Dragons of Tarkir First Impressions

March 9, 2015 Jared Yost 4 Comments

By: Jared Yost

We’ve gotten plenty of spoilers so far, so let’s take a look at what the new set is going to offer us for Standard and beyond.

Mechanics – Megamorph

What is this, Yu-Gi-Oh? Come on Wizards, we knew what would happen when you put that on cards. It would be the first thing that popped into those Yugioh players’ heads that you’re trying to convert to Magic. Clever, very clever.

Besides the Yugioh conversion implications, the name unfortunately does not live up to the hype when crossed over to the Magic world. The only difference between Morph and Megamorph is that it places a +1/+1 counter on the creature when you turn it face up. That’s it. Not double its power, double its toughness, give it some crazy new ability that we haven’t seen before… Nope, we’re just going back to old reliable (+1/+1 counters) in order to “balance limited”. Look, I’m not bashing the mechanic here – I actually think it is brilliant in it’s simplicity and flows well with the tie-in to the other sets of the block. But did you have to waste such an awesome name like Megamorph on something that only marginally changes the game at best? Let’s look at two of the better Megamorphs that we’ve seen so far to show some examples.

Among the first Megamorphs revealed, Stratus Dancer is not something I would imagine as being “very large”, “huge”, or “extremely” morphed. Many of the cards with Megamorph are similarly underwhelming from a flavor standpoint. Looking through some of the first revealed commons and uncommons will show this.

Now financially speaking, Dancer itself has price breakout potential. I’m sure most of you reading this remember when Mono-Blue Devotion was one of the top decks in Standard. The card is quite an efficient beater and will perform exceptionally well in blue aggro decks. Outside of Tidehollow Strix, this is the best standalone 2/1 flyer for 1U (or UB) that Wizards has ever printed. And it has an upside! If you draw it late in the game and already have some flyers to get in and hit your opponent, you can play it as a Morph creature and then have a counter backup for any board wipes, or other nasty instants or sorceries, that your opponent throws at your dudes.

I don’t think we’re going to see a mono-colored blue aggro deck in Wedge Khans Standard, but stranger things happened and right now I can’t rule it out completely. Losing Nykthos hurts later when Theros rotates yet until then it could see a resurgence due to cards like Shorecrasher Elemental. Luckily, the card costs 1U and not UU which doesn’t rule it out from U/X or X/u Aggro decks in Standard. If a blue (or even blue splash) aggro deck does break out and this card appears as a playset in it, the price has a good chance of spiking short term. Stratus Dancer will be one of the Megamorph cards I’ll be watching.

Speaking of Megamorph, Shorecrasher Elemental seems pretty good in the Nykthos devotion blue I mentioned. Master of Waves is looking great to me right now to work along with Shorecrasher, and not just for Standard. The Modern applications of this card are also pretty interesting. It can dodge the spot removal in the format pretty easily and can buff itself up to block Siege Rhino’s if necessary. Playing one or two Shorcrashers in Modern Merfolk could help bolster the power of the deck.

Mechanics – Exploit

A more aptly named mechanic, Exploit allows you to do something powerful when a creature enters the battlefield by sacrificing a creature (even the creature with the Exploit mechanic). The marquee card spoiled with Exploit was Sidisi, Undead Vizier.

This card seems decent to me. It should have a home in Standard, as a one or two of in Sidisi-Whip or a new archetype that spawns based on Dragons, in order to make the most of Exploit by sacrificing a token or other creature like Satyr Wayfinder in order to Demonic Tutor for whatever you need at the moment. At worst, it is a five mana Demonic Tutor. Not awful but not that great either. I’m going to wait for more cards to roll in from Dragons before making a final judgment. Suffice to say, not worth pre-ordering at $5 a copy.

Cards – Allied Commands

At least the blue commands were revealed first, as everyone would be left wondering if there would be a command printed to rival the power of Cryptic Command in Modern. Unfortunately, Ojutai’s Command was so close but contained the word “creature” as Saffron Olive pointed out. If Ojutai’s Command could counter any spell, then we could be talking about a potentially game changing Command. As it stands, yes it is still quite powerful yet it will not have the impact in Modern that everyone was hoping for. In terms of Standard, the card is quite good though we’ll have to wait and see where it is played. Something to keep in mind is that it is also the buy-a-box promo, which usually means that Wizards thinks it will see plenty of Standard play.

Silumgar’s Command costs five mana, which is a letdown. That is a huge difference in formats like Modern and will prevent the card from being played as a playset in decks in Standard. However, Silumgar’s Command is powerful for what it does. Its modes can allow you to handle almost any board state in addition to being able to counter key noncreature spells. I like it, though again I feel that its price is limited due to the fact that it costs five and will not be played extensively across all decks.

Atarka’s Command feels Modern playable to me. Burn decks already splash green for sideboard hate like Ancient Grudge and Nature’s Claim, so having another version of Skullcrack opens up more options for them. The other two modes for Burn don’t seem that great but we have to keep in mind that this command only costs two mana – definitely the cheapest command we’ve ever seen. I will be watching Atarka’s Command very closely to see where it goes.

Cards – Dragons!

The Elder Dragons in the set are all good in their own way, though I believe that Silumgar has the highest chance of seeing Standard play due to his Sower of Temptation ability of taking a creature or planeswalker from your opponent. Dromaka, Kolaghan, Atarka, and Ojutai are definitely casual hits but their effects aren’t quite as great as Silumgar in constructed.

Atarka would be my next guess at a constructed playable card, as it has an immediate impact on the game state by Bogardan Hellkite-ing the field. In addition, Atarka could also be played before turn seven due to the ramping nature of green. Though I hate to underrate Kolaghan, six mana is a ton for a finisher. Stormbreath and other cheaper dragons with haste seem much better suited as options. Lastly, Dromoka and Ojutai seem the least favorable to me from a Standard perspective. They are powerful yet don’t have an immediate impact on the board.

Cards – Planeswalkers!

Sarkhan Unbroken has been the most exciting planeswalker reveal. Shown on Friday at PAX East, the crowd oohed and awed in anticipation of seeing the card. They clapped and clamored profusely as each ability was revealed. As the final, ultimate ability of Sarkhan was finally revealed there was a roar from the crowd and thunderous applause for several seconds afterwards. I can say that this reception was justified.

The foil prices on Sarkhan are going to be absurd. Yes, he is going into every five color dragons Commander deck out there. Yes, he is also good in Standard and will be played in Temur decks for the foreseeable future. Yes, even the non-foils will be driven higher in price by the demand that casual players will place on the walker in addition to the tournament demand he will see. My advice though is just hold on for a little while and let the preorder honeymoon prices dwindle. You wouldn’t want to pay too much for Sarkhan, would you?

Narset Transcendent, while not receiving the type of fanfare that Sarkhan received, is still an awesome planeswalker in her own right. She is the control planeswalker that control decks have been wishing for all this time. She is to control as Domri was to aggro. Yes, she costs one more mana but for control decks it will be totally worth it. Again, like Sarkhan wait for the initial hype to die down, and then pick up copies.

I can see Narset being played in U/W/r Jeskai in Modern, or even Legacy if she proves powerful enough over the coming months. Control can more easily stack the top of their deck in these formats and her +1 ability is powerful alongside cards like Serum Visions or Brainstorm. Also, imagine rebounding Lightning Helix, Path to Exlie, Swords to Plowshares, Lightning Bolt, Brainstorm, etc. Seems like a ton of card advantage to me.

More to Come

As the previews keep rolling out for Dragons of Tarkir, I will continue to keep my eye on any further cards that add or detract from the previews that have been revealed so far. There have been lots of great cards spoiled and the set release is getting my very excited for the end of March! Which cards have you been anticipating from the new set?

Casual Fridays

Prepare Your Wallet

March 6, 2015 Cliff Daigle 8 Comments

By: Cliff Daigle

It’s going to be an expensive summer.

First of all, there’s going to be a very short window in which to buy Dragons of Tarkir cards. This will be under-opened in proportion to other big spring sets, like Rise of the Eldrazi and Avacyn Restored. Those sets were 6-of or 3-of for Sealed or Draft respectively, whereas Fate Reforged is still part of Dragons of Tarkir limited events.

Let’s return to our fictional LGS, where they do one FNM draft per week with exactly eight people, and look at the packs opened during the three ‘seasons’ of Khans block:

Season 1: Triple Khans	24 Khans/week X 12 weeks	288 packs of Khans
Season 2: FRF-KTK-KTK	8 Fate Reforged/week16 Khans/week	94 packs of FRF192 packs of Khans
Season 3: FRF-DTK-DTK	8 Fate Reforged/week16 Dragons of Tarkir/week	94 packs of FRF192 packs of Dragons

Totals: 480 packs of Khans of Tarkir, 192 packs of Fate Reforged, and 192 of Dragons of Tarkir.

From a ratio standpoint, we have a 5:2:2 ratio, meaning that Fate Reforged and Dragons of Tarkir will have been opened less than half as much as Khans of Tarkir! Keep in mind that Dragons is a big set, with more potential mythics and rares.

Let me repeat myself, so you can see the severe disparity in packs opened. For three months, we drafted triple Khans. For three months after that, we drafted two packs of Khans, giving us a very large supply of Khans cards. We are about to have three months where just two packs of DTK are opened, and that three months is going to be reduced by some amount, depending on how much time stores and players give to Modern Masters in May.

Modern Masters 2015 is released on May 22, a mere two months after Dragons of Tarkir arrives. If all events switch from Dragons to MM for that month, we reduce the third season’s numbers by a third, and have a ration of 480:161:130, or about a 4 : 1.2 : 1 ratio. That’s the worst-case scenario for doing DDF events, the reality is going to fall somewhere between that and the 5:2:2 ratio.

It seems unlikely that all stores will have enough product and enough interest to run a full month of Modern Masters events, but if there is enough money and enough hype around this set, Dragons might be the most chase of sets. Investing in singles from this set is likely to pay off well.

The analogy last year would be how Theros – Born of the Gods – Journey into Nyx drafting was impacted by Conspiracy. Even if it’s just a couple of weeks, a month tops, that’s a big chunk of already short time, and money that’s being spent elsewhere. I would imagine that Magic Origins will be drafted thoroughly (more on that in a moment) so don’t expect to have some drafts taken away from a boring set and given to the slightly older format.

The urge to pick up Dragons of Tarkir singles will be with me at all times, but especially this spring leading into summer. This is a big, ally-colored, powerful set, with cards that will be relevant for their entire Standard lives, which will end in fall of 2016. I fully expect to be trading for lots of these and buying a few too. I’m even thinking about pre-ordering some of these…no, wait, I won’t.

I’ll reiterate this piece of advice: Preordering is only good if you have to have a card for the first week that it’s legal, or if you’re 100% sure that the card is going to have immediate and thorough impact in Constructed. Most of the preorder speculation you do will not be profitable, as card prices drop.

Dragons of Tarkir might be different, but probably not. We will see. The small quantity and small window has me wondering. Imagine if there were 40% less Hero’s Downfall, or Siege Rhino out there! The Rhino might be a $25 or $30 card. As the spoilers emerge, we’ll have to be on the lookout.

In just a couple of months, we have Modern Masters 2015 dropping. At $10 a pack, this is going to bust your wallet into pieces. There’s going to be more of this printed than in 2013, and there’s already a markup involved…but that’s not going to stop stores from having $45 drafts.

I am leery of buying packs/boxes for value, but this will especially be true for MM2015 packs. I’m reserving judgement on what I’ll do until I know more of the set, but there is going to have to be TREMENDOUS value in the cards to make cracking packs worth it.

Plus, that value will have to stay high even as those super-valuable packs are cracked! The low print run and increased demand of new Modern players meant that cards like Vendilion Clique, Dark Confidant, and Tarmogoyf didn’t lose value (and went up in some cases!)

Perhaps this will be the fabled “No bad cards” set. Even the first Modern Masters had the Kamigawa dragons as a mythic cycle, so we will see what Wizards does to make four packs of this have the same MSRP as a From the Vaults set. Maybe we get the Praetor cycle, but those values would take quite a hit, likely losing half their value or more.

(As an aside, I know that MSRP is not a rule, especially for the FTV sets, but it’s still a number Wizards attaches to products.)

Next, we have Magic Origins in July. Not just any Core Set, apparently, and they wanted to avoid all the ‘M16’ jokes.

So far, we know that Nissa, Gideon, Jace, Liliana, and Chandra are getting the attention. We have been told that ten worlds will be featured, two for each planeswalker: an origin world and the first plane they went to.

I’ll talk more about those worlds soon, but we have it confirmed that Nissa’s home of Zendikar will be among the locales. It seems quite possible that the enemy fetches will be in Origins!

Since the ally fetches were spoiled in Khans, it’s been a matter of when, not if, the Zendikar ones would be reprinted. What a way for the Core Sets to go, with this one having Scalding Tarn and its brethren.

It’s been pointed out in several places that putting the fetchlands in a set will guarantee high sales, and that’s true, but Wizards has evolved its model to not need the summer set to be the big seller. There’s also the philosophy that Standard doesn’t need to have all ten fetches legal at the same time. Both of these feel true, but I’m aware that Wizards’ logic is not laways the same as mine.

I would advocate selling/trading your extra Zendikar fetches soon, no matter what set they are reprinted in they will take a hit. Keep the ones in your Commander deck, keep a set for Eternal play, and move the rest. Don’t get caught with excess stock when the spoiler hits.

We also have FTV: Angels arriving in August. I’m already on the record with my predictions, and I’m going to make a further proclamation: this will keep its value very well, and not just Avacyn. Angels are one of the premier and most popular tribes, and these foils are going to get snapped up and locked into thousands upon thousands of casual decks.

I think that you’ll be able to get these for around $60 once the initial IMUSTHAVEITNOW wave is done, and at that price, I’ll be happy to get an extra set or two for long-term storage. That price will change if the Angels in the set are pricier than I expect (It’s not out of the question for Wizards to go financially big and give us Iona, Linvala, Avacyn, and Baneslayer, for example) but that seems unlikely to me.

Patience on an FTV is often rewarded. Even Legends, which didn’t go for much over MSRP at the time, is more than $100 now. Part of that is the passage of time, since anything from four years ago has an increase in value, but there’s been a real increase for FTV: Realms in half the time.

Bonus Buy: I told you about Dragonspeaker Shaman a few weeks ago, and now Dragonlord’s Servant has been spoiled. It’s an uncommon, so it looks like the Shaman will not be in the set and the old foils are due to go up, what with all the new Dragon decks being built. I tweeted about it Wednesday, when TCG had 11 foils under $10 and 4 more between $10-$15.

City of Traders

Time is(n’t) Fleeting

March 4, 2015 Travis Allen 6 Comments

By: Travis Allen

Did you know Tim Curry hates to discuss the Rocky Horror Picture Show? Apparently he was afraid he’d be typecast. He mostly refused to discuss it for years, even neglecting to appear in the Glee homage alongside other original film cast members. It’s a shame, because the movie is great fun, and Time Warp in particular is such an excellent tune. If you’re ever looking for a way to entertain yourself on a Friday or Saturday night, find yourself a Rocky Horror Picture Show screening nearby and take in the wackiness. In fact, it’s the most well-known and perhaps first cult classic midnight film.

What does a track from a movie with some unfortunately archaic social terms have to do with Magic? Why, today we’re going to be chatting about Time Warp. (And similar Time Warp effects.)

Time Walk effects have a long history in Magic, all the way back to the eponymous card in Alpha. Wizards has since realized that two mana isn’t a fair cost for taking extra turns, but even at a much greater rate, people are still interested. Every few sets a Time Walk effect shows up with some twist that typically involves one of the set’s mechanics. They’re often (although not always) not good enough for Standard, though there’s an ever-present contingent in other formats that pay more attention. At the very least, there is no shortage of EDH decks that enjoy jamming as many extra turn effects into their ninety-nine as they can manage, much to the chagrin of everyone forced to endure their company. Let’s take a look at all the cards with the text “extra turn” on them in Modern.

Before we get much further, I want to look at how many times each one has been printed…oh, that was quick. Out of all of those, only three cards were printed more than once – Time Stretch, Time Warp, and Emrakul. All the rest have only a single printing to their name. This is especially impressive considering how old some of these are. Two of them are from Mirrodin, the first Modern block. This gives us our first monetary incentive: Wizards apparently does not like reprinting these. Even the ones that were reprinted were done so quite awhile ago. Time Stretch is from Odyssey and 10th edition, and the last time Time Warp was printed was nearly six years ago. Given WotC’s reluctance to reprint these types of cards, especially in recent years, extra turn effects appear quite safe from an investment standpoint. Reprints are the most dangerous aspect of holding onto cards for longer periods of time, and these seem relatively insulated from that threat.

As for the character of the cards, some are quite straight forward – Time Warp – while others require you to jump through quite a few hoops, such as Wanderwine Prophet. Wordiness seems to be mildly negatively correlated with value. Time Warp and Time Stretch, two of the most simple, are also two of the most expensive. Wanderwine Prophet and Notorious Throng are novels and are both under a dollar. It’s not a hard and fast rule though, as Lighthouse Chronologist’s $10 price tag does buck the trend a little bit with the word-light but rules-heavy Level Up mechanic. Here’s the complete list, sorted by descending cost:

Emrakul, the Aeons Torn: $51
Time Warp: $14
Lighthouse Chronologist: $9
Time Stretch: $8
Beacon of Tomorrows: $6
Temporal Mastery: $6
Ral Zarek: $6
Walk the Aeons: $4
Temporal Extortion: $3
Stitch in Time: $3
Temporal Trespass: $2
Sage of Hours: $2
Savor the Moment: $2
Time Sieve: $2
Magosi, the Waterveil: <$1
Medomai the Ageless: <$1
Notorious Throng: <$1
Search the City: <$1
Timesifter: <$1
Ugin’s Nexus: <$1
Wanderwine Prophets: <$1

Emrakul as the runaway most expensive card isn’t too surprising. There’s a lot more to that card than the extra turn clause though, so we’re mostly counting him out from our examination today. Time Warp in second place doesn’t surprise me much either, as it’s clean, reasonably costed, and has actually been competitive or at least semi-competitive in Standard and Modern in the past. I am a bit surprised by the third-most expensive card being Lighthouse Chronologist. I assume this is based heavily on EDH. It’s easy to generate a pile of mana in that format, which means you can resolve and crank him to level seven in a single turn. If there aren’t any counterspells or spot removal available at the moment, you get to start taking turns at a 4:1 ratio compared to everyone else.

The Chaff

Down towards the bottom are cards that are new, terrible, difficult to use, or some combination thereof. Wanderwine Prophets requires a great deal to go right, and also prices you into Merfolk, a tribe without much casual appeal.

Ugin’s Nexus, Temporal Trespass, and Sage of Hours are brand new, and are still too liquid in the market to see price increases yet. We’ll come back to the latter two later. Search the City is also very new, but also very bad, and perhaps most importantly, actually impossible to use in EDH.

Timesifter is the real reason Sensei’s Divining Top is banned. We all know that if Top were legal Timesifter would be ruining the format.

Just kidding, the card is nigh-unplayable since you can end up giving free turns to your opponents if you aren’t in control of the top card of both libraries, or at are at least capable of floating high spells to the top of yours each turn. It is a curious spec target though, if you’re the real gambling type. I don’t know what the world looks like where this card is actually good in Modern or Legacy, but if someone Summer Blooms it, it would jump 100-fold.

Notorious Throng, like Wanderwine Prophets, is complicated, difficult to activate, and forces you into a tribe that cultivates no enthusiasm.

Magosi is currently unplayable, as it requires you to skip your turn to utilize it. There is almost potential – give your opponent an extra turn, but then begin proliferating the eon counter so you can take infinite turns – except that it requires you to return the land to your hand. A trick may exist to generate infinite turns with multiple Magosis, proliferate, and moving counters, but that’s going to be much too convoluted for anyone but the most die-hard kitchen table combo players to be too interested.

Medomai is cheap and brand new, but is better than all of the other sub-$1 effects. You don’t have to jump through too many hoops for an extra turn, and there’s ways to cheat around his restriction by bouncing him each turn and using some effect to put him into play tapped and attacking. He’s from Theros, a widely opened set, although he’s a mythic, which is what we want to see if we’re buying in. I wouldn’t feel bad about taking this guy as a throw-in, as the upside could be considerable some time later.

Time Sieve is a potentially powerful card, although it hasn’t found a home in Modern yet. That’s likely because any deck that can sacrifice and recur artifacts doesn’t need Time Sieve for help. Once that chain begins, you can just kill people with Emrakul or Bitter Ordeal or what have you. It also doesn’t seem to have struck a chord with casual players. Newer or casual players don’t tend to view sacrificing as a benefit, so Sieve may scare them off with what appears to be a huge cost.

Temporal Extortion isn’t really a Time Walk per se, as you aren’t guaranteed the extra turn. It still carries a $3 price tag, mostly due to some players highly overrating punisher mechanics. Overall it’s not in the vein of what we’re interested in today.

Stitch in Time suffers from the same problem that Temporal Extortion does, in that it doesn’t guarantee you extra turns even if it resolves. The coin flip aspect of the card draws some players in, but it’s not a “true” extra turn effect in the way that most other cards on this list are.

Savor the Moment is more on our radar than most of these other inexpensive effects. At three mana it’s the cheapest Time Walk short of Time Walk. It comes with an obvious and fairly large drawback of not being unable to untap at the start of your turn, effectively rendering it a pricey Explore. If there’s a way to ignore the lack of an untap step this could eventually become a combo piece in Modern or Legacy though. I don’t know what that card or cards looks like, but it is conceivable such a thing could come to be.

While Ral Zarek may say “extra turn,” that isn’t the main draw of the card. His Planeswalkeryness counts much more for any price tag than the extra turn aspect of his ultimate.

The Payoff

Temporal Mastery, Beacon of Tomorrows, Time Stretch, and Walk the Aeons are what got me thinking about this discussion.

Temporal Mastery bottomed out about a year and a half ago below $4, and has since started climbing. A spread of roughly 30% isn’t remarkable, but it isn’t shameful either. With today’s price tag of Time Warp, I’m holding out hope for this one in the long term. It doesn’t see much competitive play at the moment, but remember that it did in fact win a Pro Tour. A single good Brainstorm-esque effect that let you put cards from your hand back on top of your library could quickly catapult this to Modern fame. It also floats around the fringes of Legacy playability becase of Sensei’s Divining Top, the most potent Miracle-enabler in existence. The Miracles deck hasn’t been interested so far because the deck isn’t poised to really take advantage of extra turns, but I don’t doubt that eventually some deck will be, and Temporal Mastery will catch in a big way.

Beacon of Tomorrows has had a slow, sustainable growth for some time now. Three years ago it was a little over $2, and today it’s over seven, with a spread of about 30%. This type of growth isn’t awe-inspiring, but it’s consistent, and it’s consistent on a card with little appeal outside of EDH. Beacon isn’t competitive in any real format, and casual players are likely to be drawn towards cheaper effects such as Time Warp. This tells us the card is growing (slowly) with a fairly low demand profile. This doesn’t inspire us to buy into Beacon, but it does tell us that you don’t need much demand for these types of effects to grow.

Odyssey Time Stretch has grown about 60% since 2012, with a current price tag of $6.50. The 10th edition copy is in roughly the same boat at $7.50. Both also have spreads similar to Temporal Mastery and Beacon of Tomorrows.

Time Stretch is the most savage Time Walk in EDH, with two turns stapled onto one card. This makes any sort of recursion with the card much more potent, whether you’re doing something mundane like returning it with Eternal Witness, or something that will get you kicked out of EDH circles, like copying it with Riku. (And then copying an Eternal Witness, getting back the Time Stretch and something that bounces the Eternal Witness.) The card hasn’t seen any major spikes, and like Beacon the growth has been slow, but like Beacon it’s also been consistent. We’re seeing a trend here – straightforward extra turn sorceries seem to land at at least $6.

Walk the Aeons is an example of what happens when a Time Walk effect that looks like crap ends up finding a home. (In this case, it’s in Modern Turbo Fog lists.) When you can play four lands a turn, you’re drawing four or five cards a turn, and you’re constantly shuffling your graveyard into your library, the “sac three lands” clause doesn’t feel too bad.

What we’re seeing here is a card with a very small demand profile outside of Modern jumping four to sevenfold. Most EDH and casual decks that want extra turns aren’t equipped to deal with the constraints of this card, making it purely a combo piece at this point. This is worth noting for Savor the Moment. It’s an extra turn effect that doesn’t seem that good on the surface, but a deck that can make it worth will at least triple the price.

Let’s get back to those other two that I only mentioned briefly earlier – Temporal Trespass and Sage of Hours.

Temporal Trespass falls somewhere between Walk the Aeons and Magosi the Waterveil. With a potential cost of UUU it can theoretically be cheaper than basically any non-power Time Walk. However, the fact that it exiles itself makes it very difficult to break this in combo decks. You’re likely only ever getting one turn off each copy of this card, and multiple copies are going to be very difficult to cast. Overall, the outlook for Trespass is quite poor.

Sage of Hours, on the other hand, is something special. A full disclosure: I have copies stashed away, so I do stand to gain if it rises in value. Why do I like Sage?

He shares form with Lighthouse Chronologist, which is second only to Time Warp itself. You undeniably have to put in some work to get a return – those counters aren’t showing up for free, and it’s going to cost more than whatever spare blue mana you have lying around to start taking extra turns. The flip side of that is that the payoff is potentially larger than anything else examined so far. Where Chronologist will get you turns at a 4:1 rate, Sage will just make infinite turns with Ajani, Mentor of Heroes and Doubling Season. Any novice EDH player will tell you that there is no shortage of other ways to accomplish this as well.

Even if you aren’t shooting for infinite, he’s constantly threatening to give his controller at least one extra turn, and sometimes more than that. Perhaps the best part is his print run – he’s a mythic in an underwhelming small spring set that was overshadowed a month later by the release of Conspiracy. If your goal was to put as few copies of Sage of Hours into the market as possible, you couldn’t pick a better set.

He should play reasonably well in kitchen table Magic, where everyone lives in Magical Christmas Land and removal tends to be sparse. EDH players should cozy up to him, at least the +1/+1 counter brigade. And finally he has an outside chance of being playable in Modern or Legacy combo of some sort. If that sounds ridiculous, just remember that Dark Depths used to be one dollar because everyone thought it was absolute garbage, and then they printed Vampire Hexmage.

Aside from the Judge printing of Time Warp, no extra turn effect has appeared in the Modern border twice. All of the cards granting extra turns that are at least mildly playable have risen beyond bulk, and the ones that find homes in EDH, casual decks, or combo jump into the $6-$15 range. Overall, it seems Time Warps are reasonable pickups, with Sage of Hours being the spiciest of the bunch right now. I’d be surprised if this isn’t $5 within a year or so, and I don’t think $10 is out of the question. Meanwhile, Temporal Mastery is still appealing as a trade pickup, and I wouldn’t turn my nose up at Savor the Moments either.

Most of these cards may not see the splashiest rises in prices, but they are rock solid in value, and not a single one has dropped in price. The next time you’re browsing someone’s binder looking for something to fill up a trade, consider taking a moment for yourself.

The Gilded Goblin

Elspeth vs. Kiora Duel Deck Review

March 2, 2015 Jared Yost 2 Comments

By: Jared Yost

Today I’m going to take a look at the Elspeth vs. Kiora Duel Decks to see where the financial value of the decks lie. I’ll look at both the MSRP versus retail value of the singles and then present my thoughts about the future values of the cards.

For the alternate art foils, I am going to use the TCG Median price since MTGPrice does not yet track the value of the duel deck foil versions.

Decklists

Elspeth	$$$	Kiora	$$$

1 Elspeth, Sun’s Champion*	$9.95	1 Kiora, the Crashing Wave*	$6.83
*Alt art foil price
2 Icatian Javelineers	$0.32	1 Omenspeaker	$0.16
1 Mother of Runes	$6.60	2 Coiling Oracle	$1.86
2 Kinsbaile Skirmisher	$0.26	1 Kiora’s Follower	$0.27
1 Kor Skyfisher	$0.19	2 Grazing Gladehart	$0.32
1 Precinct Captain	$0.53	2 Netcaster Spider	$0.28
2 Veteran Armorsmith	$0.44	2 Man-o’-War	$0.92
1 Court Street Denizen	$0.13	2 Lorescale Coatl	$3.02
1 Standing Troops	$0.14	1 Nessian Asp	$0.13
2 Veteran Swordsmith	$0.46	2 Surrakar Banisher	$0.26
1 Banisher Priest	$0.26	1 Sealock Monster	$0.19
2 Gustcloak Harrier	$0.28	1 Scourge of Fleets	$0.31
1 Gustcloak Skirmisher	$0.19	1 Simic Sky Swallower	$1.36
1 Gustcloak Sentinel	$0.15	1 Inkwell Leviathan	$3.26
1 Gustcloak Savior	$0.40	1 Nimbus Swimmer	$0.21
2 Loxodon Partisan	$0.26
1 Gempalm Avenger	$0.14	2 Explore	$1.22
1 Noble Templar	$0.14	4 Accumulated Knowledge	$2.28
1 Captain of the Watch	$0.58	1 Peel from Reality	$0.13
1 Mortal’s Ardor	$0.14	2 Time to Feed	$0.28
		1 Explosive Vegetation	$1.55
2 Sunlance	$0.46	1 Aetherize	$0.21
1 Mighty Leap	$0.17	1 Whelming Wave	$0.46
2 Raise the Alarm	$0.46	1 Plasm Capture	$0.40
1 Soul Parry	$0.13	1 Urban Evolution	$0.24
1 Celestial Flare	$0.24
1 Dauntless Onslaught	$0.17	2 Evolving Wilds	$0.32
1 Dictate of Heliod	$0.46	1 Temple of the False God	$0.21
1 Decree of Justice	$0.61	11 Forest	n/a
		11 Island	n/a
2 Secluded Steppe	$0.30
22 Plains	n/a
Retail Deck Value	$24.56	Retail Deck Value	$26.68
		Total Retail Value	$51.24

Wow, the retail value is worth more than double the MSRP of the deck. However, as we all know the retail value can be misleading. I did account for the alternate art foil version of the headlining cards rather than their regular counterparts yet why is there is such a vast difference between MSRP and individual retail value? Most likely, the market hasn’t caught up yet with the mass release of this product. Initial glances tell me that any value in the deck is going to dry up as time marches on.

Before I talk about individual cards I first want to point out two things about the decks.

Firstly, It is a shame that neither deck contains any relevant Modern reprints. Unlike Jace vs. Vraska, this deck didn’t give us anything amazing like Remand to make us really want to go out and purchase it. It’s mainly reprints of casual favorites, along with some other interesting choices (a gustcloak theme in the Elspeth deck? Really?) to help us along our way to acquiring a new alternate art, foil Elspeth and Kiora. I mean sure, Path to Exile has been reprinted six times already but maybe replace one of those Sun Lances with a card that has more flair? Meh, who am I to judge versus a team of WotC field research. Maybe Nimbus Swimmer, Scourge of the Fleets, and Sealock Monster are really what the target customer of this product wants.

Secondly, I am actually surprised that Kiora’s deck is worth more in value on average than Elspeth’s – especially considering that Mother of Runes is almost as expensive as the Kiora foil! The surprising value comes from the playset of Accumulated Knowledge, two Lorescale Coatl’s, two Coiling Oracles, and the Inkwell Leviathan. All of these cards share the trait that they haven’t been reprinted since this duel deck (outside of premium or promo versions). Unfortunately for Elspeth, the value drops pretty hard after Mom. Decree of Justice and Captain of the Watch, the most valuable runner up cards in the deck, are barely breaking $0.50. Hardly a surprise then that Kiora would slightly eek out value over Elspeth even with such a Standard defining planeswalker heading the deck.

OK, now that I’ve covered these two subjects let’s dive into the singles.

Singles

Elspeth, Sun’s Champion

Currently selling for $10 on TCGPlayer, Elspeth will continue to sit around $10 until rotation since it is such an important Standard role player. Then, the price will continue to drop sharply since Sun’s Champion doesn’t see any eternal play in Modern or beyond. Due to the duel deck reprinting, there are going to be plenty of copies of Sun’s Champion on the market which will drop the price into the $3 range. The price for entry is fine for now – she currently is worth half the MSRP value of the deck. However, be warned that that this price will not last forever and will decline fast going into Theros rotation.

Kiora, the Crashing Wave

Again, Kiora’s initial price reflects the hype demand of the release of the new duel decks. Let me direct your attention to the following trends.

Figure 1 – Jace, Architect of Thought Price Decline Since Duel Deck Printing

Figure 2 – Vraska the Unseen Price Decline Since Duel Deck Printing

I’m surprised that they’ve bottomed out so hard but I can see the reason why. Putting Remand, a certified Modern staple, in the product will do that to the other cards. Since Remand is carrying the bulk of the value of JvV Duel Deck the other cards have been very suppressed. Even Future Sight, a card that at one point was $4, is now only a measly $0.57 after the release of the JvV Duel Deck. Overall though, the JvV duel deck package was pretty weak overall – kind of reminds you of this duel deck package, no? Except no Modern staples.

There are plenty of casual cards, however just like the rares Future Sight, Ohran Viper, and other others, I expect them to drop to around $0.50 or less eventually.

Kiora will also follow the trend of Jace and Vraska. Without extensive tournament play in Modern (which seems unlikely) I fear that she will also not escape the $3 fate.

Mother of Runes

Honestly, I can see this card maintaining $4-$5 long term strictly on the back of casual appeal. Mom is popular enough with casual players (and of course Legacy enthusiasts) that I can see her continuing to maintain value in the long term, especially with new art. Mom is this duel deck’s Remand, the price is going down but not by much.

Inkwell Leviathan

The card has much casual appeal, yet I will refer back to the Future Sight / Ohran Viper example. This card isn’t higher than $0.50 once these decks hit stores everywhere.

Lorescale Coatl

Let’s take a look at Jace’s Phantasm here to see a similar example. Before the JvV Duel Deck, Phantasm was around $2.50 at it’s highest point. It is now around $1.25 even after the reprint, which is actually pretty decent since it only lost half value (at least compared to the planeswalkers above). Half value leads me to predict that Coatl’s will be around $1.50 (or slightly higher) once the EvK decks are out for a while.

Accumulated Knowledge

I don’t see this losing value. It’s already a common, and the release of the duel deck isn’t going to crash the price. The deck provides four of them, with a total value of about $2. Despite the reprint I don’t see it changing much.

Coiling Oracle, Explosive Vegetation, Explore, Man-o’-War

Again, like Accumulated Knowledge above, these cards aren’t going to be crashing overnight due to this duel deck like the rares in the deck. They are all popular casual cards that should maintain a decent amount of their value going into the future.

Final Thoughts

Unfortunately, even though this deck appears to have quite a bit of potential based on the retail value of the singles right now, I can only predict doom and gloom for many of the card’s prices based on the performance of Jace vs. Vraska Duel Deck singles. The only one to come out unscathed was Remand, due to its vast Modern appeal. To this day, the card still carries the bulk of the value of the JvV duel deck. Unfortunately, the only similar card from the Elspeth vs. Kiora Duel Deck is Mother of Runes, which already has several printings. Regardless, I still think it will do well in the long run due to its vast casual appeal in addition to the added Legacy appeal.

In summary, if you’re going to buy this duel deck for a collection or to add it to your existing repertoire of duel decks then please buy it for as close to (if not lower than) MSRP value as you possibly can. Even to this day, JvV duel decks can easily be purchased online for $18 including shipping. I’m sad to say that this is one of the weakest duel decks that we’ve seen financially. Speed vs. Cunning was so much stronger, which not only included Modern and Legacy playable cards but also provided copies of wedge tap lands and other great commons and uncommons that will hold value going into the future. Due to the lack of Modern appeal I can’t see this deck being a great purchase unless it is being done from a purely causal perspective.

However, as a sealed product there is chance that it might be a good idea to throw a few of these into storage for several years down the line. Sealed Sorin vs. Tibalt Duel Decks are starting to see a price increase since they are becoming harder to find. Many are now $25 to $30 online. Not that this is a huge price increase for holding onto them for a few years, but it does give me a feeling of security knowing that even a planeswalker as crappy as Tibalt has a chance if he’s in a sealed product that is popular with casual players.

What do you think of the new duel deck? Are you planning on buying one, and if you are what really draws you to the duel deck?

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