Jason Alt, ProTrader

Unlocked Pro Trader: How to Make 40k Decks

Readers!
It’s that time again, the time where we have Warhammer 40K data but it doesn’t matter because they have announced Unfinity, Brother’s War, 5 new secret lairs and a $250 booster pack that very much violates the spirit of the Reserved List. We’d better look at 40k stuff now – it’s about to be pushed off of the “recent sets list” on EDHREC and it hasn’t even come out yet. 

Last week we didn’t have enough data but we seem to be all set this week, so let’s do that thing I always do but also always feel the need to introduce like you don’t already know what it is from me always doing it. That thing. Let’s do that.

Abbadon is still in the lead by quite a bit, still, which was to be expected. He’s been spoiled the longest and he was the only one we had data on for a while. Nothing has really changed with Abbadon, but let’s take a quick look at High Synergy cards.

Still suspend stuff and pingers. Pingers are also going to be useful for the next commander, too.

I talked about Abbadon and Starnzy 2 weeks ago, and if you didn’t read that article, I go into a bit more depth about why I like older foils. Ophidian Eye, for example, has 0 reprints and a $10 foil that’s pretty scarce. I think someone knew about these 40K cards a long time ago based on how all of the ping foils disappeared like 2 years after they printed Torbran. I like a lot of stuff that deals exactly 1 damage but at the rate they release new commanders, no one can really agree on a deck because by the time you get cards, they have announced 3 new sets. I prefer more stable stonks since Magic seems determined to jump the shark and I don’t know if I’ll have a job in a year.

Exhibit A

Every Demon is like $4 right now, similar to Dragons. If a good Demon tribal commander is printed, they all go up, even the OK ones and with 70 new Legendary creatures in every set, they’re going to have to resort to demon tribal sooner or later.

I have long been bullish on both versions of this, and it seems the markets are finally in accord. The fact that I said to buy it before it went up would suggest I sometimes know what the market will do, or every card goes up eventually. Either way, I urged people to pay $2 for the showcase version in the past and now Card Kingdom is asking $5. This card is profoundly good and people are finally noticing, though it may have taken a Demon that cares about Demons to get there.

That pic looks weird, it’s because it’s an NFC and I’m kind of in the zone typing right now so I’m not going to fix it, you’re just going to have to be OK with my miscut pic.

Too late to get these for $8 but you can get them before they’re $20. It’s on “The List” so that has helped, but not enough. I’m serious about paying $12-$15 for these if you’re quick.

This held fairly steady at $15 before it was reprinted. I’m perfectly OK snatching some $4 copies of this and watching the reverse J turn into a U like we like.

CK is just straight up getting $40 for this card and TCG is like $6 more than I paid. I am hodling on for dear life on these and I’d rather they see more play than not if I want to recoup on these. I bought at basically buylist at the time but that doesn’t help me much. I really expected these to go lower, but The List doesn’t add as many copies as you think it will.

This is kind of a boring deck if I’m being honest – it’s being built as Esper goodstuff control for the most part which means another Thoracle deck. Fun.

Kind of a steep drop with the number of decks, but the Stormlord is built 3 times as much as the Swarmlord, which no one saw coming. Not that anyone has touched this product yet.

Another problem with the product being obsolete is that people don’t have physical cards in their hands, so they don’t construct the decks with the physical cards they have, they construct using the precon list as a guide. This almost always results in them adding way more cards from the precon to their decklists than they’ll actually add when they build the deck for real, but by then no one is going to look at the EDHREC page for 20 sets ago. Stuff comes out too fast to go back for anything.

This could go up even more with people building Zur as a Saga deck, but honestly, if someone hasn’t built Zur yet, they’re not going to. Dominaria United feels forgotten already. This pace of products is entirely unsustainable and I think it will make or break Magic as a game and Magic as a career, but maybe I’m an old man yelling at clouds. We’ll find out sooner or later. Until next time.

Casual Fridays

The Math of Unfinity and the Borderless Shocklands

This will not be your usual math article, because I don’t have many complex calculations to do. Wizards has given us direct numbers here, and as a result, we’ve got very good data on what will happen with the important cards from Unfinity.

So let’s get into the weeds, parse some numbers, and figure out how rare these shocklands will be.

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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.

Jason Alt, Unlocked ProTrader

Unlocked Pro Trader: While You Slept

Readers!

Something I haven’t done in a long time is look at the data for Top 100 most-included cards on EDHREC. And why would I? The top card is Sol Ring, there are a bunch of Signets, tutors, removal spells, Rampant Growths and a few spicy creatures like Dockside Extortionist. Everyone who has played even a single game of Commander can probably name all 100 cards, right. Right? Well, what if I told you that there are a lot of cards on the list that have been printed for the first time in the last two years, some of them that I have mentioned before and some I haven’t? Do I need to sell you on this concept, really? I got your click already, you’re hooked, I just need to not blow it by losing your interest. I’d prefer you got something out of this article, so I’m going to look at the EDHREC top 100 cards of the last week and show you which cards from 2021 and 2022 are heating up and whether or not I like them as specs. It’s happening, so be prepared to be surprised by a few of these – it wouldn’t be a whole entire article without a few curveballs, otherwise I’d just list all 100 cards and call it a day. Instead, I’m digging in the content mines without a circle of protection: black lung anywhere in sight. I do it for you, readers, so let’s see what I unearthed, shall we? That was rhetorical; we shall.

#25 – Ignoble Hierarch

There will come a certain point where a rare that is unlikely to get reprinted soon given its price trajectory over the year that’s in tens of thousands of decks will officially become so cheap that it’s absurd not to buy them. Silly me, I thought that point was $5. I bought some, not a ton, but some. The showcase versions is trash, but the old border version is very good-looking. If this is like $1 or $2 and it’s in a quarter of Jund decks moving forward, which seems ow considering it was in more than a quarter of jund decks this week.

28% isn’t a ton more than %25, but $3.39 is a hell of a lot cheaper than $10 so the popularity by way of discovered demand when the card becomes too cheap not to play should help that number increase beyond 28% as people build more Jund. This is in a ton of decks, it’s cheap, it’s getting help from Modern and it’s tough to reprint. At some point the fact that Modern Horizons two was absolutely bonkers and every pack was a winner will be outweighed by the sheer demand, provided people don’t abandon EDH in droves. It’s a fun format, it’s hard to see that happening.

#42 – Esper Sentinel

Esper Sentinel has 4 times the demand (OK, 3.72) of Ignoble Hierarch and commands 10 times the price. As the price for Hierarch sinks, the price for Sentinel really went nuts, peaking at twice what it is now. I still think this card is overpriced at $20 but it’s a little tough to reprint, also. I think rather than look at this card as a spec, I want to use it as a stick to measure what the ceiling for Ignoble likely is. If Esper Sentinel is $20 in 4x as many decks and can hold $20 (if this approaches $10 it becomes so buyable it immediately goes back above $15 in the frenzy) we can expect to get $5 minimum for Hierarch. The showcases are ugly and they’re everywhere but no product is perfect. I think Sentinel is a buy under $20 for any reason other than a reprint and cEDH ubiquity also plays a huge part in Sentinel’s inflated price, something Ignoble can’t quite claim. Neither can this next card, but being in a weird set is a big boost.

#46 Esika, God of the Tree

Coming in just a few spots behind Esper Sentinel this week is Esika, a mana fixing maven. With the multicolored decks coming out hard and fast and showing no signs of stopping, Esika is in under 10% of the 5 color decks released in the past two years, however…

This week she is in twice that ratio, meaning her use over time is trending up. This is a $15 card masquerading as an $8 card and I’m tired of pretending it’s not. Except this will be $15 on Card Kingdom in a few months and we’ll all wonder when it happened. Soon, I think.

This is also available in a very good-looking showcase version, which is kind of rare, really.

I love the showcase art, and while it’s not for everyone, it’s trending up sharply in price, which will happen because it’s the preferred version and the less-preferred version will lag behind. There is time to get in on both, though there’s more time for the plain jane version. I love both, honestly- these shake out to $15 and $20+ respectively fairly trivially in my opinion. I also like a few of the other Legendary creatures from Kaldheim because they bothered to make creatures that could go in the 99. At the time I thought they made too many Legendary creatures in Kaldheim but I’d give anything to go back to before we got literally 70 of them every 2 months.

#50 Damn

This is almost the same price as Ignoble Hierarch and is in twice as many decks. Which card is mispriced? I think perhaps Damn looks good given this comparison, especially given that it goes in more decks.

Both versions of this card look so slick it’s tough to choose a clear winner here. I don’t think you need to – this is played a ton – in 20% of all Orzhov-containing decks over both time periods, and I think it’s a little tougher to reprint than you might think. I like this a ton, especially the $4 EA copies on TCG Player given how they’re already 150% of that on CK.

#72 – An Offer You Can’t Refuse

Not a ton to say here. It’s so easy to get treasure tokens and so hard to get a 2/2 flier that everyone seems to just want to jam this over Swan Song because it’s a $1 uncommon. I don’t rally have an issue with this. Will its price go up? Yep. I don’t know how much, but this is becoming a bit of a staple and I’m all for it.

I doubt you regret snagging these under $2, there are way worse uncommons worth way more, recent ones, too. One problem with this is that it’s a “quiet” and unsexy staple and people tend to buy those one at a time for decks rather than in swaths for speculation purposes. It’s a them card, not an us card. But maybe we make it an us card and just buy the things, I don’t know. Could work.

#74 Void Rend

Speaking of quiet an unsexy, this little guy is chugging along at the $2 mark which is about where the Uncommon we just mentioned is. This is played the same proportion in absolute terms although the mono-Blue An Offer You Can’t Refuse is nearing the 40k mark already. Rares are a third as abundant as Uncommons and this is played a third as much. Will the prices go up together? It’s interesting, but also, good rare removal doesn’t stay under $2 for long and while this is held out of a lot of decks by its Esper color identity, it goes in quite a few by virtue of it being hard to think of an Esper deck that doesn’t want to point and belete a permanent, and being uncounterable matters quite a bit, too. In a head-to-head match, this beats An Offer You Can’t Refuse, and I’ll break the tie that way and you can’t stop me.

#92 Timeless Lotus

This is lava hot right now and, despite being a new card, is showing up in a lot of the 5 color decks. There was a 5 color precon and we’re in the middle of the mania surrounding that and I sort of feel like this is a clunky rock. I’ve advocated for Crystal Quarry before, however, so who knows who’s right? You don’t have to take my word for it, just look at how many people are playing the card. Check the percentage of usage for a few weeks – 35% is entirely unsustainable, and this card’s color identity keeps it out of a lot of decks, but we like Esika so why not like this, too? Morophon is a card, after all.

That does it for me this week! I’m running really close to the automatic cap where wordpress automatically cuts the article off, but before I go I just want to thank

Casual Fridays

Expressive Value, Just For You

Last summer, we had a really interesting experience, highlighted by one of the most profitable experiences a body can have: Buying a very cheap card and then buylisting it for a lot more a short time later.

I’m talking, of course, about Expressive Iteration:

If you bought in at fifty cents in May, you had the chance to sell to a buylist at five bucks in mid-July. That’s a phenomenal return, especially given how little respect some uncommons get. So what I want to do right now is look at what uncommons are popular, both in Commander and Constructed formats, and see if there’s money to be made.

One note before we get into this: I’m going to be listing the number of decks that have a card on EDHREC. Please keep in mind that the inclusion rate isn’t a guarantee, as it’s a great dataset, but one with limitations. There’s a lot of people who upload entire preconstructed decks and then tweak those decks, giving precon numbers a boost. Also remember that not everyone bothers to upload a deck at all, which if a lot of casual players want a card, the price will move while the rate stays low.

Rumor Gatherer ($0.20 for the cheapest version, $1.30 for the most expensive, currently listed in 16,000 decks on EDHREC) – I like what this card offers: Draw a card every time you have 2+ creatures enter the battlefield, plus scry 1 for every other creature that enters and doesn’t draw you a card. That’s a whole lot of value crammed into one card, and especially if you have fun things to do on other turns that gives you a pair of tokens, like Raise the Alarm.

Iteration was not cheap for very long and this card has been out for a few months. It was included in one of the CLB decks and that’s going to keep the price of the regular nonfoil down for a while to come. However, this was a promo pack card for SNC and that’s the version you need to be looking at, because it’s just over a buck for single foil copies and slightly more in higher quantities. This many decks in this short a time is a wonderful sign.

Slip Out the Back ($1.50 to $2, 8900 decks) – One-mana ‘save your creature’ tricks are always going to be nice to have, as we’ve seen with stuff like Tamiyo’s Safekeeping. Hexproof and indestructible are very good keywords, and will get you through most of the problems in a Commander game. Getting a +1/+1 counter is probably better than two life, and phasing has no workaround. I can Massacre Girl a board away through a Safekeeping, but I’m just going to shrug when it’s phased out. This is why Teferi’s Protection is so good, too!

The foils and the nonfoils are about the same price, which means I probably want the foils. I’d rather have the shiny versions, as those aren’t put into Commander decks as the nonfoils are.

Rocco, Cabaretti Caterer ($0.10 to $1.70, 4k decks as Commander and Card) – Rocco is a Chord of Calling you can cast from the command zone. It doesn’t have convoke, nor is it an instant, but my goodness, having a toolbox commander like this is a powerful tool. He’s in as many decks as he is at the head of those decks. I don’t think we’ve had a legendary three-color with such a powerful ability, one that just requires mana to be good. We also have a version worth picking up in bricks: the gilded foil version is available for under two bucks.

I don’t think this will light up anytime soon, but I really like getting a premium treatment for such a useful card in large quantities.

Roadside Reliquary ($0.15 to $2.50, 10k decks) – Lands that give you something to do when you’re out of gas have a real appeal in Commander. Cryptic Caves is in 15k decks, and both these cards are amazing in something like Lord Windgrace, giving you card advantage coming and going. Foils are almost 20x the price of regulars here, indicating how strong the casual demand is. 

Yes, you want to be in on those foils. A reprint is nearly inevitable for a utility land like this, and I want to stay out of the fallout there. Instead, I’m okay buying these at two for $5 and being patient until they hit $10 in about 18-24 months.

Containment Construct ($0.30 to $3.50, 12500 decks) – I’m extremely tempted by the nonfoils here, and deciding what to buy is an exercise in predictions. The Construct is amazing in decks that have a way to make the discard happen regularly, like Anje Falkenrath. What I’m thinking about is that eventually, something will get printed that turns this into a mega-combo-enabler. Will it be a Commander precon that likely would include this card?

If I think the combo is some random Standard inclusion, then I want a giant stack of nonfoil copies. Thirty cents jumping to a retail of even $2.50 means I’ll make around 6x my money back. If I think it’ll be in a precon, I want the foils as protection from that extra set of copies.

Relic of Legends ($1.50 to $3, 2700 decks)

Elas Il-Kor, Sadistic Pilgrim ($0.20 to $2.50, 2200 decks)

Tear Asunder ($0.60 to $1.75, 624 decks)

Finally, here’s the three cards from DMU that I think have the best chance to give us huge returns. Relic is going to be a mana rock for a wide variety of decks, including things that want the commander to be tapped. Elas is just good, capable of lots of gain and lots of loss, while Tear Asunder is a straightforward exile spell.

Elas is the only one with a special version as yet, having a textured foil of his Showcase art available, so that’s where I’d want to be. For the other two, I’d feel better about having foils but it’s not quite as urgent a need. Having a stack of these cards on the cheap is going to pay off nicely in the long run. 

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.

MAGIC: THE GATHERING FINANCE ARTICLES AND COMMUNITY