PROTRADER: A Million Modern Decklists

June 17, 2015 Corbin Hosler 7 Comments

I was lucky enough to be on the coverage team for Grand Prix Charlotte last weekend, and it was a hell of an event. I saw a bunch of Merfolk players in day two, I saw some really cool decks play out, and I saw a super healthy and diverse format at the biggest Modern event in four months.

There sure is a lot to take in from the event. We had seven distinct archetypes in the top eight, and even better is that several of them were absent from last weekend’s top eight at the Invitational. I know people get riled up over the Modern banlist and things like that, but it’s hard to look at Modern over the last two weeks and say it’s anything but an awesome format.

At least, that’s my take on it. So much so, in fact, that when I was typing up the decklists you can find here, I was amazed by just how deep the list went. We decided to post unique decklists going down to 64th place, and by my count, there are nearly 30 in that range. Absurd diversity.

So much so that when I submitted the piece to my partner-in-words Adam Styborski, I jokingly titled it “a million decklists.” We almost ran with that title on the coverage page, but while it didn’t quite make the cut there, it’s more than good enough as a title for today’s article.

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Going Mad

Going Mad – GP Charlotte Roundup

June 17, 2015 Derek Madlem 5 Comments

By: Derek Madlem

Another weekend, another event in the books. I forgot to mention in my last article that I would be working at the Aether Games booth for GP Charlotte this last weekend, so I’m telling you now: look for me at the Aether Games booth last weekend and make sure you say hello!

Grand Prix events are often where metagames are cemented into place. Sure, we had a double header last weekend with the SCG Open and the SCG Invitational both including Modern in their schedule; so we had a pretty good idea of what to expect this weekend. Let’s take a look at the decks and associated cards and see how they fared this weekend.

Amulet Bloom

There was a lot of talk last week about this deck being “just too good” and that there was sure to be a banning because it was so overpowering. Well I did some detective work and a little independent research of my own: it turns out this deck is actually borderline crap. If you take a look at the results of the GP, there is only a single copy in the top 32 decks. Furthermore, that deck was piloted by a guy who wins so often that they added the word “Insane” into his name to illustrate the point – Alexander “Insane” Hayne. If we’re being fair, he could have piloted a ham sandwich to top 32 with very little effort. I wouldn’t worry about the sky falling any time soon on this one.

Can it kill quickly? Sure, but you’re going to need to create your own starting hand – wait, that actually happened. This deck kills no faster and less consistently than Infect so expect a banning about the same time that we see Glistener Elf taken out of the format (0 Infect in top 32 FYI).

Tron

This was the deck to beat this weekend after it finished first in both the SCG Open last weekend AND the Invitational. Urza’s lands, Oblivion Stone, All is Dust, Karn Liberated, and Wurmcoil Engines were all extremely popular cards this weekend. You’ll see a low representation of these decks in the top 32 because the deck had a giant target on it’s back.

Expect prices on these cards, especially Oblivion Stone, to slow down a bit as most of the people that set out to build this deck have completed it and the lack of a top 8 finish is going to dull down the hype a little bit.

Crucible of Worlds is one of the peripheral cards associated with this deck that many players “rediscovered” this weekend. Aintrazi had two copies in his sideboard last weekend along with two additional Ghost Quarters for the mirror match. Combine that with the casual appeal of Strip Mine locking all your best friends in Commander and you have yourself a dual-threat winner.

Splinter Twin

This was expected to be a breakout weekend of the Splinter Twin decks, and it’s fair to argue that it was with two copies in the top 8 and eight of varying varieties in the top 32. Splinter Twin also has a unique relationship with it’s natural enemy Spellskite. One of my bosses pointed out this weekend that the two have seemed to form a symbiotic relationship, as one grows more popular the other does too. Expect these star crossed lovers to be entwined for a long time.

One of the clutch sideboard plays to see camera time this weekend was Cavern of Souls + Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir to lock out an opponent from interacting with your swarm of Pestermites or Deceiver Exarchs. Teferi has already been seen putting in work in last year’s “Blue Moon” deck so he’s likely a card to watch going forward. Time Spiral was not a huge printing and FTV: Legends printings can only stretch so far.

The other big winner from this deck is Snapcaster Mage, a long-term “obvious winner” for #mtgfinance heroes everywhere. StarCity has them listed at $99.99 now which is about as close to $100 as you can get without going over. I don’t know if this price is realistic or sustainable, but it’s there and if you didn’t listen to the dozens of finance wizards on this one, you probably missed out.

A word of caution: now is not the time to buy in on this target, it’s at or near it’s peak and it is clearly on Wizards’ radar as a reprint target.

Collected Company

Creature decks were long at the mercy of being required to play creatures at sorcery speed, opening a window for the combo players to “go off” without fear of you interacting. Collected Company allows these decks to play the “before the end of your turn” game just like the blue decks, shifting the balance and tempo of the match.

Chord of Calling is a card that’s success is going to depend on Collected Company just like it did before with Birthing Pod. While we don’t see any copies in the Naya Company decks, it is critical to the success of the Abzan Company and the Elves decks. The ability to search out silver bullets at instant speed is critical to the success of these decks. This card is already seeing movement, but it’s definitely not too late to hop on this bandwagon as there’s plenty of room to grow and it’s unlikely we’ll see another reprint on this any time soon.

Ezuri, Renegade Leader is another breakout winner from the elves deck. For far too long this guy has been teetering back and forth between being a $2 card and pure bulk… turns out that having a reusable Overrun on your person is a useful ability in an elves deck, especially with the help of Elvish Archdruid. Heritage Druid is another card from this deck that saw “speculation” hype take it above $20, but that train is running out of steam and it’s falling back down. This card is a pretty easy guess for ancillary products like Duel Decks, so I would only get what you absolutely need to play with.

Goryo’s Vengeance

If you didn’t see this one coming for the last year or so, then you haven’t been playing attention. Any time you can cheat fatty boom booms into play, you’re a lock for shenanigans. This card is exceptionally more powerful than most in this category because it works on Emrakul, a card that’s supposed to dodge reanimation with it’s shuffle effect.

Goryo’s Vengeance decks are likely tier 3 for the most part, but make it up by being tier 1 fun. If you have any doubt that this card has a cult-like following, just search #Griselbanned on Twitter and see the rabid salivating fans every time these cards show up on camera.

Griselbrand is definitely not the spec here, with 2,000+ of these Grand Prix promos being handed out every weekend (8,000 in Vegas), the supply is more than keeping up with demand right now. Nourishing Shoal is an interesting one, but this card has already spiked 2,000% so I can’t imagine this niche card in a sub-optimal build of a tier 2 deck is realistically priced at $10, but it’s definitely cute pitching a Worldspine Wurm or a Borborygmos Enraged to to gain some more life to draw more copies and repeat.

Speaking of which, Worldspine Wurm and Borborygmos haven’t even moved the dial on price changes, so if you’re feeling froggy and want to drop $10,000 soaking up all the copies of these cards available on the internet – have at it!

Affinity

Affinity is still Affinity. There’s always at least one copy of this deck that sneaks into the top 16 of a Modern event. It’s almost a mathematically probability that one of the million people playing this deck will get handed “can’t lose” pairings all day long and crack the top of the charts.

We’ve already established the winners in this deck right now: Inkmoth Nexus, Arcbound Ravagers, and Glimmervoids should be your first pickups if this is a deck that interests you as none of them made the reprint list in the latest iteration of Modern Masters. I wouldn’t go too crazy on these as one of the biggest draws of playing affinity (or burn) is that the deck is (was) inexpensive to build, so players of this strategy are notoriously cheap.

Rebounds

Tasigur, the Golden Fang appears to have bottomed out and will continue to show up in basically any deck that’s running black cards. As it turns out, one mana 4/5 creatures are pretty good. I still especially like FOILs of this card because they’re very modestly priced in the low $30s right now.

Monastery Mentor saw dark days in the past but has found his niche and is growing in popularity. This is another card I really like in FOIL due to the almost certainty that it will show up in Modern, Legacy, and even some Vintage going forward.

Expect a renewed interest in Legacy cards going forward as people take their “Modern Masters Money” and trade those cards into older formats. We saw this big time with the last Modern Masters, everything Legacy and Vintage related saw a surge in price as players traded away stacks of Modern Masters chaff for cards that they’d always hoped and dreamed for.

City of Traders, ProTrader, Unlocked ProTrader

UNLOCKED PROTRADER: Retrospective: GP Richmo…er, Charlotte. Whatever.

June 17, 2015 Travis Allen 5 Comments

By: Travis Allen

Every week for over a month, I’ve sat down to write my article, and while I had various ideas of what to cover (read: actually no ideas), I keep coming back around to Modern, as there’s been something both timely and worth discussing every time.

First it was the Modern Masters 2015 release and all that entailed, then last week it was looking into whether the set was bottoming out, and now this week it’s important we talk about the frenzy of activity leading up to Grand Prix Charlotte, and where things will go from here. If you’re sick of Modern cards, I apologize, but that’s simply where the money is this season. Don’t worry, it won’t be long before we’re in the two-month stretch where no card sees more than a five-percent change in value and I start submitting articles that are about the type of magic that involves top hats and rabbits.

What Spiked

Grand Prix Charlotte finished up Sunday evening with a big ol’ W for Elves (and Travis Woo). While that performance has moved the needle on several cards, like the now hilariously-costed Heritage Druid, decks all across the spectrum have been forcing out-of-stocks everywhere for the last two weeks. Before we get any deeper, let’s start with a top-32 breakdown of the event for reference. (Thanks to meposu of the MTGPrice forums for collecting the data.)

Abzan Company x4*
Jund x3
Burn x3*
Naya Company x3
Affinity x2*
Grixis Twin x2
U/R Twin x2**
G/R Tron x2
Temur Twin x2 (lower than other twin lists)
Elves x1*
Ad Nauseum x1*
Goryo’s vengeance x1*
Abzan(No Company) x1
Grixis Control x1
Grixis Delver x1
Lantern Control x1
U/B Faeries x 1
Amulet Bloom x1
* indicates top 8

While it didn’t manage to top eight, Jund led the pack on price spikes. It started with Olivia Voldaren, which climbed from around $5 to a price tag of nearly $15 at time of writing. Huntmaster of the Fells was next, with similar behavior. What’s most notable about these two is that Olivia was typically a one- or two-of at most, and Huntmaster doesn’t even make it into all lists. When these spikes were just beginning and word was spreading on Twitter, I began wondering if we were entering a frenzy. When cards that see minor play in a single format are selling out, it means the market is extremely bullish. It’s happened once or twice in Modern before, most recently last year ahead of another major Modern Grand Prix: Richmond. More on that later.

Jund didn’t just affect Olivia and Huntmaster, though. We saw Blackcleave Cliffs double to $10 and Raging Ravine triple to $10. Abrupt Decay gained a few percentage points. MPR copies of Terminate have risen considerably. Inquisition of Kozilek doubled to $15. Despite a Modern Masters 2015 reprint, Fulminator Mage has stopped falling in price entirely, and is in fact climbing.

The Goryo’s Vengeance deck has been responsible for quite a few spikes itself. After making top eight, the eponymous card rapidly climbed to $25. Nourishing Shoal, an obscure Kamigawa card that is undoubtedly sitting in bulk bins everywhere, is still trying to find a steady price in the $10 region, up from pennies. As I write this, Through the Breach hasn’t sold out yet, but I can’t find a copy at a single internet dealer, and there are only a handful on TCGPlayer. If it still hasn’t spiked by the time this goes live, I’m guessing someone will buy the last ten copies on the internet.

I could list card spikes for another five or six paragraphs. Deceiver Exarch, Disrupting Shoal, Ezuri, Renegade Leader, Oblivion Stone, Kitchen Finks… frankly, I don’t want to link them all. Just go look at the largest gains over the two weeks and you’ll see everything that’s doing well. A rising tide lifts all boats, and in the world of Magic, coastal towns are building levees as fast as possible.

What May Spike

How about what hasn’t spiked? The list is a lot shorter than it was two weeks ago, that’s for sure. I mentioned before that Heritage Druid has a jaw-dropping price tag of nearly $20 right now. While this uncommon has skyrocketed, Nettle Sentinel has quietly sat by, barely budging. It’s a common, which may cause you to wonder just how high it could possibly rise, but I’m not too worried about that. If an uncommon from Morningtide can hit $20, a set almost undoubtedly opened more than Eventide, why can’t a common reach $5 or $10? Sentinel is just as important in both the Modern and Legacy Elves builds. At $1 apiece, I have a strong suspicion that this is still well undervalued. Full disclosure: I may buy some by the time this article goes live.

In the same deck, Chord of Calling still speaks to me. It’s not going to see any dramatic movements in the near future, but it’s guaranteed to be a gainer over the next year or two. I’ve got a stack of thirty or forty and I wouldn’t hesitate to add to it if the right deal shows up.

Over in the Ad Nauseam deck, I’m a big fan of Spoils of the Vault. It’s an instant-speed black tutor. Sort of. The cost is high, but in a deck that’s either invincible, has a very high life total, or is searching for a four-of, it can be just what the pilot needs. We’ve all seen what happens to rares from the Mirrodin era when the demand is on, so at a $1 buy-in, this is low risk with an extremely high reward. What’s particularly appealing is just how cheap Ad Nauseam is to build right now. The deck has basically no real value in it. There’s a few Pact of Negations, sure, but that’s about it. Several of the rares required to function were printed in the first Modern Masters run, hampering their price tags severely. Even the mana base is extremely cheap for a Modern deck. When there aren’t any expensive cards in a powerful deck, there’s typically one or two that steps up. The same thing happened with Living End, and we could see it here. I’m in for a stack.

Back on the other side of the color wheel, I’m a bit surprised Scavenging Ooze is still around $5. I think we’re getting close to the end of that. This is a card less poised for a dramatic rise rather than simply gaining five percent week after week, a sign of steady public demand. This will reach $10—it’s just a matter of how long it will take. I’m dubious it’s the best place to park your money, as I think there are faster options out there, but at the very least, it’s safe.

A UB Faeries deck showed up in the top 32, an archetype that’s been remarkably quiet since the unbanning of Bitterblossom. Of all things contained within, Mutavault is my favorite card. This crashed extremely hard after its run in Mono-Blue and Mono-Black last year, from $30 to $10 today. Mutavault remains possibly the strongest manland ever printed, and I have no doubt this will continue to rise in value over the coming months, same as Scavenging Ooze. If you want foils, now is the time to act.

What Will Happen to the Spikes

All of this discussion so far is just a review of effects without consideration of the cause. Why did the entire Modern index jump so strongly? Is it all speculator buyouts (it’s not) or is it real demand? Will prices rise through the PreTQ season? Will they drop once Battle for Zendikar rolls around?

I’ll begin with an idea from my article scratchpad. I never got around to writing this particular piece, but it’s been sitting there staring at me since last summer.

I can still explain my thought process here a year after writing it down.

It was a few months after Grand Prix Richmond had occurred. Prior to Richmond, Modern prices were in a tizzy. The war drums were beating and the market hordes were marching. Check out some of these price spikes, all happening within a few weeks of the GP.

Those are all on the same time scale, highlighting that each saw major gains at the same time. In four months, when we look back at the price graphs for Olivia, Oblivion Stone, and Deceiver Exarch, it’s going to look the same.

What we’re seeing is that a major Modern GP, heavily publicized and run by a grade-A organizer ahead of a Modern season, is a huge catalyst for price changes. In other words, GP Charlotte is GP Richmond, simply one year later. Same organizer, same marketing. Last year it was a Modern PTQ season, this time it’s a Modern PreTQ season. Card trends before, during, and after Richmond should prove to be predictive of this year’s. One of the best resources available to financiers in any market, whether Magic or Wall street, is history. Those who don’t study it are Dr. Doom. Or something.

Look back at that idea I had scribbled down. The first third of it is that single events—in this case, Richmond and Charlotte—drive prices wild. The second third is that seasons—PTQ or PreTQ—apply less pointed pressure. What do I mean by that? Well, just look at those price graphs. All of the spikes are occurring right around the GP. Once you get out into May, there’s basically none. If the green chart is distracting, check out the blue buylist line. That’s a great indicator of market demand, and there are no jumps after the spring.

I’ve got more examples too, these more stark.

Birthing Pod was the deck to beat last year. There isn’t much contest to this claim: after a summer of dominance it was banned this past January. The card Birthing Pod, the entire engine of a to-be-banned Modern deck, the best deck in the format, couldn’t hold a price tag north of $10 through the PTQ season. And Scalding Tarn, after rocketing north of $100 ahead of the GP, continued to dwindle in price. Today it is $60, half of its former glory.

Birthing Pod and Scalding Tarn were two major, major staples in Modern at the time. The Grand Prix drove their numbers up, but the PTQ season was unable to sustain those new prices. They both subsequently sunk in price over the following months. The other cards I highlighted—Cryptic Command, Splinter Twin, etc.—did not suffer so dire a fate through the summer, though their prices were also moved by a single event rather than a PTQ season.

The point I’m making right now is that while conventional wisdom seems to be that competitive seasons cause price movement, our evidence from last year doesn’t support that, and neither does the evidence this year. Last year, it seems that all of the spikes happened ahead of a GP, and then either remained stagnant or even fell after the fact. This year, we’ve seen a truckload of price spikes, probably more than last year.

What’s our takeaway, then? Well, if history is any indication, it’s that we’re sitting at the top of the market right now. Modern staples will generally remain stagnant or even decrease in the next four months.

You may find this at odds with my article from last week, the tl;dr of which was that MM2 prices have probably already hit their floor and are beginning to rebound. This claim regarding MM2 does not clash with this week’s lesson. We’re essentially looking at two different halves of the market. Last week’s half of the market is all the brand new cards that were hit by reprints. Those are basically unable to spike, burdened as they are with supply. That’s the bottom of the Modern market. Prices have gotten as low as they can, and now they’ll begin slowly growing, and will continue to do so for months and months. The other half of the market is made up of the cards not reprinted. The Eternal Witnesses and the Goryo’s Vengeances. These were the cards ready and willing to be bought out. Now that that’s happened, they will remain mostly stagnant, with only minor fluctuations in price between now and September.

We should seek practical application of this information. Given the trajectory of so many of last year’s hot Modern cards, I don’t believe we’ll see many more price spikes this year. I’d say a good 80 percent or more of them have occurred already. We may see a few here and there, possibly in part due to Origins ramifications, but for the most part, if a card was going to see a dramatic rise in price this year, it has already happened. Furthermore, don’t expect prices on cards that have changed to change much more. Goryo’s Vengeance isn’t going to end up much further than where it is today. Nor will Olivia or Oblivion Stone or Blackcleave Cliffs.

If you’ve got any of these cards that have spiked, don’t feel bad about selling them. I’ve got several sets of Raging Ravine I’ll be listing shortly. While I believe they could potentially hit $20—look at Celestial Colonnade and Creeping Tar Pit—it could be months before that happens, and if the metagame swings back towards Abzan from Jund, it may not be before a reprint. I’m happy to take my profits and move on to greener pastures. Same for any of these cards that have spiked, and really, any Modern product at all that has seen generous increases recently. Is it possible there’s still considerable growth possible on any given card? Sure, but how likely is it, how long will it take, and how valuable is the money to you right now?

Snap Decision

Where I stand most starkly in contrast to the rest of the entire analytic field is Snapcaster Mage. Every person on Twitter is talking about how safe he is, how high his price could possibly rise, and just how far out of the park they’re going to hit this home run. While I don’t necessarily disagree with any of this, I am more bearish than my contemporaries.

Those price charts on Birthing Pod and Scalding Tarn scare me. Scalding Tarn especially, because I was there. I had ten or fifteen Tarns that I didn’t sell because I was hoping to eke a few extra dollars out of them over the summer. Rather than increase through the PTQ season, they dropped, and I ultimately sold most at around $60. Considering I could have been getting $100, and I had at least ten, that’s a solid $400 in lost profit that serves as a vivid reminder not to get greedy.

When I look at Snapcaster, I see red flags. Take a look at Snapcaster’s price chart.

And now, here’s Scalding Tarn’s chart, stopping just two weeks after Richmond last year.

Those are damn similar graphs. Of course, all graphs of cards rising in price are going to be fairly similar: the line gets higher as you go right. Still, I can’t shake the feeling that Snapcaster may retract in the coming weeks or months. Plenty of people are going to tell me I’m crazy, and that there’s no reason for Snap to drop. He’s played in a bunch of formats, there’s been steady price growth, there are no immediate avenues for reprints. None of this is incorrect. Of course, the same could all have been said about Scalding Tarn last April, and look where that ended up.

I haven’t decided what I’m going to do with my own Snaps yet. I’m looking to have some of my peers read this article and then have a conversation. Do we sell Snap now, at $75, and walk away happy? Do we hold out for $100 or more this year? It’s very easy to say that his price isn’t done growing and that there’s more profits on the horizon. That’s what everyone wants to hear. It’s a lot harder to say that this spike is not permanent and that if you don’t sell now you’re going to lose $20 on each copy.

How about you? Are you selling your Modern spec stock? Holding? There’s a comment section below—use it.

Jason Alt, ProTrader, Unlocked ProTrader

UNLOCKED PROTRADER: Gods and Generals, Part 2

June 17, 2015 Jason Alt 2 Comments

By: Jason Alt

Remember when I was going to do an article about the 15 Theros block gods and then when I started writing I only managed to cover five of them in a 3,300 word span? That was pretty crazy. If you don’t remember, what the hell is wrong with you? This is the first article you’re reading? You just clicked on a title that said “Part 2,” which is akin to saying, “You don’t need to see Highlander 1 to understand Highlander 2 and Highlander 2 is my favorite movie,” and of course you like Highlander 2: you’re a moron. Go back and read the first part. Good grief.

So now either you read part one last week or you took me admonishing you in stride and went and checked out part one before coming back. That’s good. Let’s sally forth, shall we? We’re going to talk about some multicolored gods today and I am planning on getting through either five or ten of them. I figure I can shave off some words by not having to reintroduce the topic and explain my point ratings this week, but if I only make it to five, it’s because I had a lot to say about each one. Look, people, I’m not paid by the word, I over-write as a labor of love and sometimes I have a lot to say about a topic. We ready to jump in and look at the golden gods? Let’s do the dirty.

Let’s start with the Gods of the Born of the variety and see how far we get. We could end up with a part three next week. Sorry about all the value.

Ephara, God of the Polis

“F@#& the Polis!”

–Everyone

Okay, remember when I said that the $1 being paid for Heliod established a floor for dealers who were not going to offer less than $1 for a legendary mythic god? Guess they haven’t gotten the memo that they’re paying $0.79 currently for a god that peaked at $15. Japanese players concocted a wacky UW deck that made good use of all of the card draw. An EDH deck with Brago could really get there with Ephara, drawing extra cards, and she could be at the helm of her own deck, chock full of token producers and cards like Mistmeadow Witch. It says “each upkeep,” guys. It scales up to get better in multiplayer.

So why don’t EDH players seem to care? For one thing, they have Consecrated Sphinx and Rhystic Study that aren’t a pain to get an advantage from.

Want to hear the good news? This card likely can’t get cheaper. If this hits $1 or lower at rotation, it’s so low-risk to scoop a handful of copies that it’s not funny. I am a 3/5 at $1ish at rotation since this card has real potential. It’s in awkward colors for creatures, but not for enter-the-battlefield shenanigans. Is drawing a card every upkeep because you have a Deadeye Navigator and Stonehorn Dignitary lock the good part of that situation or is no one ever attacking the good part? Hard to say. I am not nuts about this card for much other than its price, though.

What? This is a $10 to $12 foil. That’s really surprising considering how tepid the EDH community seems to be about this card. It’s certainly played as a commander and googling “Ephara EDH” shows pages of results. I think that this is too expensive, though, and maybe Ephara is establishing the price floor for the buylist value on a foil the way Heliod seemed to for non-foil.

If I could pay the $5 dealers are paying now, I’d give this a 4/5 at rotation. I’m not sure that’s a possibility, but you never know. I think this has upside, especially in foil, and buying in at dealer price is always a good call. Foils aren’t going to fall as much at rotation, but I also think its current price may not be the ceiling, especially since it’s been flat for so long with no help from Standard.

Karametra, God of Harvests

This feels about right to me. It’s not useful at all in Standard (often called the worst of the 15, in fact), but it’s fun in EDH and useful both as a general and as an inclusion in the 99. Karametra is only starting to see some of her vast potential tapped.

Does Karametra have upside at its current price? Potentially, but dealers have backed off and we see a large spread here for such a reasonable card. Still, the dealer price is about at rock bottom and we’ve seen Karametra’s price demonstrate the ability to spike a dollar for seemingly no reason. I am a 4/5 on these if they hit $1 or lower at rotation. This could be a $5 card pretty easily in a few years.

I have literally no idea what’s going on here. The spread is increasing in the non-foil version but the spread is shrinking (though it appears cyclical) in foil. The price has been just about flat for a year, which is odd given how useful Karametra is as a (tier 11) general. I expected this to go for more than Ephara, and not only is it going for less, we’re seeing practically no price movement, which means practically no sales.

The fact that no one else seems super excited about the foils makes me not super jazzed. I’m like a 1/5 at its current price and a 2/5 at its current buylist price and a 3/5 at its January buylist price. This could be a $20 foil, but it could take a very long time to get there based on what we’re seeing now. I’m a little surprised all the hype surrounding this card is not doing more, but we may be seeing a regional bias in my experience. Ephara is showing better behavior than Karametra is and I’m basing my analysis on the numbers, not anecdata. I think Karametra could be better than the community is giving it credit for, but I think Ephara is showing better upside.

Mogis, God of Slaughter

Okay, this is confusing, too.

Mogis‘s price is behaving like it’s not useless in Standard, but that’s not the case. It’s a fun EDH general to be sure, but this is going for Purphoros money right now and Purphoros it is not. Dealers are backing off and we’re seeing a rapid increase in the spread, but only to where it should be. For a while, this was a high-value, low-spread card and that indicates a lot of EDH play. That indicates a lot of upside as well.

Given that it’s currently feeling overpriced yet not getting a ton of its value from Standard play, I don’t know what rotation is going to do to this card. Probably something, since people who are rotating their stock tend to do so at rotation and will dump these out of the binders they’ve sat in for a year. Still, with its EDH utility making up the bulk of its price and EDH not rotating, this could barely budge. I think this has some mild upside at its current price, but not a ton. I’m a 1/5 currently, but if this starts to approach where the buylist price is now, I’ll jack that to a 4/5. This has real upside if the current numbers are to be believed.

He’s certainly a good commander, but interestingly, I don’t know how much I like him in the 99 a ton of the time. It’s not like anyone was really playing Blood Clock in EDH before. Full disclosure: I don’t know Mogis’s foil price and I’m going to check it next so we’ll discover it together. I’m predicting it will be pretty high since Mogis is mostly good as a general.

Annnnnnnd the foil is lower than I predicted. All of the Born of the Gods foil gods are practically the same price so far. That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me, frankly. Let’s do some analysis and try to get to the heart of what’s going on before we move on to the last two from this set.

There is a lot of variance in the gods’ non-foil prices, which appears to be meritocratic. The foils have a price that says to me “supply is very low” and the modicum of demand for each one is making $12 just about the minimum price based on low supply and non-zero demand. Enough non-foil copies exist to sate demand, but enough foils do not. We expected that: not a ton of Born of the Gods was opened and prices have been a bit wacky. With the price of a foil god seeming to be enforced by supply more than demand—but demand not being high enough to push it outside the weird “$10 to $15 zone” or low enough to make it tail off toward nothing—we’re seeing a pretty predictable price for gods from this set. I don’t anticipate that for gods from the next set nor for Xenagos, which has hella demand.

As for Mogis, I think there is not a ton of upside at his current price. If he falls at rotation, I may go as high as 3/5 for the foil, but with low supply propping up the price, it’s hard to gauge where it should be and guess how long it will take to get there. I think its current price is where-ish it should be, and I don’t know how much upside there is from there.

Phenax, God of Deception

If you’re surprised by Phenax being worth more than $2, you must not know any casual players. If you’re surprised by it being less than $5, you must be me. I’m surprised. I realize this isn’t very good in EDH because who wants to mill 300 cards when it’s so much easier to deal 63 damage? Plus, other players are attacking, so you want to get on board so you’re not the only one pursuing that angle. Still, mill is a thing in EDH (though not to a great extent) and this is the general to use if you’re going that route. I think this card’s price is predicated more on casual than EDH. Why do I say that?

Just a hunch.

Mill will always be a thing for casual players, and they aren’t restricted to one copy of Phenax, so that gives him considerable upside compared to an EDH-specific god. Not only that, but this is the only god that helps mill strategies, which means it has an edge over the others. As it stands, I hate it at its current price, but I’m a 4/5 if it falls even halfway to its current buylist price. This card has real upside, is hard to blow us out with a reprint like we saw with Mind Funeral, and I think sellers will move more than one copy at a time. This isn’t a terribly EDH-y call, but there you have it.

See, this only adds more fuel to my hypothesis! Why should a card that’s not played as an EDH general much be the exact same price as the others? And look how flat the price is, like all the others. What we’re seeing is what we hypothesized earlier.

You won’t be super surprised to hear that all the factors we discussed earlier about Mogis plus the fact that this is a bad commander (though not unplayable) means I am not bullish at all at this, even at a much cheaper price. I don’t know how much upside the foil has, so while I’m like a 4/5 on the non-foil, I’m a 1/5 on the foil. Buy in if you want, but it’s a high buy-in price and it hasn’t demonstrated any ability to get there in the future. I’d rather buy foil Nemesis of Reason, personally. Stay away, but just know that mill will always be at least attempted and the non-foil has upside.

Xenagos, God of Revels

Now we’re hitting another money god, this set’s Purphoros. How am I going to like him at his current price?

Lots. I like him lots. Not only is he an auto-win with Prossh, he’s a solid roleplayer in the 99 and also a good general in a deck full of big, stupid hydras. He’s even a good general for a deck full of creatures with infect. Boom.

He’s also pretty reasonable, price-wise. Under $5? I am bullish on this guy already. Dealers appear to be, as well, because despite a flat retail price, the spread is shrinking. Will the buy price be close to where it is now at rotation? Will Xenagos not fall at all? All I know is that this card has real upside and I like it about a 4/5 at its current buylist price, which may be about where it is at rotation, honestly. Xenagos is the second-best god we’ve reviewed so far, his price is very reasonable (reflecting real upside, especially coupled with a dip at rotation), and he puts in work. Lots of people are focusing on how cheap the planeswalker Xenagos is, but ignore this guy at your peril. He’s godly.

This card has a little bit more value than the other four in this set, but not as much more as you’d think. The spread is very low, but we’re seeing the same phenomenon for all of the gods: the price doesn’t seem to reflect the non-foil price (and therefore demand) as much as we’d hope and they’re all within a few bucks of each other irrespective of popularity of playability. That’s cool! The spread is so low right now that I almost want to say buylist price is more than I want to pay, but I think this foil has some upside, especially since it’s such a cool commander.

See You for Part Three

There you have it. I didn’t write quite as much as last week (and it’s wasn’t as humorous—sorry), but I still don’t have room to cover the last five gods. Honestly, these gods all shared some attributes and it took us a bit of work to uncover what was going on. And having a part three lets us delve into what’s unique about the last five gods.

I’ll be back at it in just a few days, so let’s get some conversation going in the comments section and wrap this little exercise up next week, in plenty of time to get ready for rotation. Until then!

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