Hey folks. I recently streamed an unboxing of some of my most recent specs from Europe and the US via Twitch and posted it to YouTube for future viewing. This video includes interactions with Twitch chat viewers and detailed logic and results from a large stack of my latest action.
Let me know if you have any questions or comments!
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.
Comedy is looking at the results of the SCG Con ‘No Ban List Modern’ event. First place? Eldrazi. Not Cloudpost Eldrazi either. Just…Eldrazi. Like, nearly card-for-card that Eldrazi lists from Eldrazi Winter a few years ago. They tossed in two Umezawa’s Jittes and that was basically the only difference between this totally unchained, absolute most monstrous deck one could assemble with the Modern card pool, and what people were showing up to FNM with in February 2016. Awesome. Oh and also like ten of the top sixteen decks were Eldrazi too so that’s something. What’s even funnier is that second place is honest to god Miracles, which isn’t even legal in Legacy anymore. Hell of an event.
Price Today: $5
Possible Price: $15
Champion of Lambholt has been a quiet favorite of mine for awhile. Sure you can put Craterhoof Behemoth into play and just smush everyone’s faces into the mud, but sometimes that doesn’t work for a variety of reasons. They counter Behemoth, or you can’t get the mana together, or they counter the trigger, whatever. Champion works from the other direction; rather than coming down as one big spell to wipe away the game, Champion builds up over two or three turns to grow from an unassuming three mana 1/1 to a 10/10 that makes your entire team unblockable.
It’s taken awhile to really burn through the stock of Champion. It was released in Avacyn Restored (and is still the only foil), and EDH wasn’t quite as popular back then. As EDH has grown Champion has been picked up by those in the know, that were playing long enough to spot it and recognize it for how good it could become. Supply has finally just about emptied, and we’re going to see this restock a good bit higher once all the $5 copies are gone.
It’s got all the ideal markings of a valuable EDH foil. A single foil printing, six years old, and over 10,000 EDH decks. To add fuel to the fire she’s also a warrior, and guess what was just printed? A 5c warrior legend that wants to attack and has been one of the most built commanders of the last week? Lambholt’s Champion’s time has come.
Price Today: $12
Possible Price: $50
In the last few days, some readers have pointed out on Twitter that there’s a growing 93/94 EDH scene. That’s exactly what it sounds like; EDH played with cards legal in 93/94. Those sets, in case you weren’t clear, are the following:
Limited Edition Alpha
Limited Edition Beta
Unlimited
Arabian Nights
Antiquities
Legends
The Dark
Fallen Empires
Alpha and Beta cards are obviously already insane, so if we want to think about where to start, it wouldn’t be there. Rather our best bet is going to be between Unlimited and The Dark; sets with remarkably low supply that don’t have quite the same name recognition as Alpha and Beta. Furthermore, we would want to consider cards that may not already be amazing in 93/94, but would be stellar in an EDH format. We already know what’s good in normal EDH, so that should help direct our attention with this fledgling format.
If you’ve played EDH a single time you know what the most popular cards in that format are — mana rocks. They’re played in every single deck, and they do a ton of work. Every deck starts with them. Given that, what mana rocks are available to 93/94?
Well, Mana Vault, but those are like $100 for Unlimited copies so uhh, forget it. Fellwar Stone isn’t as obscene in terms of power level, but it’s also only $10 to $15 for NM The Dark copies. If this format sees even a modicum of popularity, that price will absolutely not hold steady. Will 93/94 EDH become a thing? I don’t know. But if it does, colorless mana rocks are going to be right along for the ride.
Price Today: $1
Possible Price: $30
Keeping on the 93/94 EDH train, I’d also like to look at Barl’s Cage. Don’t bother reading the card text on Cage — or any card from The Dark, for that matter. Just read the oracle: {3}: Target creature doesn’t untap during its controller’s next untap step. Notice there’s no tap ability on there either, just pay three, you don’t untap. You can’t keep something tapped for multiple turns by choosing not to untap it ala Tawnos’ Coffin, but you can hit multiple creatures every turn, so it’s roughly a wash I’d say.
Cage is colorless, which means every deck gets to play it, which is a big deal. Take a look at the quantities of cards played in a single color relative to artifacts and you’ll see the difference. Eternal Witness is one of the most played cards in normal EDH at like 50,000, while Sol Ring is at just about 200,000. Lightning Greaves, the second most-played colorless identity card, is over 80,000. Colorless matters when considering EDH adoption rates.
Cage also strikes me as appealing because the overall creature quality in 93/94 is terrible overall. There simply isn’t a depth of useful creatures in the format. Creatures were a bad card type in Magic for a long time. A few existed, but overall, there’s no depth to that pool. As such, Cage being able to tap down one to two creatures means it can squash possibly all of the creatures worth attacking with. Compare that to this type of effect in regular EDH, where any one of ten creatures in play at any time can be remarkably dangerous.
At $1 for The Dark copies, if you think 93/94 EDH is going to go somewhere, you can’t find a better position.
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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Oh happy day, we have the new multiplayer set in hand and early reports are that the set is super fun to play with and to draft.
I haven’t done either of those things yet, but I’m planning to at GP Vegas! That’s going to be a very good time, and it’s also where I’ll get to see a lot of vendors who are furiously opening product, and selling to those Commander players and Cubers who have to have the newest thing right now!
And good grief, there are a few cards that are begging to get played. Time to take a look at where they are now, and where I’d want to start buying.
Doubling Season ($37)
Oh yeah, this is currently the most expensive card. Got to love $4 packs! Let’s take a look at where the original has been, price-wise.
And just in case you think it’s a fluke, here’s the Modern Masters (2013) edition:
There’s 13k decks running this, and there’s an awesome overlap for ONLY this card at the intersections of tokens, power/toughness counters, and planeswalkers.
This is a card that will bounce back. Not only will people finally be able to put one into a deck at a reasonable price, but lots of people who open one are going to jam it into a deck (rightfully so) and lot let it enter circulation. It’s a mythic, too, so there won’t be that much supply. We’re about to start M19 preview season, and I don’t think Battlebond is going to be opened all that much.
So put all that together, and I think this falls a little farther, but not much farther. My guess is $30 is where it levels off, and that’s a point you want to get in at, either for your personal copies or to go up long-term.I think that in a year, it’ll be back to $50-$60, as this is one of the filthiest of casual cards. Too many decks want this for it to stay low.
Land Tax ($16)
This is going to fall too. It’s also a mythic, but there’s a smaller set of people who will run this card. It’s a very good card, enables all sorts of stuff, but it doesn’t scream ‘BREAK ME’ the way Doubling Season does. Playing it turn 1 might get you killed in Commander, if only because it’s constant shuffling of your deck.
As a spec, though, it’s hard to beat. It’s in 10,000 decks on EDHREC and I thought that would be lower. The greedy-smile art of the original and the reprints aren’t as pretty as this is, so I’m going to be hoping to get in under $10, with it climbing back to $30 within a year or two. It might fall even further than that, as this hasn’t been printed since it was a Judge Promo in 2010. That’s a long time for copies to dry up, so there might not be too much demand left to fill.
True-Name Nemesis ($15)
First of all, I loathe this card and I want to see the price tank hard. This is seeing some Legacy play, and that’s why it’s been a $30 card. It was in exactly one Commander 2013 deck, so the supply was never huge (caused a whole set of Nekusar cards to spike!) and the demand has mostly been met.
The problem is that in Commander, the only other place that can play it aside from Vintage and Cube, this card kind of sucks. It dies to all the mass removal and there’s two other players who can be talked into dealing with the card.
This is going to drop under $10. The demand isn’t there, and even as a mythic, I’d expect this to have a pretty slow growth curve, at least until Legacy Merfolk wins the PT. (That’s a joke. Don’t buy this unless you’re willing to wait a super-long time)
Seedborn Muse ($10)
Another card that asks the question, “What does a card have to do to get banned in Commander?” this is one of my least favorite creatures of all time.
My personal feelings aside, this is the easiest money you’re going to make. It’ll fall farther in the next couple of weeks, but that’s okay. It’ll level out at $7, maybe even $5, and that’s when you dive in. You’re going to buy these cheap, and then have them for trade when they are back to $15 in six months and $25 in eighteen months.
There’s been three printings, all full sets, none since Tenth Edition in 2007. This is another card that all the new players aren’t going to want to trade because it’s so damn awesome! It goes into any green deck ever, nearly 12k decks on EDHREC. Get the ones you want, get a few extras, thank me later.
Any new mythic at $1 or less
That’s right, this is blanket advice. Some of these cards look bad. Archfiend of Despair is eight mana. Arcane Artisan is slow as all hell. Brightling, even at three mana, doesn’t have a lot of immediate impact on a game.
Doesn’t matter at all. This is pure speculation on cards that are not going to be printed for long, quickly overshadowed, and when something happens and they hit, you’ll be there to sell into the hype!
Cliff has been writing for MTGPrice for nearly five years now, and is an eager Commander player, Draft enthusiast, and Cube fanatic. He’s the official substitute teacher of MTG Fast Finance, and if you’re going to be at GP Vegas, look for the guy under the giant flashing ‘Cube Draft’ sign and he’ll have you drafting in no time!
Corbin (@Chosler88), DJ (@Rose0fThorns), and Jason’s (@jasonEalt ) all host their Patreon guest Steven (@SteveMKestner) as they recap the weekend of Battle Bond, how to identify odd looking foreign cards and what really causes spikes. Also, we announce the winner of our first youtube giveaway!
Make sure to check us out on Youtube for hidden easter eggs and facial reactions https://www.youtube.com/user/
Battle Bond Experiences
Corbin thinks momentum is a thing in magic
Breaking Bulk
Black Bordered Foreign Cards
Not In It To Get Rich
Evil Finance Community
Game Knights Effect
Pick of the Week
Outro
Oh crap the Winner… We had to announce the winner.
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