Casual Fridays

Slivers, Slivers, Everywhere!

We were given a hint of Dominaria United, and there’s been some leaks, but the more notable news is that some Secret Lairs have shipped with Foil Extended Art Slivers!

If you’re new to that creature type, that’s okay. We haven’t gotten any new Slivers since Modern Horizons 1, so it’s been a few years since the tribe of tribes has gotten some love.

However, if we’re about to get new Slivers, the world is about to go wild.

So far, I’ve been able to find pictures of six Sliver cards, including their collector numbers:

617: Ward Sliver

628: Winged Sliver

646: Two-Headed Sliver

649: Horned Sliver

657: Tempered Sliver

668: Sliver Hive

This tracks with the usual arrangement of collector numbers: WUBRG order, with lands last. It’s those five colors, then multicolor, then lands. Secret Lair has been different, with collector numbers starting at lands and going sort of chronologically. The Left-Handed Lair started at 9999 and worked its way downward, for instance.

In terms of how many Slivers there might be, we’ve got a big frame. Before Ward Sliver, the last SL collector number we see is 609 for the Hawkins National Lab and then 676 for the Pyrite Spellbomb from the Fortnite lair.

The big deal here is that there’s a LOT of Slivers left to go…and also, not too many. If there’s a new round of Slivers, we know full well what happens to the existing ones: the prices go crazy. Let’s get into some examples.

Sliver Queen is on the Reserved List. We aren’t getting more. I don’t put it past Wizards to print Sliver King as WWUUBBRRGG and have some ridiculous way to make a horde of Sliver tokens, though. The graph here doesn’t do the spikes justice, as copies sold for just under $600 during the most recent spike last year.

However, being an already expensive Reserved List card is going to make the Queen go bananas again. Near Mint Copies are currently in the $275 range, and I wouldn’t be shocked to see NM Queens break $500 with a new Commander or a new batch of Slivers. Keep in mind that Sliver Queen has some interesting offshoots: The oversized Commander’s Arsenal version is more than $100 and the Duel Masters version should see a jump too.

But if you want to make money without buying high-end RL cardboard, we’ve got other options.

Sliver Overlord is at its lowest it’s been in some time, with all three printings in the $30 range. The Scourge foils with the old border are up there in price, but with so few copies moving around, I’d expect big jumps there. The other versions should at least hit $50, given that Overlord has always been the most logical Commander for the tribe, given those two amazing abilities.

It’s entirely possible that for minor Slivers, that we get a FEA version tossed into Secret Lairs. I’m inclined against the big ones being in there, because we already got Overlord and Hivelord, but most of the useful ones will possibly make an appearance. 

The First Sliver and Sliver Hivelord are pretty safe, I think. Both are wonderful inclusions in the deck and are worth evaluating in their premium versions. The First Sliver in retro foil at $22 is the most appealing, but there’s also etched versions out there too. I definitely like the retro versions over the pricier original MH1 versions in foil, but the big risk is both the SL yet to come and what version might be coming in Dominaria itself.

Sliver Hivelord should be pretty safe, as there’s already been a SL version in the Thomas Baxa Lair. The cheapest foil version of Hivelord is the SL version, as the M15 version is $100 and will go crazy indeed in the new wave of Slivers. Right now there’s a few foil SL versions under $20, but it ramps pretty quickly to $25 and beyond.

Lavabelly Sliver as a MH2 retro foil is probably not going to get a reprint, but Cloudshredder Sliver in retro foil as part of Time Spiral Remastered is much safer. The TSR print run is done, we’re not getting more and frankly, we didn’t get a huge amount of what there was. TCG has only 38 foils listed for the retro foil, most in the $20 range, and considering what abilities you get, most Sliver decks want to have a copy.

It’s worth mentioning the FNM Crystalline Sliver too. There’s not a lot of this available, and Shroud is an ability that can have downsides, like no equipment or untapping. Still, if the wave breaks, I wouldn’t be shocked if this 20-year-old FNM promo broke $100.

I do not think Morophon, the Boundless would end up in five-color Sliver decks. While it’s a neat trick, it’s a lot of mana to pay for not a lot of effect. What I am very interested in, though, would be other tribal enablers. Guardian Project is a great one, but don’t overlook things like Herald’s Horn and my favorite for Slivers: Reflections of Littjara. 

Reflections is dirt cheap right now, both in FEA and the bundle version with alternate art, but Slivers more than most other tribes would really benefit from doubling each one that comes into play, since so few of them are Legendary. Plus, doubling up on static effects or ETB abilities gets out of hand real quick. Dormant Sliver is a strong contender to be an EA inclusion, but if you want to really get nuts with the card drawing, you want Kindred Discovery. 

I don’t think the current price of $6 is the bottom for this card, either. We’re on a good track, but in terms of a long-term spec I fully expect this to dip to $5, but with every tribal deck that can play blue, this should be one of the first inclusions. Not only does it trigger with tokens, there’s no size restriction (such as Temur Ascendancy or Garruk’s Uprising) and if you run out of things to play, then attack and draw some more cards! 

While I’m leaving out mention of most of the possible SL inclusions as FEA versions, there’s one Sliver that rises above the rest for me and deserves special mention: Hibernation Sliver. This stupid card is so dang backbreaking, as it allows Slivers to escape all sorts of situations. It’s an odd one, in that the original nonfoil from Stronghold is about $4 and the shiny Premium Deck version is a couple bucks more, but neither has a lot of copies online. This is the Sliver that every deck wants to have in play, an emergency exit in case of board wipe, and the one I’m going to buy up fast if it’s not reprinted.

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.

Watchtower

A Few Underpriced Modern Cards

Last week we evaluated the Pioneer metagame and highlighted a few cheap pick-up opportunities. Today, we’ll do the same level-setting exercise for Modern, Magic’s most popular competitive format. The Modern metagame has been fairly stable since Modern Horizon’s 2 (MH2), with new decks emerging slowly over time. This remained true even after Lurrus was banned in March 2022. While some decks got a little better/worse because of this change, nothing major completely fell out of the metagame. The format is very diverse, with certain decks clearly being top tier and others doing well but lacking the consistency to be dominant every week.

The format primarily features a combination of the following archetypes, along with others: Blue/Red Murktide Regent Decks; Four-Five Color Piles featuring Omnath; Hammer Time; Burn; Yawgmoth Combo; Amulet Titan; Living End; Crashing Footfalls; Death’s Shadow; Azorius Control; Archon of Cruelty Reanimator; and Rakdos Midrange.

That’s a lot of decks! While Modern organized play certainly doesn’t impact cards to anything close to the level that it used, cards like Murktide Regent or Seasoned Pyromancer show that competitive play still matters since they see virtually zero EDH play. With paper play coming back slowly, both at local shops and the “Return to the Pro Tour”, it is time to dive into some Modern competitive cards that may see gains in the near future.

After reviewing the currently top played cards in Modern, a few trends jump out. First, most top non-Modern Horizons 2 cards have either been reprinted at least once, are already expensive, or are commons/uncommons. I always avoid commons and tend to avoid uncommons, except in rare circumstances. Additionally, only a small number were recently re-printed in Double Masters 2022 (Wrenn and Six, Force of Negation, Pithing Needle, Supreme Verdict, Kolaghan’s Command). Based on these factors, for the moment I believe targeting key Modern Horizons 2 staples continues to be the easiest way to find success going forward. While many good options exist, here are three cards that I would specifically focus on:

Fury (Borderless Foil)
10 Most Frequently Played Card in Modern  
2 Most Frequently Played Creature in Modern  

Current Price: $60
Potential Price: $100 in 12 months
Confidence: 9/10
Disclosure: I own four copies

All the free creature spells from Modern Horizons 2 have done well. Of all creatures, they are #1 (Endurance), #2 (Fury), #4 (Subtlety), and #7 (Solitude). Grief is the least played but is still in the top 50 creatures at #45. Free spells are good, who knew!

Despite all being top modern cards, the price for the Foil-Extended Art (FEA) versions of each varies widely. Solitude was always expensive but I recently noticed that both Endurance and Subtlety foils recently jumped significantly. Fury FEAs have not yet jumped, but I think it’s only a matter of time, especially when factoring in its use in Legacy, where it’s the 12th most played creature. Legacy isn’t a huge factor these days, but that’s a lot of play and we all know Legacy players love bling. While some of the price gaps between the free creatures can partially be explained by some cards having more EDH play (Solitude, Endurance), I still think Fury will soon rise as supply continues to drain out of the market.

Dress Down (Pack Foil)
7 Most Frequently Played Card in Modern
6 Most Frequently Played Spell in Modern  

Current Price: $9
Potential Price: $20+ in 12 months
Confidence: 8/10
Disclosure: None

I was surprised that Dress Down is such a big part of the Modern metagame once again. Its use tends to ebb and flows depending on what other cards are being played – since it’s a reactive card. Currently, it’s seeing play in Murktide, Omnath, Azorius Control just to name a few. Typically, it’s played in both the main and sideboard. While trying to figure out what is the likely price trajectory for this card, I looked to find examples from Modern Horizon 1. No perfect analogy exists, but I do think it’s fairly similar to Archmage’s Charm. Both cards are blue and have strong competitive play patterns but little EDH play. Archmage’s Charm typically has an average of 3 copies in a deck, Dress down is normally only 2 copies, but it is in more decks overall due to its splashability.

When looking at Archmage’s Charm it started cheap and then slowly got expensive over time. Foils went from a low of $7 to over $60 at its absurd peak. Modern Horizons 2 has more foils in circulation compared to the original set, but that difference is likely baked into the price already. Dress Down set foils seem like the obvious choice compared to the sketch version, which I think are ugly, but maybe that’s just me. Also, regular foil versions are rarer. Non-foil versions could also do well here too, but supply remains fairly deep and its price could linger.

Urza’s Saga (Pack Version)   
16 Most Frequently Played Land in Modern  

Current Price: $30
Potential Price: $55 in 12 months
Confidence: 8/10
Disclosure: Own many copies  

Urza’s Saga has been discussed many times by many MTG Price commentators because it’s an exceptional card that is irreplaceable in the competitive Modern strategies that leverage it. Urza’s Saga is included in about 20% of Modern decks and is almost always run as four copies. But to add to this, it’s a powerful commander card that is featured in 70,000 decks on EDHREC.com and sees significant Legacy play to boot. I bring up this card again because the MH2 hype has faded and with it all the MH2 cards have retreated in price near their all-time lows. At some point supply will dry up on MH2, forcing prices to climb.

If you look at Force of Negation, the summer after its set release was the turning point towards its high of $100. I don’t know whether Urza’s Saga will be cheaper come the December holidays, but absent a reprint I’m very confident that it will be much higher than $30 come this time next year.  

Oko (@OkoAssassin) has been writing for MTGPrice since 2020 with a focus on competitive play and Magic Online. In his personal life Oko is a lawyer, father, ice-hockey player, runner, and PC gamer.

Casual Fridays

Double Feature, not Double Masters

I am remaining steadfast in my stance that I’m not going to let Double Masters 2022 get me. I still want to buy some staples, and frankly a lot of those staples, but the prices are going to trickle downwards for a while yet. My research has indicated that six months is new the sweet spot, at least for the basic versions of cards. We’ll see if this holds true to premium versions.

What came out six months ago? Innistrad: Double Feature! I especially love the Silver Screen foils from this set, and the massive multiplier for these cards indicates how little of the product was opened and how rare these foils are. Most of these cards have a pretty low supply, mainly due to the lack of interest in the cards, but also because the set had double the rares and mythics. Each card is that much rarer, and especially in foil.

Also, there were no Collector Boosters of Double Feature. No increased drop rates of anything. Just draft booster packs and 1-3 foil rares per box, the way Richard Garfield intended!

So here’s a list of the cards that have the right intersection of low price, good demand, and limited supply.

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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, ProTrader

Pro Trader: A Chicken in Every Pot, A Legend in Every Pack

Readers!
Dominaria United is coming eventually, and on the tenuous basis of one thing I heard, that there will be a Legendary creature in every pack of Dominaria United, I am going to do that whole speculative thing I do when I say “it’s a D&D set so buy Orcs” or whatever. It’s great because you don’t have to be right, you just have to have people who are also wrong buy the cards from you rather than from someone else.  If we are getting new Legendary stuff, and not just reprints of older Legendary creatures in new, premium borders (which is what I actually want) we could see some bold new additions to a kind of deck we haven’t seen much lately until it reappeared with Shrines – the 5 color, Legendary goodstuff deck. We have seen some even more instructive variants, so I will be looking for inspiration in 2 places – Kethis, the Hidden Hand decks and Reki, the History of Kamigawa. If people are going to use the Historic keyword again, it pays to know what a deck built around something Historic plays, and if those decks are to be bolstered by new printings, it pays to know what’s in them. I am imagining we can see quite a bit in the high synergy cards from those decks and go from there. Let’s take a look, shall we?

Kethis has a lot of goodies for us, and while they’re not all worth a look, one class of cards is – the cycle with all 3 copies represented in this Top 10.

Of those 5 spells, only Urza’s Ruinous Blast and Karn’s Temporal Sundering are worth even a dollar, which means there is financial opportunity because they’re cheap or no financial opportunity because they’re so cheap and have been the whole time. Short of printing a new Legendary creature that interacts with those spells better than with any other spells, the slight trickle of copies into a few niche decks hasn’t really excited the price of cards in a set where there are only 19 cards worth more than $2 and 7 of them are reprints. I like Temporal Sundering, though, actually.

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MAGIC: THE GATHERING FINANCE ARTICLES AND COMMUNITY