usually, spells like Solidarity, Retribution of the Meek, Tower Defense and others are findable. I would build the entire deck on paper if you think it will be a deck and look at some of the utility stuff that goes in every build. Not everyone may pack Doorkeeper but I bet every deck that is built around Arcades runs Stalwart Shield-Bearers.

I am not excited about this card moving tons of stuff that won’t be back down in a year, but if you’re fast you can snag some stuff and sell to greater fools later this week. I got out of that game but that doesn’t mean I still don’t know the moves. Thanks for reading – we’ll have a more Jason Alt-esque article next week. Until next time!

The Watchtower 6/18/18 for ProTraders – Plan Your Specs

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.


If you weren’t at a computer last night an hour before Midnight EST, you missed a moment in Magic history. Watching eight players crack a bunch of unsearched Beta boosters was pretty dang cool, and aside from GenCon in a month or two, is unlikely to ever be repeated again. Wizards slept on the 20th anniversary, but they produced something quite cool for the 25th at least.

Of course what’s amusing about all of this is how excited the Wizards employees were, chief among them Aaron Forsythe. When they flipped Time Vault onto the table — a card that I’m assuming is unplayable in draft, or probably close to it — everyone cheered, and it was repeatedly referred to as “a big pull,” or something to that effect. Essentially that it’s one of the best cards they opened. But if it’s terrible in draft, why be excited to open it? Obviously you and I know the answer — it’s valuable. The director of R&D essentially admitting as much on camera, without using those words exactly, was probably just as fun as seeing it opened.

Goblin Chainwhirler (again)

Price Today: $5
Possible Price: $15

As Magic 2019 spoilers are rolling out, we’re seeing a Goblin theme is front and center, and possibly the biggest thing in red period. Of particular note so far is the Volley Veteran, which is a scalable Flame-Tongue Kavu. He’s not shooting down creatures when you’ve got an otherwise empty board, but he can scale up past four toughness, so it’s sort of a wash. Between new tools like this, and the heavy Goblin theme in Dominaria, we may see the tribe push hard in the fall.

Which, of course, would have Goblin Chainwhirler front and center. A three mana 3/3 for three is good stuff in general, and shooting down all the little guys on your opponent’s side is just savage. As is obvious, given how prevalent the card has been so far.

Chainwhirler was on my list a month or so ago, and I’m bringing it up again because the evidence is mounting that it’s going to be a key card in Ravnica’s Standard. Even without tribal support in M19 it was looking good, and now it’s shaping up to be even better. A month ago it was $4, now it’s $5. Will it be $15 in November?

Cryptolith Rite (Foil)

Price Today: $9
Possible Price: $20

Browsing EDHREC, I stumbled upon a nifty card that I’ve been waiting on for awhile; Cryptolith Rite. It was clear on release that this would be big game for EDH decks, and I’m not wrong. You’ll find Rite in about 10,000 EDH decks, making it (roughly) both the 50th most played green card and enchantment. Competitive categories both. Being able to provide any green deck that spits out tokens — which, come on, how many green decks can’t — a sudden army of Birds of Paradise is potentially insane, especially if you’re pairing it with Intruder Alarm, or Seedborn Muse, or any one of those busted cards.

As always, when it comes to EDH cards, we want to start with foils. Supply is quite low, but still close to the two times multiplier unexciting foils tend to have. I don’t believe this is accurate positioning for the card, and I suspect we’ll see a shift in the near future. In at $10, out at $20 is my goal.


Titania’s Song

Price Today: $5
Possible Price: $30

You’ll recall last week I was talking about 93/94 EDH. It’s not any more of a thing today than it was last week — at least not that I know of — but I’m still thinking about it. We know how key EDH has been to card prices over the last two years, and unlocking an entire new market of EDH would be so, so sweet. You’d of course have dramatically fewer players, but with the scarcity of the cards for the format, I’m not sure that would matter.

Perhaps the most important difference between regular 93/94 and 93/94 EDH is that cards that would otherwise be just about useless in the prior could be astounding in the latter. I mean, Doubling Season has never been seroiusly cast in Modern since the format was introduced so many years ago, yet it’s one of the best cards in EDH imaginable. Which, if we extrapolate from that, leads us to believe that there are serveral 93/94 cards that are dead fish in two player games but will be format all-stars in EDH.

Titania’s Song, for those unwilling to read that garbage text above, says that all noncreature artifacts lose all their abilities and become creatures based on their CMC. Which means you can either play a ton of artifacts that Do Things, then cast Titania’s Song to use them to kill people, or use Titania’s Song to annoy the hell out of other people trying to Do Things with their artifacts. Play it on offense or defense, either one works!

There’s a handful of NM copies hanging around at $5, and an original printing of of such a dramatic effect is unlikely to remain at that price if the format catches on, especially given how the whole point of the format is to play the oldest copy available.


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.


 

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