Readers!

There are (slightly) more Brother’s War previews. More importantly, there is significantly more data for cards we already knew about, which is upon what I’d like to focus tonight. I’ll be honest, I’d love to be able to focus at all. I yelled myself hoarse for 8 hours watching Battlebots on Friday, got 8 hours sleep total the whole time I was there and ate sushi that was under a heat lamp in a 7/11. I’m not feeling my absolute best but if you think for a second our Pro Traders aren’t getting both barrels of the MTG Finance cannon this week just because I’m feeling a little like I was in the desert where drugs and alcohol are thank you gifts for losing money at craps and a Gatorade is $6.59 in the hotel, you’re sorely mistaken. Not as sore as the left side of my neck for some reason, but sore all the same. Let’s get this preamble paragraph wrapped up in a bow so I can dump a bunch of high quality picks on you then got to bed before midnight like a cartoon mouse who was turned into a stagecoach for the night or something. I don’t know. That movie came out before I was born I think. I’m not going to look that up because as we said, I’m not at my best. Remember Doc Ellis pitching a no-hitter on LSD? Well I’m not on LSD. This is going to be a many-hitter, and not just because the cards I pick are going to be hits, either. Also the reason you thought of first. Let’s do something data before I write a 2,000 word opening paragraph and go eat handfuls of shredded fiesta blend cheese and stare at the label on the apple cider.

An Old Dog Learns New Tricks

Just kidding, I just wanted a paragraph heading to break up the text. There is literally nothing new here despite a few more decks being added. I think the deck will be good, and popular, but it won’t be the most popular in a world where there is a card bearing the name “Urza.” Why am I giving you a whole paragraph on a card I don’t want to talk about again? I already told you, to break up the wall of text.

While this card isn’t giving us anything new, really, the old stuff is quite good and I think you should go back to last week where I talked about it. Don’t fear, there is plenty of gas in the other two commanders we have decks for.

Urza is Next

I’m bad at using the subheading tool, I literally have no idea what I should write there. Urza is next, but you could have figured that out using your peripheral vision. This isn’t going great, I can feel people looking at that red X in the corner. Don’t do that, I’ll give you specs, I promise. Just give me like 10 second to see if burping makes this stomach ache go away.

Yeah, it’s Urza. Yeah, it’s artifacty. This is going to make some old cards go up a lot and after it happens, everyone will be like “Well, yeah, artifact set, what did you THINK was going to happen?” but I don’t see any of those people actually saying now what they think is going to happen, so I will. I think Artifacts are going to be big business next year. Let’s look at Urza for guidance on which ones.

There is a very good case for a few of these, not the least of which is

Could this hit $10? I mean, maybe. It has a very robust play profile on EDHREC (34-35k decks – not too shabby) and it’s cheap and it’s half of its historic high. These are literally all of the things I want one or two of in a spec and this has all of them. Seems like a slam dunk, provided this isn’t reprinted. If it is, it may take some time but it will shrug the printing off. Cards with Improvise in Brother’s War would really surprise me, though- I’m betting against it happening.

This was $30 for an entire day – what if that day could be some time in November or December and this time you’re a seller at $30 and not a buyer at $15? It’s just a thought. I can’t guarantee this will go nuts, but if you bought everything I said about Whir of Invention, I don’t know why you’d start nitpicking when it came to a card with an identical case made for it. These spiked and went right back down which means dealers are stuck with these. When you buy before the spike, you’ll sneakily get a lot of copies. When you sell into the hype, the dealers you got these from for $3 will buy them from you and the cycle will feel complete. Why pick a side between Mishra and Urza when you can be the one selling weapons to both sides? Which would make you the CIA….

This will absolutely shrug off this recent printing as surely as I was right about this hitting $10. I was wrong, though – it went to $12 before it was reprinted, not $10. I feel more shame about that than you could possibly ever make me feel, so don’t even bother trying.

Mishra is doing artifacty stuff, too, you know.

Tell Me About That Artifacty Stuff

Woof, I will literally pay someone from the community to write headlines for me. That did not feel good at all.

Mishra is a deck I would build Goblin tribal, personally. You need a wide swath of expendable bodies and you want to be doing artifact stuff to tutor for Phyrexian Dragon Engine; this is a very goblin deck. Still, you don’t want to know how I’d build it, do you, or you’d read my article series every Thursday on Coolstuff Inc.com your source for cool stuff and hot other stuff. It’s free to read my articles over there. I’m not saying I don’t get enough readers over there. I actually have no idea, they won’t tell me. Could be a lot. Could be I should be telling those people to come here. Right, you want to know what people are playing.

I see a bit of a Goblin theme here. If Krenko is getting played, what about Krenko?

If the only thing you did in MTG Finance was ride the waves of $5 buy-ins and $10 cash-outs Krenko gets you, you would make a few bucks per copy per year, seems like. This still shrugs off printings, and since it rarely gets below $5, I like it at $5 and I’m not going to apologize for it.

If this spikes again, it will be to $12 and it will stay there, mostly. I think we missed the biggest opportunity to get these for $1 and sell them to a buylist for $2.25, but the buylist on these has never bee higher. $3 for these on CK with the buylist at $2.50 and a new excuse to play Goblins, plus the possibility of the non-EDH interaction that made it spike in 2021 re-occuring makes this a slam dunk imo.

Sets are all busted, now. Green is getting a card that turns Rampant Growth into a better Sylvan Scrying among other bonkers cards. Once people start to brew, next week’s article is going to be wall-to-wall gas, Until then, check out the Brother’s War stuff on EDHREC – there are more picks than the ones I wrote about. Until next time!

Readers!

Mark Rosewater loves to do a cryptic teaser blog post every time a new set comes out, which is often. Usually it’s all inconsequential but speculation is the art of using the past to delve clues about the future for information. Yes, I said art. You can be scientific about it if you want, and I think my typical series using lots of numbers from EDHREC does a good job of that and I’ve been very successful with my insights the past few years. Are you going to argue? You’re reading my writing, clearly something made you care about my opinions.

I like to post his entire post and see if we can ferret out any nuggets. Remember, we don’t have to nail it, we just have to think about what other people are thinking about. It’s a few days removed from the post but I bet there is still plenty of meat on the bone. Here’s the list, you lucky so and so’s. That apostrophe can’t be right, it looks like a grocer’s apostrophe but EB White insists. Shoulda said “lucky sumbitches.”

• over ten legendary Human Artificers

• another card with “end the turn”

• a command with X in its mana cost

• a spell that mimics an element of the effect of a creature that was originally printed with the picture of a World Champion on it

• a Teferi with a new way to gain loyalty counters

• equipment with “Equip Soldier”

• a new Onulet

• protection from everything returns

• a white creature that taps to let you and an opponent draw a card

• one colored artifact

Next, here are some rules text that will be showing up on cards:

• “create a tapped Powerstone token for each other creature you control.”

• “Put a +1/+1 counter on target Assembly-Worker you control.”

• “Whenever one or more creatures with mana value 3 or less enter the battlefield under your control,”

• “Permanents you control have ‘Ward – Sacrifice a permanent.’”

• “Whenever you cast an artifact spell with mana value 6 or greater,”

• “For each card type among noncreature spells you’ve cast this turn,”

• “Create a tapped 3/3 colorless Zombie artifact creature token.”

• “Look at the cards in each pile, then turn a pile of your choice face up.”

• “gains your choice of flying, vigilance, deathtouch, or haste.”

• “Whenever you cast a Beast or Bird creature spell,”

Finally, here are some creature type lines in the set:

• Artifact Creature – Ape

• Creature – Mole Horror

• Artifact Creature – Phyrexian Wurm

• Creature – Phyrexian Human Assassin

• Creature – Minotaur Barbarian

• Creature – Elf Druid Soldier

• Creature – Human Artificer Scout

• Legendary Creature – Human Wizard Advisor

• Legendary Creature – Elf Druid Scout

• Legendary Creature – Human Artificer Advisor

So this is a lot of stuff, and we can immediately ignore some of it. In fact, I’m only going to respond to the stuff I think is actionable.

• another card with “end the turn”

This feels like an Obkea-esque card, and it’s distinctly possible we could see an Obeka-style commander soon. If it’s another Time Stop, that could be OK, too, but those cards are considerably worse in EDH than in 2 player Magic where it’s a combination Counterspell and Time Walk. Just in case, the price of cards like Final Fortune (though Blue-adjacent cards are better than Red ones) or Sundial of the Infinite (which goes in Blue decks).

This is safe as milk imo. The spike in late 2020 is from Obeka and while it went down a bit, it didn’t stay down. One printing, flirted with $8 recent, I’m super duper OK paying $5 or $6 for this future 10 spot. It will go up bit by bit if this new “End the turn” card doesn’t enable new shenanigans and it will increase precipitously if it does. I like a win-win more.

Both cards got a second wind in 2022 that they’re in the midst of shrugging off so the copies won’t be in the hands of dealers. A run of any size on a rare card like this will be amplified 100 fold, but there might be safer places to park your money.

• equipment with “Equip Soldier”

Some people’s brains shut off when they saw this. I really think there is not much here, but anything could happen when people think there is going to be some sick tribal soldier. Still, “equip soldier” likely means there will be quite a few soldiers in this set, and with 50 or so Legendary creatures likely, there’s bound to be a new soldier deck.

Rather than try and figure out what is going on here, I thought about why they might say “equip soldier” and it occurred to me that it was likely due to there being 2 equip costs – 1 for soldiers and 1 for non-soldiers. Rather than focusing on which Soldiers I want to equip, I thought about trying to find easy ways to equip equipment in a non-Soldier deck.

Sigarda’s Aid doesn’t need any help from a new weird equipment that’s hard to equip, it’s doing fine on its own. However, it’s down from a historical high of $14 and basically just waiting for paper Modern. Hammertime is a relatively cheap deck to build and it can lucksack you to some really easy wins, making it perfect in the hands of a complete lunatic. You know the wild card you invite because it’s cheaper to split gas and hotel 4 ways and they have an unhinged Day 1 at a GP and then 0-5 day 2? Soon we’ll have tournaments for that guy to go nuts at again. Sigarda’s Aid seems safe but reprints can always dash our hopes if we’re not careful.

• “create a tapped Powerstone token for each other creature you control.”

This card is both the reason we know what a Powerstone token does and the card most likely to benefit from that being a real thing in Brother’s War. This is a $4 mythic Karn Planeswalker that could get real relevant, or even medium relevant. Did I mention it’s a $4 mythic Planeswalker? Now, that’s not unique – there are a depressing number of Mythic Planesalkers under $5. But the point is, that if you buy in at $5 and nothing happens, you’ll lose out on some opportunities with the money tied up, but if you’re inclined to gamble, this is like buying a $4 lottery ticket that will sell for $5 in 2 years. Sign me up for risks like that. Yes, there is a cost to having money tied up, but it’s a lower cost than lighting a Benjamin on fire because you specced on something way riskier.

• “Permanents you control have ‘Ward – Sacrifice a permanent.’”

Privileged Position this ain’t, but historically, cards that make it hard to target your permanents sleep for a bit until they’re discovered by Commander. Will that lull happen this time? Doubtful with Commander being the most popular format, but you never know.

This little bulk rare that could exceeded $20 both before an after a reprinting in a guild deck (remember those?) and I think while them having to pay dearly to kill something isn’t the same as stopping them entirely, it’s likely that this new spell is a great deal cheaper and therefore comes down before they can deal with it and when they do have some expendable perms later, your Greater Auramancy or Privileged Position can shield the new card that gives everything Ward. Is that boring? Eh, maybe, but not as boring as playing Farewell in your deck.

• “Whenever you cast an artifact spell with mana value 6 or greater,”

I won’t go down the entire hit parade for you, but I did the favor of linking my scryfall search so you don’t have to. I also have a favorite.

Foil Thopter Assembly fits the bill for me. It’s unlikely to be reprinted in foil ever again, the promo is ugly, it bounces itself letting you replay it for a ton of value and whatever happens with that trigger when you play it or replay it and it’s about a buck below its historic high, which will get higher if this new card breaks it. Pairing this with Time Sieve may be 2012 tech but people will remember if you do it to their faces and are left with a cloud of Thopters to vex them to boot.

I don’t know if any of this will pan out, but it’s fun to speculate and I think I did a better job of backing up my assertions than most people who try to do this. Next week we’ll be looking at more numbers, so let’s just enjoy this week and I’ll see you in Vegas, unless you’re at the event in which case you won’t see me because I’m going to be at a taping of Battlebots and multiple casinos. Check my twitter for me to live-tweet my location even though it’s a really bad idea. Until next time!