Jason Alt

Unlocked Pro Trader: Hulking Out

4 Comments

#&$@ Leovold. I don’t care, don’t let the door hit you in your three toughness. Buff-ass bureaucrat, sitting behind a desk shaking hands with his 3 toughness. Like he needed to be a 3/3 for 3, like his stats matter. Like he would be unplayable in Legacy if all he said was “Your opponents can’t cast Brainstorm or win with basically any combo deck.” Like people would say “I don’t know, a 1/1 for 3 is a bad rate for my EDH general when all his text box says is ‘If you resolve Teferi’s Puzzle Box, no one but you gets to play Magic.'” Eat a bag of elf $^%&, Leovold.

That said, I made a lot of money off of cards that Leovold made expensive and while I don’t think any of those cards will tank too much because of price memory and the post hoc justification about how they’re all played in Nekusar,  Nekusar himself actually is trending up in price because Legacy and Vintage are making up the bulk of his demand and with the elimination of Sensei’s Top, people are going to lean on him harder than they did before. Leovold, you made a lot of people a lot of money and for that we thank you. If your demand continues to increase, maybe my LGS will clear out a few more of the boxes of Conspiracy they accidentally overordered and can’t get rid of.

Out with Leovold and in with a card that may or may not have belonged in card jail – Protean Hulk. For those of you who don’t know what Protean Hulk does, he basically enables combos that are so convoluted that my favorite story about Protean Hulk is from 2005.

 

People were playing a Flash-Hulk deck in what I have to imagine was either Extended or Legacy at a GP. Day one, everyone was scooping to a resolved Flashed Hulk because the Hulk player would get a bunch of cards and say “I win the game with my combo” and the other player would say “Darn, you won the game with your combo. I hope you don’t win the game with your combo next game.” Day two was veritably lousy with copies of the deck because it got so many free wins. On day two, people started to say “Please demonstrate the combo for me” and then the Flash Hulk player would start to say “Well, I go get these creatures and then I combo” and if you asked “How does the combo work?” or said “I use Mogg Fanatic to kill a creature in response” some players would demonstrate the combo properly but others would burst into flames and you would get the free win instead of them.

Protean Hulk sure does enable a lot of combos. But which ones? And how? I’m going to be honest, I don’t really know as much about a card that’s been banned in EDH as long as I’ve played EDH, but I have been playing Magic in some capacity since 1996 so it’s not like I can’t figure it out. You want to make some money? Well, all of the copies of Protean Hulk are gone, so we better look at combo pieces instead. Those are largely untouched. Let’s make some money, shall we?

Flash

Maybe this first one is a little bit obvious, but with the bulk of the EDH decks excited about Karador builds and the like, Blue stuff gets lost in the shuffle. This is already disappearing a little bit but there are still cheap, loose copies floating around. I have a bunch in the dollar box at my LGS I need to swoop in and scoop up unless someone beats me to it. I think this has upside and with its two printings coming from extremely low-volume sets, supply is not going to keep up with demand for long.

Body Double

Do I sort these by color, or…

Either way, Body Double is a card that plays a big part in a lot of Hulk combos. It was used in some of the classic Hulk combo decks and it’s being touted as a combo piece now. It’s blue, like Flash, so it likely ends up playing a part in a combo deck. I doubt you can do any combos in just Simic, but The Mimeoplasm has the infrastructure to just start jamming Hulk combo without much retooling and Tasigur and Sidisi and other decks will get there, also. Body Double got a duel deck reprinting, which hurts, but so did Coalition Relic. This is a low-risk, low-to-medium-reward spec, IMO.

Grand Architect

Hulk can get you the Pili-Pala, Architect combo, which can give you all of the manas. With infinite mana, you can do a lot of dirty things in Simic, Temur and Sultai or Bant. Win with Helix Pinnacle, deck yourself with Thraisos, deck everyone with Prosperity, etc. This also got a little heat when Breya came out and with that cooling off, this could be a second spike scenario and you all know how we feel about those. We’re in favor of them, that’s how.

Saffi Eriksdotter

Not sure who “Erik” is but his dotter is a beast of a Magic card. Already spiking hard recently. this card is not going down anytime soon, unless it’s considered “Iconic” enough to be included in “Iconic Masters” which may turn out to be a set where they fart out a ton of cards that badly need EDH reprints, something I welcome. You know how many $6 Phyrexian Altars I’ll sell? Because I currently sell 0 because they’re too expensive. Anyway, Saffi gets played in Hulk combos a lot because she interacts with Karmic Guide, another card I have been predicting is due for a price increase for a minute. I hope you stocked up.

Boonweaver Giant

Foils of this combo piece are under $0.50. I think of this fact every time people try to convince me that competitive EDH is a major driving force behind prices. This card has upside and the foils are safer from reprinting than the non-foils, but this is an important combo piece played in a lot of “competitive” EDH decks and the foil is worth less than guac at Chipotle. I think this will get some extra attention and there aren’t a ton of copies available so renewed interest could trigger a price avalanche, so buy in before that, I guess. What do I know? I predicted competitive players would buy Dramatic Reversal enough to make that foil price go above $1 and they printed Paradox Engine 2 months later.

Phyrexian Delver

This card is part of basically every combo I see, barring the ones that don’t use black. It’s not quite Karmic Guide but it does a pretty good impression and while your life total can sometimes matter, depending on how long the game goes, you shouldn’t need to use Delver to get Hulk back more than two times no matter what the rest of the combo looks like. If you have to go Whiteless, this card is part of the combo nearly every time. I think there is very little risk here and despite the Commander deck printing, there is upside enough to move the price. You know what’s even safer than the non-foils of a card they’ve demonstrated their willingness to print?

If you can find foils, they’re probably headed to $40 and beyond soon. This used to be a pretty reasonable card until, I guess, everyone started thinking about how good it was in a lot of combos and I credit Commander 2015 for reminding people the card existed. Hulk hype is driving this up a bit more, I think (I’m writing this under 24 hours after the announcement and the price has been on the move for a minute so it’s not just Hulk doing it) and this was a junk foil until pretty recently so there may be just rando copies in binders.

Feldon of the Third Path

It’s been a while since I revisited this card which is a shame, because it started to move while no one was looking. The spread is pretty low on this for a card that’s inching above its historic high. I think this card is taking off, and how well it pairs with Hulk combos has something to do with it. If you have a sac outlet, especially Ashnod’s Altar, you can KO them with Hulk, Lightning Mauler, Kiki-Jiki and Zealous Conscripts. Kiki-Conscripts was a known combo already, but Feldon helps you find both pieces from your deck by making another Hulk to get the job done. This is a complicated combo that takes a lot of mana, requiring you to use cards like Priest of Urabrask and Skirk Prospector, but we’re trying to KO people and if all those cards need to do is be somewhere in your deck, you’re OK with running a lot of components as long as you can find all of them with Hulk.

Feldon is already on a good path (heh) so whether or not Hulkamania moves his price at all, it’s already a good card to be about. Buying at the floor was better, but buying right before it crosses the threshold of its historic high with a very low spread seems also fine. Breya is a deck that loves this and with WotC being fully aware that people want a UR artifact commander, we could get one any day now and then a card like this has real upside.

Karmic Guide 

This was in Commander 2013 and I predicted it could climb in price. I was totally right. Then came Eternal Masters. I think this could climb again and maybe even flirt with $5, but Iconic Masters is coming soon.

I think Karmic Guide is not where you want to be. That said, it’s part of every single combo with Protean Hulk in decks that run White, so maybe you want to at least have them on hand.

I think Hulkamania will be pretty rad at first but as time goes by, it will taper off (much like the real Hulkamania) and Hulk decks will be just another deck. Hulk really isn’t getting us combos that are that much worse than Tooth and Nail was getting us, especially if you are not playing Hulk for 2 mana with flash. There are counterspells, removal spells, graveyard hate spells and the RC can always just re-ban Hulk if this experiment doesn’t work out. Sure, twitter and Reddit will pule and whine about how Sheldon and co. don’t know what they’re doing, but they say that literally every ban announcement anyway so those complaints are like the buzzing of insects at this point.

That does it for me. I have been doing a lot of reading about Hulk combos but if there is something I missed, throw it in a comment and we’ll talk about whether the buy-in makes sense. People bought all of the Hulks but there are plenty of targets left. Buy before everyone else and your orders won’t get cancelled. Until next week!

Travis Allen, Watchtower

PROTRADER: The Watchtower 4/24/17

3 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. And if you enjoy playing Magic, make sure to visit https://scry.land to find PPTQs, SCG Opens, and more events on an interactive map with worldwide coverage. Find Magic near you today.

Well, uh, so much for a fresh, new, exciting Standard, eh? It’s not much of a stretch to say that nearly everybody, even those that wouldn’t have cared for the decision, were expecting a ban on Felidar Guardian. After Wizards openly admitted that it was a mistake in the first place, and seeing that it’s now nearly 40% of the metagame, and possibly an even larger percentage of Standard top eights, how could they not get rid of the combo? Removing Copy Cat would dramatically open up the format for all sorts of strategies to try and find their home, an excellent recipe for a Pro Tour.

Instead, Wizards changed nothing in Standard, and we’re left with existing Standard + Amonkhet, rather than New Standard. While Amonkhet brings new tools to the table, (and I find myself wishing I could reasonably spec on Manglehorn), I’m suspect that we’ll really see any especially exciting shakeups. Our most likely universe is the one in which there’s a bunch of Copy Cat and Vehicles players, each with some clever tech for mirrors, and then 10% of the room playing something different, of which one or two will manage to make T16.

It’s disappointing, especially from a market perspective, but what can you do? Join us again in about two months when we go through this song and dance once again. For today, I’m going to skip Standard, simply because I’m not sure where to turn. Glorybringer is already up to $5, and beyond that, a lot of pros are talking on Twitter about just locking Copy Cat now and moving on to drafting. Once I have a better idea of what changes to Standard may look like, I’ll start covering cards over there.

Odds/Ends

Price Today: $7.50
Possible Price: $15

I’m as surprised as you are, but it’s my duty to share these things with all of you. If ever there were a longshot with a payoff potential, it’s Odds//Ends.

As some of you may recall, there was a change made to the way split cards are handled in regards to their converted mana costs. This came as a blow to their playability, with cascade spells no longer able to hit the cheaper half, Brain in a Jar no longer able to cast them, and other similar effects. Well, it turns out there’s a silver lining to all of this. The downside of not being able to cast split cards with cascade effects is that…you can’t cast split cards with cascade effects.

Practically, this allows decks that rely on cascade cards to now be able to play split cards without worrying about connecting with them. This is a considerably smaller scope than before, but it could have corner applications. In this case, it’s Ari Lax pointing out that there’s now a counterspell that’s playable in Restore Balance and Living End decks. (He built a URx Living End deck, in case you were wondering how he’s casting it.) Odds works by either A. countering their spell, or B. making a copy of their counterspell, which then counters their counterspell. Technically Determined of Bound/Determined is better at keeping your spell uncountered, but Odds//Ends lets you stop opposing combos, something Determined decidedly doesn’t. Odds only works half the time in that scenario, but half the time is better than none of the times, right?

Copies are floating around $.75 right now, and honestly, I don’t know why. They are though, and there aren’t that many, all things considered. Like Protean Hulk, it’s from Dissension, which means the supply is as close to zero as you can get in Modern. If this ends up a common component of these style decks, expect to see the price hitch up towards $3 or $4. It’s not a big gain, but if you can snag these out of $.25 or $.50 rare boxes, or you find them for cheaper than TCG somewhere online, there’s very little risk involved.


Protean Hulk

Price Today: $4.50
Possible Price: $30

While I was writing the intro to this article, Protean Hulk got unbanned in Commander. Know any quiet shops that don’t see a lot of online business? Now’s your chance. For most of us, this is a “there it goes,” not a “here it comes.” Sorry, I can’t tell people to slow down. I’m sure TCGPlayer is being bought out as I type these words.

Honestly, I didn’t even realize this was on the EDH ban list, but then again, it’s not the type of card I would ever seek to play. The mere fact that Hulk’s legality status has changed will probably bring the card to the attention of many players that simply didn’t know it existed, because they’re not the type of person to know a random rare creature from Dissension, and nobody in their EDH playgroup was running it (because it was banned). Now that they’ll see it out there, there could be a “oh, that’s a card? I need that!” moment for a lot of players. It helps too that the card is quite good in EDH; saccing this to any random sac effect allows you to set up an instant kill, if you so desire, or even just value engines if you don’t. There’s probably some engine in there with Eternal Witness, Restoration Angel, and a few more copy/bounce effects that will let you drag every creature in your deck under six mana into play.

Protean Hulk was sitting at $4 to $4.50 before the unban. He’s been on the (very remote) fringe of Modern a few times, which pushed him north of $10 for half a day, and has since hung out in the “people hope this combo gets good some day” price range. Now with EDH legality, once the dust settles, I expect copies to sell for at least $8 to $10, and depending on what Jason Alt tells people to think about this card, it could end up above $20 if it’s as evergreen as some of the other green monsters.


Body Double

Price Today: $1
Possible Price: $5

Since I started playing EDH, I was surprised that Body Double was as cheap as it is. It’s relatively inexpensive, gives you a copy of the best creature that’s been cast all game, and enables all sorts of shenanigans, either from being flickered or because of its zero power. Given that most cards I find myself saying “huh, that’s surprisingly cheap” eventually end up not, and Protean Hulk, Body Double’s most dangerous enabler, is now legal in EDH, I think Double is worth turning our attention to.

Modern’s most common variant of the combo required Mogg Fanatic, Viscera Seer, Body Double, Reveilark, and of course, Protean Hulk. That’s across all five colors, and given that this is EDH, it would be nice to streamline that a bit. It’s likely this could be streamlined in terms of color requirements, especially given all the tools available outside of Modern. Instant kills aren’t required to make Body Double useful, though. If you just assume that eighty percent of people who now need a Protean Hulk also need a Body Double, and add in that a bunch of people may not realize they should have been playing this card already, and you can see how demand can mount fast. If you find yourself saying “claiming that eighty percent of people who bought a Protean Hulk would need Body Double is ridiculous,” mind I remind you that A. shut up and B. blue is the second best color in EDH, and the best color to pair with green.

Copies are available in the $1 range, and possibly lower if you dig hard. Inventory isn’t especially low, but it’s lower than some of the other cards we talk about in this series. There’s about forty-ish copies of the original on TCG right now, and maybe one hundred of the duel deck printing. That’s the only other printing of the card other than Planar Chaos though, a set many EDH players probably don’t even realize exists. Add to that that there’s probably over 100 EDH decks represented at your local store alone, and you can see how that reserve may dry up fast if there’s a glut of players looking to Double their Hulks.

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

PROTRADER: Price Targets for Amonkhet

Oh do I love the beginning of a set. Prereleases are among the purest tournaments to me, because I don’t know the tricks, the angles, the basics of what to be afraid of. There’s synergies to explore and so much to experience!

I don’t like picking Standard cards when there’s a banning announcement coming so soon, but there’s already some stuff that I’ve noticed and want to trade for soon.

A couple of caveats: First of all, my standing advice remains good: Trade away everything you open at the prerelease, and trade for anything that isn’t in Amonkhet. There’s going to be a big loss in almost all the prices, and picking the one or two cards that go up from here isn’t worth it. Assume it’s all going to lose value, and trade accordingly.

Second, about the price drops: The value loss is going to be real and big and significant. I’m going to give you my price targets, the value that I’m hoping these fall to before I start picking them up in earnest. Panharmonicon never fell to the dollar rare I was hoping for, but Lifecrafter’s Bestiary is surely there.

I’m going to list the prices that we currently have for these cards, but with this still being in pre-order mode, these prices reflect what stores want to get for them.

The rest of this content is only visible to ProTrader members.

To learn how ProTrader can benefit YOU, click here to watch our short video.

expensive cards

ProTrader: Magic doesn’t have to be expensive.

Brainstorm Brewery

Brainstorm Brewery Amonkhet Set Review

 

Today we are incredibly lucky to be joined by Brian Braun-Duin for our Amonkhet set review.   Brian shares his insight into which cards are poised to have a large first weekend, and which ones are traps.   Join us for a look at the important cards in the set.

  • Douglas Johnson is our second-most special guest (@Rose0fthorns)
  • Brian Braun-Duin is out most special guest
  • We review cards in rough order of importance and alphabetical occurrence
  • Support our Patreon!  Playmats are on the way!
  • Need to contact us? Hit up BrainstormBrew@gmail.com

Contact Us!

Brainstorm Brewery – Website – E-mail – Twitter – Facebook – RSS – iTunes – Stitcher

Corbin Hosler – E-mail – Twitter – Facebook – TCGPlayer

Jason E Alt – E-mail – Twitter – Facebook – MTGPrice

Douglas Johnson is and will forever be merely a guest

MAGIC: THE GATHERING FINANCE ARTICLES AND COMMUNITY