I don’t think you should be buying anything from Dominaria United right now. There might be something in the set that’s going to grow based on multi-format usage, like Ledger Shredder or Unlicensed Hearse, but for the most part, prices are about to take a bath.
What I’d like to focus on is the cards in Streets of New Capenna that are currently underpriced compared to their usage in Modern, Pioneer, Standard, and especially Commander. We’ve had about five months since the set came out, and prices have stabilized nicely. Even if things dropped about 10% more before flattening out, I’d feel good about where I bought in.
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Cliff (@WordOfCommander) has been writing for MTGPrice since 2013, and is an eager Commander player, Draft enthusiast, and Cube fanatic. A high school science teacher by day, he’s also the official substitute teacher of the MTG Fast Finance podcast. If you’re ever at a GP and you see a giant flashing ‘CUBE DRAFT’ sign, go over, say hi, and be ready to draft.
Here I was making a stupid pun title about the 40k decks, little did I know what I was actually doing was striking a rich vein of SEO GOLD BABY! Check out my score from the WordPress “headline analyzer” feature that I swear is a real thing and that I swear I have tried to game multiple times.
Now THAT’S a headline! I’m learning the headline analyzer just wants to see how good a job you can do sounding like a tech bro. My articles aren’t for general consumption and you get them from our feed or from me on twitter, but I can’t help but try and game this thing. Gamers gonna game, right? At least that’s WotC’s theory – they think people who game 40K on a tabletop will want to buy the new 40K preconstructed decks, and that EDH players will want to pay $100 for a precon that’s all curly-ass foils of absolutely pushed Magic cards. Just dumb, broken stuff that will plague Commander for a decade. Remember the Brawl decks? Let me refresh your memory.
Cool format you’ve got there, it would be a shame if something were to happen to it! Like we print a bunch of obvious. pushed commanders that end up in the top 100 of the last 2 years. Is the top 100 a hard goal to reach? Well, for reference, we got 70 new Legendary creatures in Dominaria United alone. It’s safe to say putting 4 commanders in the top 62 is an indication something is wrong. They didn’t get people to play Brawl at all but they permanently changed the face of Commander, so that’s nice. Are these 40k Commanders on the same power level? No, of course not. They’re worse. Much, much worse.
This doesn’t seem so bad. Does it synergize with anything in the deck that seems troubling?
I’d say so. Great googily moogily this card is bonkers. Gruul Hydra decks are going to be all over this but now the decks have access to Blue for cards like, I don’t know, Inexorable Tide.
It’s not your job to care about how to use EDHREC so I’ll tell you briefly that I went to Themes on the top bar, then clicked the word “tribes” and scrolled down to hydras. We have a Temur Hydras deck to look at, we don’t even have to extrapolate from Gruul. The deck is Animar and it has a lot of info about how people likely tackle The Swarmlord.
This is pretty interesting.
It’s wild that someone took a look at this price graph and said “this needs a Double Double Masters reprint STAT” but what do I know? WotC won’t even return my emails. I’m not sure which is more insane, the decline from $40 to $4 or the fact that the Double Double Masters reprint at rare had basically no impact on the price. I think if this card hits $2, you brick them. It’s not a $40 Standard scourge, nor is it a bulk mythic (though it got a rarity downshift which is a terrifying signal about the future of Simic creatures).
These are very solid underlying metrics for a $4 card and insane metrics for a $2 one if you consider how few copies of an Eldraine mythic and a rare from a set with $100 booster packs are out there.
But I don’t know how much else plays nicely with The Swarmlord specifically. One card I’ve been talking about fiveever is still a decent spec imo.
Barring a reprint this is a $7-$10 card, especially with some help from The Swarmlord. I don’t know how this card is still so cheap but it’s approaching $3 on the buylist, which is more than retail was when I first started beating this drum. Slow and steady until a reprint knocks out legs out from under us, that’s how we like it.
This will be a very popular commander and basically everything that will be in the deck is on this page for Torbran that you can peruse at your convenience. I want to get to more than one precon today but I think I might not be able to. This deck will be three much fun.
With less turnaround time than before, WoTC is unlikely to let this stay at $8 but I don’t think they can stop it from reaching that number. Mystery Booster printing did very little, if CSI wants $3 for this, I say oblige them.
Yes, they are that cheap and are still available for now.
I honestly don’t hate these under $10. Secret Lair drop cards always seem to go up and I loved that terrible Dungeons and Dragons TV show even before I had played Dungeons and Dragons for the first time. It was reruns, calm down, I’m not even 40 yet.
Torbran made this foil POP. Does Card Kingdom only want $7?
Well, yes and no.
At this point, any foil from an old set that does 1 damage in Izzet colors is a potential Aether Sting, which is exciting.
I have these in my bulk foils for sure, I haven’t picked that stuff in like 5 years.
Some sort of haste tribal deck seems very cool, and it’s not just Ball Lightnings that would be impacted. Let’s look at the page for Ball Lightning and see if we can glean anything from what cards tend to get played alongside it.
Look at these for a bit (if the image is too small, here is the page) and tell me if you see what I see. Give up?
Check out the High Synergy cards for Dragon tribal!
Deathleaper is one of the most exciting creatures we’ve seen in a while, and here is a card I will be putting directly onto my biggest creature.
Omnath, Locus of Rage made this no longer a bulk rare, what can Deathleaper do for it?
There is a lot to unpack here and each deck likely gets its own article, but it’s never too early to think about new cards even though we still haven’t even scratched the surface of Dominaria United. I could do this all day but I hit my word cap which means your eyes glazed over 4 paragraphs ago. Sorry for that. I’ll be back next week with more hot tips and cool quips. Until next time!
Here we are, the day where the set is legal to buy and sell on the major sites, and it’s time to see if we can pull the diamonds from the rough. I have advocated repeatedly to not pre-order cards, and here I am, wondering if these are priced too low.
So let’s get to the cards, both the things I want to buy now and the things I’m going to be patient on. Prices right now can be a little wild, so if you spot copies that cost a little more or a little less, act accordingly.
Liliana of the Veil (DMU copies available from $40 to $73) – The big reprint of the set, it’s been a while since we’ve had a lot of copies around.
We’ve gotten some reprints, but there’s a big difference between being a Modern Masters 2017 mythic and a Dominaria United mythic. I’m not expecting her to fall too far, as she’s being rapidly adopted in Pioneer, but I think she’ll settle out near $30 for the cheapest versions. The premium versions from DMU are not really on my radar, as there’s Box Toppers and Pro Tour Promos to chase.
Long-term, I think Liliana is an excellent place to gain some value, though I won’t be buying any for a few months.
Sheoldred, the Apocalypse ($38 to $117) – Sheoldred is a card I expect to take over a lot of Commander tables. I wrote an article about good specs for her deck, but Neksuar is three colors, blah blah blah. Black decks will need an explicit reason not to run this gem of a card, which is also a combo enabler in many ways.
If it seems expensive right now for a Phyrexian foil, I’d agree with you, but I also want to keep in mind that Sheoldred’s most sought-after version is impressively hard to pull from Collector Boosters. As I pointed out last week, for every 100 Borderless foil Liliana of the Veil, there’s 50 Phyrexian Sheoldred and 50 Showcase.
The graphs for Vorinclex and Jin-Gitaxias and Urabrask are pretty similar, but no one’s got the early hype spikes that the green one did:
Vorinclex showed up every 296 Collector Boosters, Jin-Gitaxias was every 544 but is now under $100, and Urabrask is every 492. Sheoldred is every 346 boosters for a Phyrexian foil, and is a much stronger card being both cheaper to cast and with a nasty backhand of an effect. Commander players love drawing cards!
I’m expecting Sheoldred to follow in Vorinclex’s footprints: an early spike followed by a gradual decline. Buying now for your deck at about $117 is not too far off where the price will be in three months, and if it makes you happy, go for it.
Ajani, Sleeper Agent ($8 to $45) – Foil Phyrexian Ajani is twice as rare as the Sheoldred, checking in at once every 692 Collector Boosters and the rarest non-Hidetsugu card of the last couple years. (I’m not counting the Legends inserts.) However rare he is…his card isn’t terribly powerful. Tamiyo in Phyrexian is available for just about $20, several months later.
Planeswalkers who come down early and can get you ahead are good. Ajani on three (plus the 2 life) is still capable of ticking up and gaining card advantage, but not for control-themed decks. He’s good but not broken, and so I think his curve will follow Tamiyo’s, unless some other amazing combo comes along.
Leyline Binding ($10 to $21) – I’m terrified of making a prediction about this card. It seems too good to be true in Modern, where a Triome and a shockland make this a one-mana Oblivion Ring. However, Modern already has lots of great removal. In the last year, we’re seeing decks run some combination of Prismatic Ending and March of Otherworldly Light. If the domain decks are big, I’d be delighted to see cool stuff like Scion of Draco have its day, but we’ll see if that takes off. I think this will see play, but it’s not going to be Ledger Shredder. I think there’s enough demand to keep the price high, yet not too high. I don’t think it’ll hold a price of $15, nor go below $7.
The Defilers ($5 to $21) – All five are decent to good, but the blue one that fuels itself and the green one that grows your team are probably the strongest cards. Green especially has a lot more ‘green mana only’ costs, topping out at Primalcrux. I will want to have some of these long-term but for now, I’ll be content to let their prices drop.
Plaza of Heroes ($9 to $18) – It’s nice to have the last ability that saves a legendary creature, but right now, I don’t think this is a card anyone needs to go deep on. I know there’s a lot of chatter about legendary humans especially, but given the lands that already exist (Cavern of Souls, Unclaimed Territory, Secluded Courtyard) I don’t think that deck needs more. This should fall by at least half, if not more.
One other thing I want to note: The rare and mythic artifacts do not have a special version in this set. I strongly suspect we’re going to see some special version before too long, and therefore I don’t want to go deep on any of these until that shoe drops.
Cliff (@WordOfCommander) has been writing for MTGPrice since 2013, and is an eager Commander player, Draft enthusiast, and Cube fanatic. A high school science teacher by day, he’s also the official substitute teacher of the MTG Fast Finance podcast. If you’re ever at a GP and you see a giant flashing ‘CUBE DRAFT’ sign, go over, say hi, and be ready to draft.
We have some data, and like always, we have some surprising data. I decided to look at which commanders we should look at in-depth based on how they charted this week. There were some VERY clear winners.
I expected Jodah to do OK, but to be built more than Atraxa, even in 2022 is a coup. Like, I’m not saying a boring deck like Atraxa SHOULD be built this much, I’m saying it is and that’s reality. A deck that claws its way to the top of a pile of profoundly boring decks is worth celebrating. Let’s take a look at Jodah and Ivy for specs, shall we?
Jodah really isn’t built that interestingly, unfortunately. All of these cards are cards we’ve gone over in the past. Still, there have to be some challenges associated with being built 5 color. Are there any unique cards?
Now THIS is what I call podracing, or whatever. I’m not rewatching that movie just to look up what he says.
The cards here are going to get jammed into every “Legendary matters” deck from here until the end of time, and with 70 new Legendary creatures every 2 months, the odds of them having to revisit the topic soon are 100%.
This is just starting to rebound despite being hideous.
This is the better buy, IMO, but it’s hard to go wrong with either. Enough people like the showcase version that there is no clear winner. Either way you go, this is a buy under $5. It’s not a broadly-appealing card but for the decks where it’s useful, there is no substitute. It’s cheaper than Mirror Gallery and it’s way better. Everyone forgot about this card because it was 20 sets ago, but this is quite, quite good.
I am shocked to see this card is worth money, but it seems like if you can get the non-foil around $2 and the extended art under $5, it seems good right now.
Sometimes Cool Stuff is actually the lowest price and not because they ran out of stock first.
Wild stuff!
This deck is going to be split between random new stuff and old Orvar staples, which is great. Any Orvar card is going to be second spiking and therefore that’s what I would prefer to focus on.
You won’t often find me advocating for the foil copy of a common card whose price appears to be declining but you also won’t NEVER find me doing that, so here we go, I’m doing that. This is the foil and it’s an $8 foil under the right circumstances, seems like a buy at $2 or $3.
This is still too cheap.
Here is 1,000 more words in support of Mirror Box as a spec.
I suspect this would be higher if not for the Conspiracy reprinting, but this card is bugnutty.
I think it’s rad that two commanders from the new set are in the top 10 for the week, especially Ivy which is running my favorite card from the set and breaking it wide open.
The set seems good, we’re going to have 70 new EDH decks to contend with and then we’ll do it all again in a matter of weeks. You guys don’t want to hear me gripe about my job in the content mines but it’s less than I’m bitching about being busy and more that I’m worried that everyone will feel like they’re drowning the way I do soon and that’s bad for the long-term health of the game. Back in my early finance days, we used to say “You can shear a sheep every year but you can only skin it once” and I’m starting to worry about what’s going to happen when eBay/TCG/CFB sets its sights on Hasbro in a big to make the ultimate Katamari Damacy amalgam to take on Disney. When that happens, you’ll hear about it here first. Thanks for reading, nerds. Until next time!
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