PROTRADER: Invocation Predictions, part 2

April 7, 2017 Cliff Daigle 9 Comments

Last week, I went over my thoughts on the eventual prices of the new Invocations, and while we are missing the full complement of the Gods, the reprints are known and starting to be presold.

With a week that’s gone by, the preorder market is a little more stable. I’m going to use TCG’s prices, as that’s reflecting what people are currently paying for these cards.

Let’s take a look!

Daze – $2 nonfoil, $120 pack foil, $15 Eternal Masters foil, preorder $75: The good news for this card is that when people play this, they want the full playset. No messing around with three or less, and that’s part of why this is so high in price. The bad news is that it’s not good in Commander, and not every Cube wants a copy.

Prediction: My first blush is to say that this drops as low as $50, but it could go lower. Having an old border version to chase puts a definite ceiling on the card, but the price on the EMA foil is indicative that the demand isn’t all there.

Diabolic Intent – $19/$65/Preorder $40 – I’ll be honest, it’s tough to find a place where this sees a lot of play. It is powerful, and good in Commander, but that format has a whole lot of tutoring options available. This price is more reflective of the very low supply than the demand profile.

Prediction: I think this is perfect, actually. It’s right between the regular and the foil, the supply stays low, but there just aren’t a lot of people clamoring to have this. It might fall to $35, if it does fall.

Divert – $1.50/$20/Preorder $30: I didn’t even know this was a card, to be honest. Sure, it’s a single mana, but this is as conditional as can be. One spell with one target and they don’t have two mana available? It’s seeing a tiny amount of play in Legacy sideboards, but the drawbacks are real.

Prediction: I think this drops even farther, and will struggle to be more expensive than the pack foil. There just aren’t enough people who need this in a deck, and even then, they will only need one or two copies.

Entomb – $12-$20 nonfoil/$15-$52 foil/Preorder $50: Now this is a card. Thematically, it fits the block and the setting very well, and it’s played a lot. Reanimator is a strategy that’s tried and true in Legacy, Commander, and Cube, and all of those decks want this card. Ideally as a four-of, but that’s the nature of Commander. The tricky part, though, is that this has been printed in Eternal Masters and a Judge Foil and the Premium Deck Series. There’s a lot of copies out there already.

Prediction: I think this will fall, but not by too much. $35 is the point at which I’d want to be moving in, but I’m not certain about the demand it’ll face.

Force of Will – $80/$330/$465/Preorder $300: Yep, we are now entering our third additional printing of this card. Original, judge foil, gorgeous Eternal Masters, and now this promo version. The good news is that this is one of the most prevalent cards in Legacy, some might say the defining card. The bad news is that this might have the farthest to fall.

Prediction: I think this will be the case study on how desirable the new frames are. The players who don’t want this one will sell out immediately, and others will snap it up. What I don’t see is people opening this and saying, “Oh sweet! I need three more to get started in Legacy!” I expect this card to lose $50 or more in value, bottoming out in the $250 range.

Loyal Retainers – $52 nonfoil/$22 foil/Preorder $33: This card has a tiny supply but not that many decks want to play it. Aluren likes it, and there are strategies that pop up using it, but the demand just isn’t very high.

Prediction: I think this stays in the $30 range for quite a while.

Maelstrom Pulse – $18/$34/Preorder: $45: This is a card that’s been a mythic and a reprint and a promo, but it’s lcimbed back into the nearly-$20 range because it’s seeing good amounts of play in Modern, and is a worthy card in almost any casual format. Universal answers are always good, but ones that have the potential to clean up a bunch of tokens or both Tarmogoyfs as going to stay in demand.

Prediction: It sees enough play and the supply is small enough that this price doesn’t drop far, if at all.

Mind Twist – $2 up to $400+ for Alpha versions/no foil printings/Preorder: $60: A haymaker of a card, and one that’s still banned in Legacy. With fast mana, this is a big swing of card advantage, though it can’t solve problems in play. This hasn’t been printed since 4th edition, and so this is the only foil version that can be found.

Prediction: I think being the only foil version bodes well for the card, but the severe lack of formats to play it in does not. If you’re into speculating, this might be a tasty target, as an unbanning in Legacy would cause a spike to double its current price, or maybe more. As it stands, though, I think this drops a little to the $50 range.

Pact of Negation – $37/$53/Preorder: $80: This card has a foil multiplier of less than two, indicating that people want it, and having the foil version isn’t important. Casual demand is not driving the foil price up in relation to the nonfoil, and that’s extremely relevant here. Pact sees a lot of Modern play, generally as a way to protect your combo on the turn you’re going to win.

Prediction: Given the prices already in play, this should fall by at least $20, and I wouldn’t be shocked to have it land in the $45 range.

Spell Pierce – $1/$6-$30/Preorder: $60: Before being in Modern Masters 2017, this was one of the more impressive foil multipliers out there. Spell Pierce sees a fair amount of Modern and Legacy play, and isn’t terrible in Cube, though it’s garbage in Commander. Having the Invocation be twice the Zendikar foil is far too high though.

Prediction: A price correction is already underway, frankly. The listed Market Price is $70, but copies are being listed for $55. I would expect this to end up in the $40 range.

Stifle – $5/$18-$54/Preorder: $45: There’s a lot of things this card can do, some of them very powerful, but still quite niche. Some Legacy decks use this offensively, mainly targeting fetchland activations, but it’s not Modern legal and I’d have a hard time running this in Commander.

Prediction: Since players have a choice between an old border foil, a Judge foil, and the Conspiracy foil, they are going to have to want this version above all else. It’s possible, but unlikely, and so I think this will drop just a bit, down to $35-$40.

Vindicate – $5-$7/$18-$54/Preorder: $45 – The demand for this is high in Commander decks that can run this, and occasionally a Legacy deck will have it…but that’s all. This has been a Judge foil twice, and again, it has an old border foil that’s generally preferable to this new blocky frame.

Prediction: The market is already trending down. Market price is listed as $48, but copies are available at $37 shipped and no one is biting. $30 is where I expect this to stop sliding.

Worship – $8/$35/Preorder: $40 – After its original printing, it’s had three core set printings to boost supply, which is good because this sees just enough play in Modern to be worth a few bucks. The foil multipliers are appropriate, even a little high, but I wouldn’t trust this to keep myself alive in Commander for long.

Prediction: It’s under the 7th edition foil and just above the others. I think this is a stable place to be.

Wrath of God – $5 for Revised up to $750 for Alpha/$8 FTV up to $120 for 7th Edition foil/Preorder: $55: There are now 23 different versions of this out there, counting the foils. Full-art, FTV, original Beta borders, your choice of artwork. Having so many in circulation means that the demand for this card is going to be very telling, in terms of how many people want the Invocation specifically.

Prediction: The market price is correcting already, and while some sales happened at $55, the undercutting is starting. Copies are available at $45 shipped, and I think $30 is going to be the price by the time Hour of Devastation comes out.

James Chillcott, Modern Masters, ProTrader, Unlocked ProTrader

Mastering Modern: Making Money on Modern in 2017 (Pt 3)

April 6, 2017 James Chillcott 3 Comments

This is the third in my (now) four-part part series on making money on Modern cards in 2017. You can find the first part, covering the cards most likely to rebound from Modern Masters 2017, over here, and the second part here.

First off, let’s check in on the prices of the rares and mythics from Modern Masters 2017 to see how those potential specs are progressing.

As predicted, the shift in focus to Amonkhet and the continued availability of supply has lead to even the mythics that were rebounding demonstrating contractions since we last checked in. Tarmogoyf, LOTV, Cavern of Souls, Voice of Resurgence and Griselbrand have all fallen further and the mythics are, on the whole, down 15% since release. Even Snapcaster Mage is holding steady now in the low 40s. Same logic applies as before here: you can feel free to buy the highest demand cards at these levels, but there is no real rush on the rest and you can judge your entry point when you start to either a) see supply draining out or b) catch wind of additional supply entering the market.

MM17 rares have been following similar patterns, and they’re down an additional 2% in the last couple of weeks. Scalding Tarn, Arid Mesa, Phantasmal Image and Abrupt Decay are showing shallow gains with the rest of the rares either holding steady or falling off further. Most of the fetches, Blood Moon, Goblin Guide, Death’s Shadow (which is up despite my red coloring in the chat above) and Damnation all seem fine here if you need them, and otherwise you choose your entry point as with the mythics.

A (Further) Look at The Cards Not Printed

Last week we took a look at some of the format staples that were not reprinted in Modern Masters 2017 that are likely to show gains, or have already shown gains. Let’s polish off that list before we move on to newer cards that may yield further gains next week.

As per a recent video by Rogue Deckbuilder (found here), the above are some of the most expensive and/or most popular cards in Modern (and beyond, eg Doubling Season) that weren’t featured in Modern Masters 2017. Let’s explore some of our more interesting options here for the purposes of financial speculation:

Dark Confidant

Dark Confidant was nearly one of my picks on MTGFastFinance a couple of weeks ago, as a perennial staple that got printed twice in Modern Masters (2013) and again in Modern Masters 2015 but not in MM17. Since the release of the new set in mid-March, this Jund staple has moved up $10 from $38 to $48 or so, but there are still copies out there closer to $42 and those seem like a solid pickup. I would expect Dark Confidant will hit $60-$70 before it sees another reprint as NM inventory across the three printings is relatively low for a Top 40 creature in Modern. Not a huge home run, but a solid hold that you can play with while it gains value.

Ancient Stirrings

This card is one of the most efficient card selection spells in Modern, so long as you’re on the hunt for a specific colorless card. Between Bant Eldrazi and various Tron builds there is plenty of Tier 1 demand for full playsets, and Lantern Control also runs the card. I called this on MTGFastFinance to move from $5 to $10 this year when it wasn’t reprinted in MM17, and it briefly spiked, but as a common vendors managed to restock fairly easily, and we’re back to the previous $5-6 plateau for now with a 150+ copies in stock on TCG. That could take a while to drain, but if you felt like going deep because of the demand profile, you could make a dent. We’re unlikely to see a reprint until 2019 so the odds are solid we hit my target sooner or later.

Mox Opal

Mox Opal is a central card in Affinity decks in Modern and has been for years. It also sees lesser play in Lantern Control and Puresteel Paladin builds, and most recently as a four-of in the new Scrap Trawler/Krark-Clan Ironworks combo decks. Since January Opal has moved from $40 into the $55-$60 range and the printing of the Masterpiece version in Kaladesh means it’s pretty unlikely we see this again until 2019. There is also the outside chance of a potential banning in Modern as a card that enables unreasonable mana acceleration, but I suspect there are higher priority targets this year. All of that being the case, despite the odds that you could squeeze another $5-15 from this stone, I will be staying away from regular copies. On the other hand Masterpiece copies are still available from some sources in the $90-100 range and I suspect that they will end up over $150 within the next 18 months so long as the card dodges the slight ban potential, as the inventory is already fairly low. I’ve picked up a few on that premise.

Aether Vial

Aether Vial is consistently a four-of in Merfolk decks in Modern and Merfolk has been putting up reasonable numbers for a couple of years now despite many players looking down their nose at the deck. The card also shows up in Eldrazi Death & Taxes (my current deck) and GW Hate Bears, and it’s a four-of in those modestly played decks as well. Despite that, it’s barely a Top 100 card in the format, though it does boast some additional demand from Legacy Death & Taxes. This card is up a couple of bucks since the MM17 list was revealed, but inventory is not under much pressure, so it may be that Aether Vial needs another prominent home to drive the price towards $60 before a likely reprint in 2019. I’m not in a rush to get in on this action, but the Masterpiece versions around $90 are a bit more tempting, since they are likely to drain in fours (as opposed to something like Sol Ring) and should end up over $130 down the road.

Crucible of Worlds

Crucible of Worlds has been experiencing an upswing in play in Modern lately with many decks looking to generate value engines using Ghost Quarter to keep Tron lands and creature lands in check. Eldrazi Tron sometimes runs it main, or has a single copy in the sideboard. GW Value with Renegard Rallier, U/W Control and Lantern Control also make use of it, but not in much greater quantity. As such, most of the $60 price tag is being propped up by the fact that we haven’t seen a regular printing yet of this card in any of the Modern Masters sets. It was a Fifth Dawn rare, reprinted in 10th edition, and the Masterpiece in Kaladesh was the first new printing in years. The regular copies could edge up higher between now and Modern Masters 2019, where it is a likely inclusion, but it could also show up randomly in some other supplemental product in advance and the demand profile is too shallow to get me excited. The Masterpieces in the $90-$100 range are a good bet to beat $130 at some point, which is a solid return, and inventory is already low so if you like this, maybe you’d be better off looking at that version.

Master of Waves

If you’re looking for a low value target with solid upside, you could do worse than this automatic four-of mythic rare that has earned a permanent slot in the Merfolk decks. Supply is still pretty deep because this was a fall set mythic, so there isn’t any rush here, but we’re not likely to see this again for a while. No deck but Merfolk wants it, but you only really need 50-100 new Merfolk players over the next year or two and some speculator activity to push this into the $6-10 range. There’s also the fact that the fall set this year, Azatlan, seems to carry a strong merfolk theme, which one would imagine might give this deck a boost.

Mishra’s Bauble

This is a $50 uncommon featured in a deck that many see as too powerful to be allowed to be left unscathed by the ban hammer. Either a reprint kills this, or a banning does, because I can’t see this card surviving as a spec long enough to show worthwhile gains from this point on. If you had these sitting around and sold already, they likely paid for your Coldsnap boxes back in the day but I don’t want to be holding or acquiring a card this dangerous right now. Move along.

Ancestral Vision

This is an odd card to be at $50 given that it doesn’t even crack the Top 100 most played cards in Modern. When it is played it’s usually in Grixis or U/W Control shells, but those decks haven’t been at the top of the metagame for years, and blue decks in general feel like they need a bit of help to break through. Sentiment seems to be warming to reintroducing Jace, the Mind Sculptor to the format, but that could easily fail to materialize. Then of course, As Foretold was revealed this week and brewers start wondering if casting this immediately off that slow (yet powerful) enchantment might be enough to kick of a dazzling display of control. All that aside, this is another price tag that is mostly propped up by limited supply, and only the suspend mechanic really holds it back from popping up randomly in a product release. That being said, supply is shallow enough that there is a chance the card could hit $70-80 on increased play, so your decision to move in is really a bet on success before a reprint.

Join me next week when we look at some of the up and comers in Modern that might make us some money if they can break through to the top ranks.

CEO of ShelfLife.net, The Future of Collecting, Senior Partner at Advoca, a designer, adventurer, toy fanatic and an avid Magic player and collector since 1994.

Jason Alt

Big Mana, no Whammies

April 4, 2017 Jason Alt

Sometimes whammies happen. I have an entire box full of them – copies of Nivmagus Elemental, Scion of Vhitu-Ghazi and a bunch of Deadbridge Chants I didn’t unload quickly enough. A whammy isn’t a spec that will never make you any money, it’s just a spec that is going to take much longer to pay off in the long-term. Sometimes your spec gets reprinted, making it an even longer-term spec (The reprinting of Seance means that one won’t pay off until the coming nuclear apocalypse forces us to use bulk rares as money, luckily I already broke even) but there is always a chance your spec will pay off eventually.

I’m not here to talk about whammies, though, because I think there is a class of card that’s always going to be an eventual hit. While meta choices fall in and out of favor based on the changing tastes of players, one thing will never change – EDH players are always going to like big mana and the spells that let them get that big mana. The good thing about mana is that it never goes out of style, functional reprints just let players build redundancy rather than cause obsolescence and it appears durdly enough to spikey players that they give it up for nothing. Cards that seem too slow, symmetrical or goofy for Standard will always be undervalued. And while functional reprints don’t bring prices down, actual reprints don’t even do it, either. Observe.

Want to know what that red arrow indicates? That’s Caged Sun’s reprinting in Commander 2014. Not only did Caged Sun recover, it exceeded its previous price. This buffs creatures, too, but let’s not ignore the fact that this card is primarily included in decks to double your mana from certain sources and let you do dumb, Timmy stuff. Considering this comes down at 6 mana, you already have quite a bit of mana to work with so imagine what you’re doing now that you’re tapping for extra. This card recovered very nicely and it got me thinking about the future of other big mana cards.

Gauntlet of Power

The non-foil card continues to grow while the Masterpiece appears to be sinking, approaching the price of the regular set foil which is itself kind of stagnant. This seems pretty consistent with EDH players generally being less excited by foils than everyone thinks. The Masterpiece, however, I think shouldn’t be on parity with the set foil and the closer it gets, the juicier it looks as a buy-in. Gauntlet of Power is another Caged Sun and while it’s silly to pay $40 for it, I think that’s exactly what people will do in a year, and probably $50. The cheaper the Masterpiece gets, the more I like it. That’s not really the sexiest card I thought of when I started thinking about big mana, though.

Braid of Fire

This card piqued my interest in particular when I started diving into stuff. I’ll admit it took me writing a fake article on April Fool’s Day to remember I hadn’t checked this price in a minute and I’m left to conclude others are sleeping on this as well. In general, red mana is the least desirable of all of the manas in EDH but that’s no excuse for this card to not continue its precipitous growth into the next few years. Coldsnap is criminally under-opened and accordingly, desirable cards from the set, especially ones that are tougher to reprint, are doing very well. Was it the release of Breya or was it me gently reminding people that caused Arcum Daggson to spike? I know which I think is more likely but if you want to say I did it and made you all a lot of money, I accept your praise and offers to hoist me onto your shoulders.

This is the kind of growth that can happen overnight when a ton of people suddenly remember that a card exists and that it’s super busted all of a sudden. Printing Breya and Paradox Engine on top of each other was a best case scenario for this card and anyone who bought in at $5 was probably stoked. Braid of Fire could hit $20 if there is a reason to need red mana or if we just wait for a while. There aren’t too many places they’ll be inclined to reprint a card with Cumulative Upkeep, especially since the power level of the card used to be tempered by your tendency to get scorched by Braid if you couldn’t find an outlet for the mana which isn’t a thing anymore. If you get in now, you’ll be in a position to sell into the hype of a spike or in a position to just ship for the new high price in a year or two. Braid of Fire is in a set where we have a $50 uncommon. Modern demand is currently much greater than EDH demand, and every deck with Bauble needs 4 compared to every deck with Braid needing one, but that just means $20 is reasonable on Braid and if you buy in under $10, you’ll be more than pleased with those gains.

This was part to remind people that this card exists and part to tell people I see a card that has age counters (that you can double, though not with Atraxa, usually) that accumulate and give you mana being useful in EDH forever and being pricier than it is now down the line.

Doubling Cube

Cards with “doubling” in their name are very strong EDH picks, such as “Doubling Season”, “Doubling Cube” and “the only other card with ‘doubling’ in the name is Doubling Chant which is unplayable in EDH so it’s basically just those two that are good and you didn’t need me to tell you Doubling Season was good, it already went up like $40 this year because of Atraxa if you were paying attention.”

Doubling Cube doubles the mana in your mana pool, which, if you’re counting, is exactly twice as much mana as was there before. This is the kind of math that appeals to people who build decks like Hydra tribal. People build Hydra tribal decks, by the way. They’re like vegans about it – I had a guy tell me, at a comedy show at a bar, that he was building a Hydra tribal deck within literally 90 seconds of meeting me. Hydra tribal players want to cast big Hydras and this card helps accomplish that aim. It’s already going up and all it takes is someone reminding people that this is a card. Remember, someone sees a Magic card for the first time every day. There is someone out there that has never seen this card before. They’re going to find out about it today. I mean, statistically. Anyway, have these cards when other people want to buy them, that’s what I’m saying.

Boundless Realms

This is a card that does serious work. You clear the rest of the basics out of your deck, usually, giving you smooth draws. It also gives you hella landfall triggers. This is quietly going up to $5 and those of us who bought a ton at under $1 are gleefully watching it climb. There is moderate reprint risk which is why I’m not deeper on this card, but fortune favors the bold among you and there is still some juice to be wrung from the pulp of this pick before we’re done. Even at $3 this card is a great pickup and anyone who has ever resolved this spell will tell you the impact it has. You have to play more basics than you might normally, but that’s cool. With land about to matter more now that we have cycling lands that tap for 2 colors which has caused people to remember Life from the Loam, Crucible of Worlds and Splendid Reclamation are cards, Boundless Realms is going along for the ride. It gives you a basic for each land you control, not each basic, meaning you can really pull every basic out of your deck on turn 6 or 7, usually, especially if you have been playing spells like Cultivate to ramp up to this point.

New Frontiers

In a similar vein, New Frontiers is also rewarding players for having basics by letting them strip all of them out of their deck. This lets your opponent do it, too, but you’re set up to play this card which means you will likely benefit from it more and you will also have enough basics to not fail to find a bunch like they will. This is on its way up and gets a little boost every time someone remembers it’s a card. This is symmetrical, however, which is why it’s as cheap as it is. EDH players tend to like cards that are asymmetrical which leads me to my last pick.

Zendikar Resurgent

This is not an “if” this is a “when” and while we don’t know when when is, we know it’s bound to happen. This card is part personal mana flare, part Lifecrafter’s Bestiary. It costs a lot of mana to get it into play, but so does Caged Sun. While this isn’t as ubiquitous as Sun due to its inability to be played outside of green, the color that needs the least help with mana ramping, I still know that this card has legs and while it will take a minute for EDH demand to soak the huge number of loose copies out there, it will happen. This card is too good not to go up. It does so very many things you want a card to do and does them unfairly. Unlike with Heartbeat of Spring, your opponent gets no extra mana and unlike the formats where Heartbeat of Spring is mainly being played, you don’t need to cast this on 4 mana symmetrically because you wouldn’t live to see 7 mana. You can be a cheater and play this as a personal mana pump, and that’s pretty rad. Foils are already $3.50 which is a nice, 5x multiplier meaning EDH players are already very aware of this card. Be aware of this, yourself.

That does it for me this week. I’m sorry about the prank article on Saturday, but, no I’m not. If I got you for even a second, it was all worth it. The best part of it was, I took it seriously and wrote it up like it was a real spike that I was trying to decode and ended up remembering Braid of Fire was a thing and that got me thinking about what to write this article about. I don’t know what it all means, but I do know why kids love the taste of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. I’ll tell you why next week. Until then!

Watchtower

The Watchtower 4/3/17

April 3, 2017 Travis Allen 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.

Welcome back! I took a week to go do things that weren’t Magic, but now I’m back and wishing I weren’t. Why? Well bear with me.

Watery Grave

Price Today: $11
Possible Price: $20

No, Watery Grave isn’t what I’m annoyed about. Rather, Watery Grave is an excellent card to keep an eye on because of the rise of various Modern decks which all use Blue and Black. Among them are Death’s Shadow, Grixis Control, Reanimator, Sultai Control, etc. None of these play a staggering amount of the card, but added up they create a healthy pocket of demand, and most importantly, supply is drying up.

There’s a handful of $11 copies on TCG Player right now, and then some at $12 and $13, but it only takes a couple of playsets before we hit $15-$20. Checking major vendors, there’s even fewer copies below $20, where they’re even in stock. Anecdotally, after turning my TCGPlayer inventory back on after my vacation, I sold every copy I had overnight, after they had sat stagnant for months.

With the Zendikar fetchlands in Modern Masters 3, prices on Modern manabases are continuing to fall. In light of that, it may finally be time for shocks to begin rising, and it looks like we’re starting with Watery Grave. Of course, how many times have we heard that before?

Knight of the Reliquary

Price Today: $8
Possible Price: $15

It isn’t Knight of the Reliquary either. No, Knight is an ok card for ok dudes. It used to be a big part of Modern, then a bunch of sets got printed and it mattered less, and then about a year and a half ago it became slightly meaningful again after Retreat to Coralhelm popped up in Battle for Zendikar. Since then, he’s been hanging out on the edge of the format, retreating every now and then. (A few times at GP San Antonio, the team Modern GP this past weekend.)

Friday’s Amonkhet spoiler gave us reason to pay close attention again. We saw what everyone immediately decided should be called bicycle lands.

These are the first lands with cycling to hit Modern. Every land with cycling so far hails from Urza’s Saga, Onslaught, or the Commander product. With the bicycle lands, there’s suddenly cycling lands to play with Knight of the Reliquary. These aren’t just cycling lands either; they’re quite solid. They cycle, they make two colors of mana, and they’re typed, which means you can fetch them. They always enter tapped, which is unfortunate, and likely to keep them from tier one status, but any mono or dual-colored deck is going to at least think about these. Additionally, they potentially signal the Onslaught cycle lands showing up as a common or uncommon cycle in Amonkhet. Will they? We have no idea. But once we’ve got these five, five more at common aren’t inconceivable.

Supply on Knight of the Reliquary is reasonably high right now, with prices around the $8 range. If the bicycle lands have a strong showing in Modern, that could change real fast. With a bicycle Knight deck (heh) cleaning up at the top tables, we could see her double quickly, with absurd prices possible if the deck sustains.

Addendum: stealth bans

Here’s what I’m agitated about. Twenty minutes ago, a Wizards account made an unassuming post in a Magic subreddit.

Never mind the fact that I’ve got over 100 Beck//Call and half as many Breaking//Entering, which are now 100% useless because of this announcement. What’s especially irritating about this is that they’ve effectively banned 10 or so cards, on a random Monday evening on Reddit. It’s not like they hit any tier one decks or anything, but it’s still bad precedent.

This of course renders all the split cards, such as Beck//Call, Breaking//Entering, and Boom//Bust irrelevant. The recent Expertise cycle in Aether Revolt is considerably less interesting now. Brain in a Jar has lost potency. Free spells are still safe for now, such as Restore Balance and Ancestral Vision. For Now.

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.

MTGPrice Blog