Accumulated Knowledge

GAME DAY DECK TECH: Aether Revolt

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Players new and old tend to approach the concept of Magic finance as “how can I make my hobby cheaper or free?”, only to realize that most of the conversation in that sphere is between vendors. In honor of Game Day Weekend (and a month of [NEW SET] singles pouring into the market), I’m going to tell you which Standard deck I recommend for the upcoming format. This is for the people who want to play in FNM, PPTQ, and 5k level events but don’t have the time, energy, or resources to learn and buy-in to the entire format. These are not going to be “budget” decks, but a key component in my selecting them is that they are cheap enough to give you a good shot at breaking even. I’m also going to mention at the end what cards from the newest set belong in previous iterations of this series that are still Standard legal.

Standard is in a pretty strange place at the moment. Despite the fact that Saheeli combo didn’t have the dominant showing at the Pro Tour that it had at previous events, it still feels like the deck only has a few weeks left to live. Mardu Vehicles, which comprised 75% of the PT Top 8, is a powerful deck, but one that is still within the bounds of reality. Some previous archetypes (Eldrazi, Aetherworks) feel like they just haven’t been “figured out” yet, while BG has morphed into a series of varietals. Missing from the environment so far is one of competitive Magic’s proudest mainstays- Red Deck Wins. In truth, Mardu Vehicles is perhaps a more sophisticated take on this strategy, although it leans heavily on the eponymous new mechanic.

Red Deck Wins has a proud history of tournament success, stretching back to the earliest days of competitive Magic- although it has won multiple recent Pro Tours as well. The original recipe of 20 Land, 20 Creatures, and 20 Spells is somewhat present, although formats tend to skew more towards creatures or spells depending on the relative strength of the card pool available. Currently we are in a format where the creatures are better than most of the spells, so those even thirds get rearranged by necessity. Additionally, some of the better creatures and spells on curve for red pull towards black.

This is definitely a rough draft, although the beauty of RDW (and aggro, to a large degree) is that you get to highly value consistency rather than individual impact. I think a finalized list probably doesn’t have as many 4x, but it’s also possible that you just shave a few lands to add a card or two you like. While there isn’t a 15 card sideboard, Kari Zev’s Expertise is a must, as well as Transgress the Mind and Tears of Valakut. It’s also possible to cut something like the Bloodhalls to make room for a small Energy package, including the Lathnu Hellion, Harnessed Lightning, some Aether Hubs, and Glint-Sleeve Siphoner.

The point of a deck like this is to get in 20 damage as quickly as possible, which means limiting the number of dead cards in hand. Typically playing Terminate effects in these decks is a trap, but Unlicensed does 3 most of the time as well, so that makes it infinitely more viable. Additionally, the deck as is can be built VERY cheaply (because we aren’t playing Heart of Kiran!), so this is a perfect way to ease into MODO or get a quick Game Day win. We’ll talk about MODO next time. Until then, good luck at Game Day!

Best,

Ross

LOOKING BACK: I still REALLY like the RG Energy deck– I think it presents a very real threat in a way that a lot of budget-friendly decks don’t typically have access to. Obviously I like today’s new deck, but I still heartily endorse Electrostatic Pummeler. I don’t have a finalized list that I like (I’ve started to splash blue, although that raises the price tag when Spirebluff Canals get involved), but the only MUST HAVE playset from Aether Revolt so far is Invigorated Rampage. Some decks seem to prioritize Rampage over Larger than Life, both of which are basically tied for second place behind Blossoming Defense (which isn’t actually better, but protects your combo). Try some different iterations and see what you think! RG Energy might be the perfect FNM deck, especially if we see some seismic action with the second B&R announcement.

Casual Fridays

Revolting Developments

The Pro Tour is in the books, and we’ve got a very clear idea of what the metagame is: Mardu Vehicles.

Doesn’t matter that Smuggler’s Copter got the ban, it’s shifted to Heart of Kiraan and Aethersphere Harvester. We had a sprinkle of Cultivator’s Caravan as well, and lots and lots of Veteran Motorist with which to power them up.

If we’ve learned nothing else, it’s that when Wizards puts together a new card type, it’s often overpowered at first. We will keep that in mind when the next new type arrives.

But what’s good against this deck? It was built to prey on the assorted Copy Cat lists, and I approve of the metagame call. The combo is real and powerful and demands answers or you lose. The Vehicles list seeks to overpower the opponent before the combo can get online, or disrupt the combo in progress. One red mana, left open, is enough to make the Saheeli player hesitate until they have Dispel backup.

And if they hesitate on turn four, then you’re stomping face on turn five. The deck is capable of some very powerful and synergistic plays, and there’s some opportunity here.

I think Chandra, Torch of Defiance, is a good pickup at $20 or so. We’ve got another 18 months of her being Standard legal, and she’s undoubtedly powerful. If you’re burning a blocker out of the way, they have to do something to kill her, which means you’re ahead on cards or attackers.

She might not rise too high, though, looking at Gideon, Ally of Zendkiar‘s chart. He spiked sometimes, but he never stayed high for long.

I also love picking up Release the Gremlins. Vehicles are going to be a big part of the metagame for a while, and at worst this is Manic Vandal, a two-for-one. Foils are also a little more than a dollar and might really pay off in the future. I’ve already targeted these in trade.

I’m impressed at the resiliency of Rishkar, Peema Renegade. I really thought this would be dropping in price by now, and instead it’s creeping upward. If it’s $5 or so when Modern Masters 2017 comes out, down a dollar from right now, then it’s a great candidate to be pushing $10 in ten months. It’s too good at acceleration to stay low.

Toolcraft Exemplar is another card that I’m high on right now. He’s cheap at about a buck and a half, and what he offers is quite powerful. If Vehicles stays a powerful deck–and I see no reason why it wouldn’t–then this little one-drop gets in early and crews anything late. I am big on the potential here, if the deck stays good then this is the card you want at the beginning. He’s good friends with Heart of Kiraan too, attacking for three because of it and helping it attack on any other turn.

My last pick this week feels like easy money: Spire of Industry. It’s in more than one type of deck, it’s played in a lot of styles and there’s more than one played per deck. It might be one of the best lands with how common artifacts are, and I think it’s going to see a lot of play going forward.

Foils are an even better pick, since there’s at least two decks that immediately want it: Affinity and Lantern Control. Get your foils for about $12, and be ready for them to hit $20 before you know it.

Jason Alt

Untap Tribal

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Tap abilities are pretty common on cards. A gatherer search for cards with tap abilities annoys the actual bejesus out of gatherer and it sends you a bunch of viruses instead of your search results because go $^%& yourself trying to search for every card with a tap ability, you nerd. There are 16,505 unique Magic cards and probably a third of them are permanents with tap abilities. That seems high. Even if it’s a fifth, that’s still 3,300 cards with tap abilities and searching through all of them would be super annoying. Why are we even bothering to think about doing that, anyway?

Well, Wizards went and printed a card that makes you take a second look at cards that tap because it untaps them. It untaps them well, and it untaps them often. What’s that? Do I mean Prophet of Kruphix? No, suckers. I mean a card that untaps all of your non-land cards way more often. Try every time you play a spell.  You all know the card I mean. A few weeks I said I didn’t think it was bannable but now I’m not so sure. Have you played with this card? You know the one I mean.

This sucker.

I didn’t think Standard would be as keen on this card as they were Panharmonicon and I think I may have underestimated how much Standard seems to love jamming seemingly EDH cards. You may have to wait longer than we’d anticipated for these to get cheaper (they almost assuredly will and they will almost assuredly go back up, also) but that’s OK because speculating on the price of Paradox Engine isn’t really what we do here. I’m way more interested in what it’s going to do to the price of other cards and I think I have a few excellent candidates.

While Prophet of Kruphix annoyed people by letting us take every turn by virtue of untapping our mana and letting us play spells as though they had flash, Engine doesn’t aim to stick around, necessarily. Prophet was a card you played, fought over and hoped to stick so you could get a small advantage on their turns. Engine plays a lot differently. You almost never play it until you’re ready to go off and when you do, you win on the spot, usually. If you don’t, you aim to cripple their resources so badly that they never recover. There are a lot of ways to win with Paradox Engine, and they’re all going to get a boost if Engine isn’t banned.

I don’t see this as super reprintable for whatever reason. I feel like we discussed this before Commander 2016 and it didn’t get reprinted in C16 so we have AT LEAST another year on this. I am bullish on this going without reprint for quite a while and if it does, it’s going to continue going up a few bucks a year, possibly at an accelerating rate. This card wins the game with infinite mana, something that we can easily achieve with Kydele. Did we discuss this when Kydele was spoiled? Well, I still like it at its current price. Let’s move on to some less obvious cards in the same vein, possibly ones that don’t require infinite mana.

Do you remember why this hit $30? I consider myself a pretty decent MTG Finance historian but for the life of me I can’t remember what happened here. That goofy spike makes it pretty tough to see what’s up lately.

That is clearer, but it’s also a little disappointing. Whatever made the card spike, it’s clearly done happening. The card is going lower and lower as dealers left holding the bag try to sell out. The good news is that Paradox Engine lets you steal everyone at the table’s lands which is hilarious. Druid decks aren’t that bad considering a lot of good elves are both elves and druids, meaning you can basically be an elf deck that randomly takes all of their lands. You’re mana ramping a ton with all of your elf druid mana dorks and you can generate a lot of mana, meaning you will be able to play spell after spell. With all of their lands under your control, you can either sac them or use them for mana – it’s up to you. The important thing is that supply of this card is beginning to wiggle and after the wiggle comes the waggle and after that comes the “When did this become $7?” which is where this could easily go.

Remember, this is a second spike on a card that people convinced themselves they could buy at $15 and still profit. When a card spikes this profoundly, lots of people notice and lots of people noticing means lots of people root the loose copies out of their hiding places. They cruise by a ton of LGSs and find them in binders and boxes and flip them to a buylist for $8 or whatever which is fine since they paid $2 each. Dealers who paid $8 each gradually lower the price when they can’t even out them at retail for a profit. If this card does get renewed interest off of Paradox Engine toomfoolery, a second spike will be harder and faster and you’ll have less time to react. I recommend being proactive, here. I think this could end up being a real mover based on Engine decks and elves being nutty in general. There is another factor to the rise of mono green, if you ask me.

This is giving a lot of decks that were a little inconsistent a second look because this smooths a lot of draws out and gets you a lot of extra cards. If you’re dumping your hand and untapping all of your mana dorks, this keeps the party going. This pairs very nicely with Paradox Engine and I think this is one of the best ways to spend $1 right now. I want roughly 1,000 of these so I can throw them at buylists when this is suddenly $6 in a year or two because of how stupid it is. I don’t know how likely a reprint is, so this seems like a great card to trade for. I’m not inclined to pay cash, yet, but I feel like if you can out a Standard card  that’s like $4 and bound to go down for a set of these, these can retain value better and if they really go up quickly, you quadruple your gains because you have four times the exposure to upside.  I’m sure I recommend this course of action a lot. There’s a reason for it. It makes money. Bestiary is a good card in its own right, but with green having the most mana dorks, I feel like it also has the best Paradox Engine synergy. Other colors surely do, also, but this has the best if you ask me. It’s good since other colors get buyback spells and all green has is Wurmcalling.

Speaking of which, here’s another potential second spike.  Buyback spells are very good with Engine and this is probably the best of them. It’s something non-green. If I am recommending other colors, blue has a $12 DCI foil Capsize and a $6 foil Timeshifted Whispers of the Muse to pair with Paradox Engine. White has… Evangelize? Also, like no mana dorks, so good luck going off with Evangelize and, like, Marble Diamond. I built a Kydele and Thraisos deck with Paradox Engine and Capsize is the dirtiest way to go off, ever. If they can’t stop you, you bounce them back to the stone age. Whispers lets you draw your whole deck and win with Laboratory Maniac. It’s kind of boring in how consistent it is.

With Paradox Engine, it basically doesn’t matter what you put on this, you can go off with 2 colorless from non-land sources and Engine. Lightning Bolt, Brainstorm; even Healing Salve is a winner when you combo like that. I prefer to kill them, but even if you’re just playing a spell for the untap trigger you can go off with Aetherflux Reservoir. Scepter is a must-have in Engine decks. I even run Dramatic Reversal (a steal at $1 for foils considering how much competitive EDH players love this combo) in case I need to go off without Paradox Engine.

Scepter was in the Izzet v. Golgari decks that were popped aggressively for a minute to get out the sweet, sweet Golgari Grave-Troll. With its banning, the EV of the decks either drops a lot or the value gets shifted to other cards. There is a Scetper, a Life from the Loam, a few signets, a Brainstorm, a Putrefy – even a Sadistic Hypnotist which as enjoyed a resurgence after people realized it was nuts with Nath. With Grave-Troll’s banning, Scepter could see a bit of a price raise as there is less impetus to pop the decks and free up loose copies and with Modern shenanigans conspiring with The Gitrog Monster to make Life From the Loam expensive again, Scepter could see some upshot despite its many printings. I like Scepter paired with Engine a lot.

OK, so two things here. First of all, wow, a common (meaning in multiple decks) from Commander 2015 got up to $3. Secondly, wow, this is so reprintable it makes my teeth itch. This just seems like a teetering house of cards of a price, but it shows no signs of stopping anytime soon. I don’t think Commander Anthology is going to free up that many copies of anything (who’s paying that much money to bust it for singles and sell them off?) so this probably has a while to grow. This isn’t THAT good with Engine since it only taps for 1 mana, but it does untap every iteration (unlike lands) and it lets you draw very aggressively and keep a fat mitt full of goods. I like this card a lot but even I didn’t anticipate this doubling in a year. Good for it. Dealers finally seem on-board with the price – it spiked to $3 before and came back down and the buy price didn’t even move. Well, it’s moving now. This card is the real deal. I hate how badly a reprinting would blow it out and I’m loathe to pay $3 for something that will get super cheap if it’s in Commander 2017, but this is a card, that’s for sure.

This is what a Commander 2014 followed by a Commander 2016 printing looks like, graphically. I anticipate a similar shape of a Commander 2015 and subsequent Commander 2017 printing on Vessel.

Look at this tank. This keeps shrugging reprints off. I love this card and it taps for SO MUCH mana. It’s just as good as Gilded Lotus in my limited experience going off with Paradox Engine in a 2-color deck (which you wouldn’t think, but it’s true. You need very little colored mana to keep going and ultimately win) and with it being cheaper to buy and cheaper to play, I think this could have some real upside. I wish Gilded Lotus would get a reprint because I don’t like buying it at its current price. A reprinting would knock it down to a buyable level and since we all know the price would recover, make us all a lot of money. Or would it? Dynamo isn’t very impressed with reprints, is it? It dipped about $2, though, and if you bought at the cheaper price, you had some room to make money in the recovery (which isn’t over, and with Breya running around, isn’t all that likely to end soon).

This is what happens when people basically don’t really open boosters. I anticipated the price of this card would go down as more packs were opened, but basically day 1 was peak supply. People drafted this for like 2 weeks and then boxes began to rot. People bought some around $70ish which is pretty good considering the high EV and the high price of some foils – a foil Leovold pays for like half a case, for example. Foil Selvala pays for a whole $70 box. There are a lot of $20 boxes of Conspiracy, 2, I am sure, but I could see a lot of $100+ as well considering the Legacy reprints mixed with Commander goodies. What makes the price of this card go down? How likely is a reprint? Where would it happen? I think this is powerful, expensive and safe. My kind of card.

This card only gets better in a world with Paradox Engine. I realize I have a lot of mono-green in this article but that’s because green is very good at having stuff to untap with Paradox Engine.

I hope I didn’t talk about too many cards I’ve talked about before. Paradox Engine has so many implications that even cards I consider a bad buy-in at their current price (Bloom Tender, anyone?) will likely experience some upside.

Is Engine bannable? I am changing my answer from “no” to “maybe” but I still think the card can be dealt with. You have to be very careful not to play it until you go off because it will get killed on sight otherwise, meaning it won’t help make every turn good like Prophet of Kruphix did. It’s a combo piece – a powerful one, but still a combo piece. We’ll see what the committee thinks. Until then, brew with this, buy double orders on anything you want to use with it so your cards are free if they go up and watch EDHREC to see what’s popping up. If you can’t win fairly, remember to play elves and steal all of their lands. Until next week!

Watchtower

The Watchtower: 2/6/17

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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 watch this YouTube channel to keep up to date with Cartel Aristocrats, a fun and informative webcast with several other finance personalities!

Pro Tour Aether Revolt is in the books, and at least we can say that the top 8 and the best performing decks certainly did not look as many of us expected. Mardu Vehicles pretty clearly dominated the format, with six(!) copies in the top 8, and a staggering amount in the “30 to 22 points” list. The conversion rate for day two was 75%, an astoundingly impressive performance given that there were 95 players on the archetype. BG Constrictor was close behind with a 68% conversion rate. Meanwhile Jeskai Copy Cat, the Saheeli Rai combo deck that looked poised to take over the format as of last weekend, had the absolute worst conversion rate of any deck with more than 10 players at 36%. There were some other, more successful Saheeli variants, such as Gerry Thompson’s four color Aetherworks Marvel build, but that doesn’t mean that the archetype as a whole didn’t completely fall flat relative to expectations.

I was fairly certain that we would see Saheeli Rai as a major part of this Pro Tour. I was wrong, as people figured out how to build Mardu Vehicles to prey on it. Yet, I’m not convinced that we won’t find ourselves staring down the barrel of a lot of Saheeli Rai decks in a week or two. Vehicles had an excellent Pro Tour, no doubt, but that type of strategy tends to be less resilient and less able to adapt to a changing metagame than something closer to midrange or control, ala Saheeli or BG Constrictor. Within two weeks the SCG grinders may have settled on a Saheeli list that eats vehicles alive, while the vehicles players struggle to find a list that can keep up.

I’m not promising anything here, but this wouldn’t be the first time that a deck performs exceptionally well at the Pro Tour and then rapidly withdraws from the top tier. I still recall Pro Tour Dark Ascension, in which Jon Finkel and crew showed up with UW Spirits running Dungeon Geist. The deck performed admirably, Dungeon Geists themselves were selling out everywhere on Saturday, but within two weeks the archetype had evaporated in the face of sustained countermeasures. If this is the path Standard finds itself on again, we may yet see Felidar Guardian shipped off to the farm at the next banned and restricted list update in five weeks. Sam Stoddard admitted this past Friday that they didn’t realize what they had released in Standard, and a rapid reversion to Saheeli Rai dominance may cement an already tempting decision.

Rishkar, Peema Renegade

Price Today: $5
Possible Price: $10

This feels a little silly, but bear with me. Rishkar rose in popularity rapidly during prerelease season when the interaction between him and Walking Ballista was taken seriously. Since release, BG with Ballista, Rishkar, and Winding Constrictor has been a pillar of the format. (Of course that’s like three weeks at best, but whatever.)

At Pro Tour Aether Revolt BG was arguably the second-best deck, with a strong conversion rate and the second-most common archetype in the top scoring Standard lists. (Not exactly a close second, but second nonetheless.) Anyways it’s a strong archetype with a lot of flexibility in how it’s built. One thing’s for sure though, the interaction between those three cards is impressive.

Vehicles was far and away the best deck this weekend, right? Well Veteran Motorist is a 3/1, and every other maindeck creature is an X/2. That’s a lot of fodder for Walking Ballista to chew through. BG is also going to have access to plenty of artifact destruction given that it’s in green. All of this is on top of the fact that BG is a solid deck that can battle with Saheeli combo strategies, and whatever else floats to the top.

I’m getting into predicting the ebb and flow of the metagame, which I don’t want to do. I’ll summarize with this: BG was a strong deck two weeks ago, it’s a solid choice today, and it’s definitely going to continue to play a role in the metagame. The core of the deck is Winding Constrictor and Walking Ballista, an uncommon and a $10 rare. Rishkar is a key third piece, and the price is around $5 today. There’s room for growth.


Spire of Industry

Price Today: $4.50
Possible Price: $12

Several weeks ago Sam Black made a comment on Twitter that Mox Opal is better than all the other moxes in any deck that runs it. This is rather obvious on the surface — of course a Mox that makes five colors is ideal, the hard part is getting there — but it’s profound when you consider it. While the original five Moxes are banned everywhere, you can still play with the “best” Mox in both Modern and Legacy! A mana accelerant that provides access to every color of mana is worth jumping through hoops, since it opens the door to so many different tools. You can rely on Opal to cast Spell Pierce, Thoughtseize, and Rest in Peace all within the same game.

Spire of Industry is possibly a better City of Brass/Mana Confluence. It’s ever so slightly more difficult to get any color of mana out of it, since you need to control an artifact. That means no turn one Thoughtseizes here. However, it does tap for a painless colorless, which the other variants don’t. The life saved by not having to pay one every time you tap the land can mean the difference between winning and losing in many games. There’s also the corner cases in which you actively want the colorless mana, such as if you’re in the market for Thought-Knot Seer to go with your artifacts. (And who isn’t?)

Spire of Industry has found a home in Standard in basically all of the Vehicles decks. It plays a vital role in helping cast Unlicensed Disintegration on time, as well as making sure you you can cast multiple spells a turn in the mid game. So long as vehicles are playable, which I expect they will be the entire time they’re legal, Spire of Industry will be a component of at least one Standard deck, and possibly several.

That’s not all though. Spire of Industry is completely playable in Modern Affinity, a deck that rarely doesn’t put an artifact into play on turn one. It’s good in Lantern. It’s good in any deck that plays a moderate amount of artifacts, really. That extends to other formats as well, though demand there is less important as far as the price is concerned.

Spire of Industry is remarkably strong land with a low cost to turn it on. It’s going to be a Standard staple for the next year and a half, and it’s going to show up in plenty of other formats too. I’ll be surprised if this doesn’t push double digits at some point during that span.

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