I hate to be first drop before the waterfall, but I can’t help but think ahead. We might know October 2, 2015 as the first day to spend our paychecks on Battle for Zendikar, but it’s also the day most of your Theros Block and Magic 2015 magically turn from dollars to pennies. Just the word ‘rotation’ makes Standard players cringe worse than the last time I cursed in Sunday school. I know you’re thinking, “Dude! It’s June! Why the hell are you writing about rotation?” In my experience, it’s a lot easier to complete trades with rotating cards when players don’t have rotation on the mind. You’ll start noticing that ‘keep staples’ mindset right when Origins releases. Everyone will start hoarding what rares they feel will hold value and start going out of their way to unload the rest before it completely tanks. This makes Pre-Origins the best time to pick up rares that will keep or gain value after rotation. Also, if Standard is the only format you play, the rest of this article is not for you.
Keep in mind these are cards worth keeping for competitive play, not casual or EDH. Otherwise, I’d just say trade for all the gods.
Theros
Thoughtseize – Let’s start off with an easy one. Before it’s reprint Thoughtseize (Lorwyn) fetched a ~$75 price tag. It’s been in the $15-20 range (Theros) throughout most of its time in Standard despite the massive amount of Theros product opened. This is one of your last chances to pick them up before they start to climb again. It’s simple the best discard spell. Pick up as many as you can. Currently $24 Fair Trade Price
Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx – Though Nykthos has only seen fringe Modern play in Mono-Green devotion decks, the cards power is real. WotC uses restrictive mana costs to keep powerful cards away from other colors. No one wants play in a Boros Reckoner + Phyrexian Obliterator fight deck. Ok, that does sound pretty sweet, but minimizing the amount of decks powerful cards can be in keeps the formats diverse. Nykthos rewards you for playing all the restrictive CMC cards of a chosen color while also helping you accelerate them out earlier than opponents are comfortable with. My point is, WotC isn’t going to stop printing restrictive mana costed cards. Nykthos can only get better with each new set printed. It’s one card away from Tier one Modern play. At worst, casual players will keep its market demand up. Currently $5 Fair Trade Price
Courser of Kruphix – I know has only been a two-of in a few successful Modern lists. It falls to Abrupt Decay but survives Lightning Bolt. It’s dead weight against combo but great for creating card advantage and hitting your lands for the late game. You know it’s power if you’ve only playing a few matches of Standard. Speculating on a Bant control deck utilizing Courser might be a stretch, but labeling it as unplayable doesn’t seem correct either. The current $6 price might still be a bit high, but picking up a playset for $12 at rotation shouldn’t be a bad investment. This might be the only card on this list that’s worth waiting for a lower price. Currently $6 Fair Trade Price.
Spirit of the Labyrinth(FOIL) – Why foil? Cause, Legacy. Legacy players love foils and Legacy foils love having oddly high prices. Foil Spirit has been a steady $10 while only seeing 1-3 copies in successful Death & Taxes lists. In May, it dropped to $6. D&T hasn’t put up many high places finishes in a while. But, if you play Legacy, you know the meta is always changing. It’s only a matter of time before it falls back into favor. With zero play in any other format, Spirit’s price has been solely dependent on the Legacy environment. This is a good time to pick up while you can still find them. Currently $6 Fair Trade Price.
Journey into Nyx
Mana Confluence – This upgraded City of Brass will continue to take its place in Modern and Legacy decks. It’s been as high as $20 but has mostly stayed around $10-12 during its lifetime. I don’t predict them going that much lower but wouldn’t be surprised to see them follow a slightly slower price trajectory as Cavern of Souls. Plus, it’s a powerful non basic land. Always a worthy investment. Currently $12 Fair Trade Price.
Eidolon of the Great Revel – Probably the best eternal playable card printed in this block. It sees four copies in both Modern and Legacy Mono-Red lists and will continue to do so. Picking up these should be just as obvious as picking up Thoughseizes. To be honest, you probably should have picked them up when they were $5. Currently $11 Fair Trade Price.
Magic 2015
Chord of Calling – Chord fell from $40 to $20 after its M15 reprint and has steadily decreased slowly over the past year. Previously played alongside the villainous Birthing Pod, Chord fell when Pod was banned and never found a home in Modern Collected Company decks. Its lack of recent play doesn’t reflect the power of this convoking tutor. Though Pod won’t be unbanned anytime soon, I think Chord will learn to stand on its own again in a future Modern meta. Zero chance this card falls to bulk after rotation. Currently $5 Fair Trade Price.
Final Thoughts
Investing in rotating rares isn’t the quickest way to gain financial value, but it is a perfect way to acquire future format staples with a long term investment bonus. I might only have a few rotations under my belt, but I’ve made a lot of profit being patient with rotating cards like these. I hope now you can do the same before the ‘rotation plague’ sweeps over your LGS.
Do you listen to a lot of podcasts? I do1. Most of them are Magic-related, and the rest are mainly football, news, and finance. I was listening to Freakanomics on Monday (or as I like to call that program, “Game Theory, Who Knew?”), and I instantly got an idea for something I wanted to write about. My original plan for this week was to finish up the Mirrodin block in our Modern set review series, and we will take some time to go through Darksteel, but that series is not terribly time-sensitive, so I say we ride with the hot hand.
The program I was listening to was about “Homo economicus,” the fictional character/species which embodies the “ideal” human in economic models. Basically, when economists say, “Well, X should happen, because people will know that it is the best option,” they are assuming that all humans know at all times what is best for them, or are able to quickly and cleanly compute the best fiscal course of action.
This, as anyone with a humanities background will tell you, is absolutely not true. Many economic theories and models are predicated on Homo sapiens acting like Homo economicus, which is why some academic economists can seem out of touch with how the world really works. Meanwhile, the entire field of advertising is intended to make us do the opposite of what Homo economicus would—the reason why new cars are literally always on sale is because nobody needs a new car. The Freakanomics program was interesting and you should check it out if you haven’t already.
Talk About Magic Now
What I want to discuss today is whether Magic finance has its own inaccurate views of how the market works compared to our expectations. For the sake of me needing a title for this article, let’s call our little best case scenario straw-man Homo magiconimus.
I’m going to tell you a short story about how Magic finance finally “figured out” casual Magic, with some brief justifications why Homo magiconimus missed out on it.
It may seem crazy today, but for a very long time, the casual Magic community got no respect. Even though Wizards “discovered” the Invisibles during Time Spiral, it really took a while for the community as a whole to embrace them (and for Magic finance to adjust to their needs). At the time, cards that only saw casual or non-sanctioned play didn’t command high prices. For example, during its time in Standard, I bought a couple of foil copies of Woodfall Primus for 25 cents each. They weren’t bent-up copies tossed in a vendor’s foil box at a PTQ, and they weren’t scummy trades where I ripped off some doe-eyed little kid—these were NM copies listed on the website of one of the largest Magic retailers on Earth (to protect that company’s privacy, let’s just call it… “Pool Stuff Games”). And honestly, I wouldn’t have even thought to buy them, except the non-foil copies were out of stock, and I needed them because I was starting to get into Type 4. Homo magiconimus would have bought one copy (even though he probably doesn’t like foils as much as I do), but it’s unsure if he would have grabbed the second one. My gut instincts on getting both were a combination of “mise” and thinking, “I can always give it to a buddy for his Type 4 stack,” two sentiments a “strictly upside” sentient being isn’t likely to be moved by. In the end, however, I was able to move the cards for about $30 each, which is something Homo magiconimuscan get behind, so hopefully he used that quarter for the foil rare and not jelly beans.
At the time, dealers and finance people weren’t as diversified as they are now. Their goals mostly revolved around making sure they could meet the needs of the tournament players, as well as learning what they could from that group to know what the good buys were.
“Casual staples” at the time weren’t things like Primus, they were just Extended and Legacy staples. I remember trading Mutavaults (which were about to rotate) for Maelstrom Pulses to a friend/vendor (who later went on to open a couple of Florida’s best Magic stores), because I knew I would need the Pulses, and that he would have better luck moving the Mutavaults at a GP booth or something out of state. Was this the correct trade to make? The prices at the time were similar, but I had extra utility in trading for the card with the longer lifespan in Standard. Homo magiconimus, or at least those of the “plays a bunch of Standard” tribe, would have likely taken the deal, since the ability to roll the upfront investment made on the Mutavaults into two more years of Standard is a great way to avoid continuing to spend money.
Prior to the explosion of popularity for Commander, most dealers had a very poor idea of what cards were popular with casual players. This is likely due to the lack of a uniform format (which we got with Commander), so cards that were good in Emperor but not massive Free-For-Alls didn’t seem to garnish a premium. The only card that sticks out in my mind from that era is Underworld Dreams, which was the de facto casual staple. It seemed that anyone who wasn’t interested in playing “real” Magic just wanted to try and kill people with Megrim.
Cards like Wrath of God were obviously still good (more so when you are killing seven other players’ creatures), but most of the price there was because of Standard, or so I assumed. As a low-level binder grinder at the time, I wasn’t exposed to the casual community as much as I am now, even before factoring in great equalizers like PucaTrade. It wasn’t worth servicing the casual community at the time, because so few people understood that there even was a casual community worth serving!
Lorwyn was when WOTC was first getting its data back on Time Spiral, and when Maro and the gang were just figuring out that the Invisibles existed. Time Spiral’s failure in terms of mass appeal spurred the change to New World Order design, which first manifested around Zendikar, which led to the Zendikar Boom, which led to unprecedented player growth and grew the casual base, too. It’s easy to know all that now, but those are a lot of factors (some private) that led to the discovery and growth of a previously unknown market. Homo magiconimus is an animal that acts on rational thought and logic, but he can’t tell the future. This is the reason why so many financiers and dealers were completely surprised when Commander and casual Magic took off, and why I sold all my Tarmogoyfs at $25.
Enough of that for today—let’s hit Darksteel.
Darksteel
Something that gets thrown around a lot is the “death” of Magic. Newer and less enfranchised players claim that Magic‘s expensive secondary market and rapid product releases will be its imminent undoing. Tournament veterans assert that a broken format, a woeful Magic Online offering, or greener pastures (Hearthstone, SolForge, poker) could possibly mean the end of MTG. Of all of these doomsday scenarios, the “broken format,” has probably come closest. There have definitely been some close calls, but the impact that Darksteel made could have very likely become a killing blow.
The set’s salvation was very likely its namesake: Darksteel introduced indestructible, which is something that reads very well to all levels of players. Something like scry or cycling may or may not immediately make sense, nor does it excite younger or newer players the same way that, “THIS ROBOT IS INDESTRUCTIBLEEEEEE!!!!!!!” does. The set sold pretty well, despite tournament attendance driving off a cliff Thelma and Louise-style about a month after release.
Non-Foil Cards of Note
Sword of Fire and Ice: This is the most expensive card in the set by about $20. This card was actually a Legacy staple for a long while, but Batterskulland Jittenow get higher billing. This is still one of the better Cube swords, and the limited printings it has gotten in the last eleven years have only helped bolster it as a chase rare. The judge promo is gorgeous.
Aether Vial: This uncommon clocks in at about $27, although it’s been in the twenties for a good long while. Like Sword of Fire and Ice, it has really only gotten reprinted in Modern Masters, along with a very small promo offering (an early From the Vaults in this case). Any tribal deck in Legacy or Modern is going to need four of these, as well as the deplorable Death and Taxes archetype (seriously, that deck is dumb). These trade well though, and are a “four or zero” card much like Tarmogoyf is.
Sword of Light and Shadow: According to the free market, this sword is worse than its in-set cousin by about twenty bucks. That sounds about right, as this card really doesn’t see the same kind of play that Fire and Ice does, which in today’s Magic is pretty limited anyway.
Arcbound Ravager: I am shocked that this card wasn’t in Modern Masters 2015. I will talk about this card in the analysis section at the end (spoiler: it’s pretty good!), but here is a little financial nugget for you: since most of the non-Ravager pieces for Affinity were in MM2, you can expect that deck to be out in large numbers at Modern PPTQs. Plan on selling many Ravagers in the near future.
Mycosynth Lattice: MTGPrice has the Fair Trade Price listed at $21 for this card, but that number has been there for a long while, and I had a copy that I felt like I couldn’t give away for years. The $12 buylist price is tempting. I really don’t know how much demand there is for this card.
Blinkmoth Nexus: Reprinted twice, and the higher price here is likely for the original art. Don’t expect these copies to hold a premium when people still need Mox Opals to play the deck.
Memnarch: One of the best mono-blue commanders, which is saying something. I can’t wait to see what his foil price is… $25… huh. That… seems very low.
We talked about this card already recently, so I won’t rewrite last week’s article, but notice that the blue line (the most important one!) has barely moved at all, and that the only vendors selling foil Retract at this absurd new price are eBay and Amazon vendors, which means they are speculators and financiers trying to cash out on their (soon to be failed) spec.
Leonin Shikari: I wasn’t sure which section to put this card in, but I went with foils because its foil multiplier is higher than two. The price on this card is impressive, considering I had forgotten that the card exists shortly after I stopped opening Darksteel boosters. It also sees zero competitive play, so this card is only being kept alive by casual players. I wouldn’t even consider it for Cube. I’m trying to figure out if a “Shikari” is a thing, or if the creative team got this name by switching the “i”s and “a”s in “Shakira.”
Slobad, Goblin Tinkerer: Commander. Not sure if you really even want this guy if you’re playing a mono-red deck, but whatever.
Sundering Titan: This card sees a little play in Modern and Legacy,and is somehow banned in EDH, most likely for being a card that I like. The Commander banned list is very dumb.
Trinisphere: Somehow only $13 for a foil that is restricted in Vintage. I bet they’re super hard to find, too.
Skullclamp: FTV foils are pretty controversial (unless they are the only version available), but the set foil of this card is still just shy of $20. Impressive, given how insanely broken this card is. Speaking of insanely broken…
Noteworthy Standard Decks
Ravager Affinity: It is important to remember that the Magic hive mind (or “cultural zeitgeist,” if you’re a pretentious jerk) existed in 2004, but not in the same way that it does now. There were not nearly as many tournaments as there are now, Magic Online was still fairly new, and the lack of modern social media meant most discussions of Magic were still relatively private. This is why it took about a month or so for Arcbound Ravager to be “discovered” by the Magic world as a whole. Sure, some people may have known on day one, and others (like myself) found out when the card shot up to $20. Ravager would go on to be banned in Standard, along with seven (!) of its closest friends, all of which were commons. The majority of all decks before that point were either Affinity or “Beats Affinity.” It was a dark time.
Literally Anything With Skullclamp at One Point: I mentioned that it took longer to figure stuff out, which was at least in part because Skullclamp was Standard-legal for three months, which seems about four months too long. For the brief time that this card was legal, it made seriously every deck—good, bad, or otherwise—playable. Factor in that some of the strongest decks from the previous block (Onslaught) had small, aggressive creatures, and you can see how out of hand things got.
Beats Affinity: Literally there where decks with just a bunch of Shatters and Oxidizes. It was awful. No wonder so many pros went over to poker.
Analysis
Ultimately, Darksteel is going to be remembered more for its failures than its successes. There are a few cards worth money in this set that I didn’t mention, but many of them are Commander (Savage Beating) or eternal (Serum Powder) cards with limited upside. Ravager, Swords, and Aether Vial are going to buoy packs of Darksteel for the foreseeable future, which are $11 a pop, and there is not much else to be had besides those headliners.
Darksteel was also the first small set to have 165 cards, and trust me when I say they aren’t all winners. To put it bluntly, Ageless Entity (foil) and Steelshaper Apprentice are probably the two cards with the most potential (although this is largely because they are basically free).
Thanks as always for reading, and let me know what you think of Homo magiconimus—I have a feeling we’ll be seeing him again.
1Hopefully you do too, because [REDACTED] with [REDACTED] is going to be [REDACTED] [REDACTED].
Welcome back! The week after Vegas has been anything but dull, at least in terms of Modern cards jumping up and down (mostly up).
Last week, I ended on the note that I would take specific requests concerning the financial side of Magic and answer them this week in as much detail as I could. Thankfully, I got a few responses to that, which at least proves that there are a few people who read this column. After answering some questions, I’ll go over a few of the Modern cards that jumped in price this past week, and what you should do with them depending on how many copies you own.
I’ll throw in a disclaimer first though: due to the speculative nature associated with some of these questions, my answers are not guaranteed to have a higher percentage of being correct than any of your guesses. None of us know what’s going to be in Battle for Zendikar, and my being a financier doesn’t give me an edge in those predictions.
Question #1
First off, we have Jeremy B. asking when the correct time to upgrade his Zendikar fetch lands in his Commander deck is. He’s wondering if the (assumed) reprint in Battle for Zendikar will affect the original printing’s foil price, or if the shock lands will prove to set an example of “original print foils creeping above $100.” There’s also a follow-up question about the ideal time to pick up foil copies of Survival of the Fittestand Wasteland. Even though my record with predicting fetch land reprints is not exactly stellar, I’m more than willing to vomit my opinions and thoughts onto the internet.
The general consensus on whether fetch lands will be in BFZ or not is pretty divided, but I’m standing firmly in the camp of, “Yes, Wizards will bring them back in the fall set with new art.” While this would put all ten fetches into Standard at the same time for six months, I’m willing to believe that those six months will be the last part of ripping off the Band-Aid of the new Standard rotation scheme. If they do end up in the set, foils of the new art will definitely be cheaper as product pours into the players hands en masse. That part is the no-brainer. But will the original Zendikar foils drop as well? I’m inclined to believe they will, but not by a huge amount.
An Onslaught foil Polluted Delta will run you about $400, and a large part of that is tied to a group of people who believe that old-border foils are the only way to play Magic. A 2005 foil Temple Garden is almost $75, because the old art is apparently loved by a larger group of people. I’m willing to believe that the same will hold true for these fetches—there will be people who want to believe that “older is better,” and this will keep the price tag up above the new foils—but they will still drop a bit, as some players will want to liquidate their foils in the face of the announcement.
As for Jeremy’s situation specifically: I think you can definitely wait on the fetch lands for your deck. You said in your message that you’re patient and that these aren’t something you need immediately for an event. Your Commander deck is fully functional with non-foils for the time being, and I don’t think anyone will fault you for not having the most expensive version of a card that appears to be imminent for a reprint.
Now, let’s talk about the desire for foils of Survival and Wasteland. The former is easy to get out of the way: it’s on the reserved list, so bite the bullet now and buy or trade for one if you really want it. It is not going to be printed again, and it’s an iconic enough art that it won’t be forgotten easily. I think you’re safe buying in now, and you shouldn’t have to work too hard to move it if you ever take apart the deck. If you’re patient, you can probably find one on a Facebook group or eBay auction for under $250.
Regarding Wasteland, I’ve had multiple discussions with my colleagues about whether or not Wasteland could be reprinted in Modern or even Standard. The card’s power level in those formats can be debated by those who play the game at a much higher level than I do, but my concern is focused more on whether or not WOTC feels that its presence would be promoting a healthy game type. Wizards hasn’t printed Stone Rain in forever, and it’s not because the card is overpowered. Early and immediate land destruction just isn’t where WOTC wants to take the game, so I’m inclined to believe that buying into a foil Wateland for your commander deck is still safe. It’s not as safe as a foil Survival, but it’s better than foil fetches. Your best bet for grabbing both without Wastelanding your wallet is definitely through a trade binder or eBay/Facebook auctions for cash.
Question #2
Next up we have another question concerning Battle for Zendikar. Spencer asks if I think there will be new Eldrazi to replace the current ones, as well as what other reprints we might see from the original Zendikar. I don’t think that WOTC needs to one-up their Eldrazi from last time, especially since they’ve already tied the lore to those three specific titans. What I do think is possible is printing three “new forms” of Ulamog, Kozilek, and Emrakul, similar to what was done with Niv-Mizzet in RTR. He was an iconic character that they wanted to “touch up,” so Wizards just printed a different version of him. I think the same is potentially true with the three Eldrazi, as I’m not sure how “fun” the originals were seen to be.
Spell Pierce is an interesting case study, especially since I saw practically zero people complaining about the fact that it wasn’t in Modern Masters 2015. It’s a $2 common with a $35 foil, but I don’t think it or Goblin Guide will be in BFZ. Maybe I’m horribly wrong, but I think RTR is an excellent model that Wizards will use this fall when returning to Zendikar. Return to Ravnica actually had zero non-land reprints from the original block in 2005 and 2006, using the ten shock lands to support a significant portion of the nostalgia from the old set, while they got to spend the rest of the block creating and shaping new identities for the guilds and their members. The company could certainly do the same thing here and choose a different style of full-art lands to help hype up the set. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised to see Pierce or Guide pop up in a supplemental product soon, but I don’t think either will be in the upcoming fall set.
Question #3:
Liliana has almost reached the finish line in the race of $100 Modern singles, and foil Tarmogoyfhas maintained its throne as the Modern Lotusof Magic (in fact, Maynard’s Goyf from Vegas sold for more than some Lotuses). I think the right answer to this question depends on your personal goals and what you’re planning to do with the cards in the future. If you plan on completing a set of foil Goys or hope to continue trading upwards and grinding value, then I think the single $350 bill is the place to be. The only situations I can think of where you might want to keep the Lilianas is if you’re planning on using them in a deck in the near future, or if you don’t have access to trading or selling very frequently and were planning on holding them for a few months. While the Goyf is better value at this moment, the Lilianas are quickly catching up and have a chance to pass the Goyf six months from now, as a rough guess.
Personally, I’d rather have the foil Goyf, and just sell it right now for $270, instead of selling the three Lilianas for $240.
Question #4:
Wow. Thanks to WUBRG from the MTGPrice ProTrader forums for the lengthy discussion topic! Reprints have definitely been the hot topic of late, with everyone wanting to maximize on value and not be screwed over by their expensive cards suddenly being worth nothing. This question is actually pretty similar to the first one I answered, but there’s definitely room to expand on where I would place my own money. Instead of buying into casual foils that were reprinted in Modern Masters 2015, I would prefer to put my money on reserved-list stuff, as you said. Sigmund recently touched on this, and I completely agree that Modern is not the place you want to be for long-term investments.
You suggested that “pimp” EDH cards will always have demand, even if Magic dies, but I have to disagree. If the game dies, none of those cards will matter anymore. I think the only thing that would potentially hold value is Power, Alpha, Beta, and maybe dual lands. The “pimp” factor makes cards a lot harder to move, especially when there is a higher percentage of players who just want the cheapest copies available to foil out their decks. If you’re just looking to “hold” value and prevent your cards from being absolutely decimated by reprints, then I think you’re fine, but I definitely wouldn’t use it as a solid investment strategy. Buying multiple copies of EDH staples and planning to sell them at a later date results in the huge inconvenience of moving them all, as I’ve learned the hard way by still owning over 45 copies of Ghave, Guru of Spores. Foils are even slower to move, so you’ll likely end up having to buylist them for a very minimal profit.
There’s also a pretty significant factor to consider in the similarity or difference in artwork between printings. If the artwork never changes, then the original printing becomes much less of a premium if the only differing factors are the set symbol and the hologram at the bottom. Take Creakwood Liege for example: the Modern Masters 2015 foil is $10 and the Eventide one is $15. If you buy into the Eventide foil at $10 for a 33-percent discount, who do you plan on selling it to? There’s no real flair to it that differentiates it as unique, so you’ll have to find someone who really cares about the set symbol. If you really want to invest in first-printing foils, pick something with a different art or different border.
End Step
In other news, there were several Modern singles that spiked over this past week. Oblivion Stone, Creeping Tar Pit, and Olivia Voldaren joined forces to make you miserable if you have to buy them now, and they form a team of “fringe playable cards in Modern that are now worth a lot more than you probably thought they would be.” If you have them, sell them. This article comes out on Thursday, but you should still be able to get a better deal than a week ago. Meanwhile, Blood Moon is dropping back down, to the surprise of nobody. While it won’t go back to its previous $25 to $30, you can wait until the decline stops at $45 or $50 instead of buying in at $60.
So what do you do? Modern is supposed to be this reprint-centric, accessible format, but we also have $20 Tar Pits running around. Do you buy into a Modern legal-card that hasn’t spiked yet and hope it goes up, or do you wait and cross your fingers for a reprint like MMA15 before buying in ? Let me know in the comments what your approach to Modern singles is, because I’m curious about the different approaches that people are using.
So much for taking notes during last weekend’s Star City Games’s first ever Modern Invitational in Columbus. Two of the cards that were sorely undervalued upon the conclusion of the Invitational—Olivia Voldaren and Huntmaster of the Fells—spiked fast and hard over the last few days, forcing me to change my initial plan for today’s column. Instead of discussing four cards I think will emerge more expensive by this time next week, I am going to talk about two things today:
Will Olivia and Huntmaster remain at their lofty new prices?
My bet for the archetype that would be performing the best at Grand Prix Charlotte and the card that would spike with it.
The New Jund Overlords
One creature to rule them all.
First off, we have a new queen in Jund. Olivia Voldaren saw some play back when the deck dominated the format, in an era when Birthing Pod was legal, but she wasn’t as powerful back then as she is today in a metagame full of grindy creatures and Lingering Souls. An unanswered Olivia takes over any creature-based matchup and she is not exactly easy to answer if deployed properly (a.k.a. with 1R open to grow her toughness to four in response to Lightning Bolt).
Olivia was hovering at $6.60 when the Invitational concluded and spiked hard over the next few days to the $17.32 she is at today. Is her $17 price tag justified for a card that sees play as a two-of in the 75 of Jund and occasionally as a one-of in Grixis Twin‘s sideboard?
My answer is yes. She is a mythic from Innistrad, which was opened nearly four years ago (how time has passed!), so it’s probably about time that Olivia’s price hits double-digits as a mythic that sees Modern play. Olivia seems to be a trump card in grindy creature matchups and fits in any decks that runs BR and wants to grind out the long game.
I don’t think $17 is the ceiling for Olivia if Jund continues to perform this weekend or if Grixis Twin starts to adopt her as a sideboard mainstay. On the other hand, Olivia is at most played in twos and that limits her price ceiling. I’d say $25 is the highest she could go in best-case scenario.
The hunt is on again. We’re hunting fair decks this time.
Huntmaster of the Fells is a wholly different beast. Like Olivia, Huntmaster spiked from the $6 to $18 within days following the Invitational. Remember, Jund made top eight of both the Invitational and Modern Open. However, I don’t think Huntmaster’s price is done spiking yet.
While he was just found as a two-of in Jund’s sideboard, Huntmaster sees play in a larger variety of decks compared with Olivia. While Olivia’s role is to break open creature mirrors, Huntmaster serves as instant value in a format where removal is generally one-for-one. He is a bit like a planeswalker in the fact that he is a card that does multiple things: create board position, gains life, takes out small creatures, and domes the opponent.
While Huntmaster can be found in a variety of midrange lists that runs his colors, his current surge in price is solely driven by Jund’s recent performance.
However, I think that he has yet to hit his ceiling. Huntmaster was present as a four-of in the sideboard of a variant of an archetype that I think is very well-positioned for this weekend’s Grand Prix, which segues perfectly into the next segment:
Next-Level Delver
Check out this new take on Delver that took down a 273-player StarCityGames Modern Premier IQ in the weekend before Modern Masters 2015 weekend:
Temur Delver by Jordan Boisvert
While Delver decks went down the Grixis route to get access to the black Tarmogoyf, Kolaghan’s Command, and efficient creature removal suites resulting in an overall better midrange game, Jordan Boisvert took Delver down a whole different road. He shifted the deck’s gear to tempo and went full speed ahead.
His version of Temur Delver plays the protect-the-queen strategy to the max. The playset of Disrupting Shoal protect your turn-one Delver of Secrets or turn two-Tarmogoyf or Hooting Mandrills. Stubborn Denial adds another three copies of an efficient counterspell to ensure the survival of your early, undercosted threats.
Instead of looking for an improved mid-to-long game capability, Boisvert’s Temur Delver just aims to deploy multiple undercosted threats within the first few turns of the game and protect them with highly efficient counterspells. Disrupting Shoal transforms card advantage into tempo, playing a similar role in Modern as with Force of Will in Legacy Temur Delver. With the most popular Modern removal spells costing one mana (Path to Exile and Lightning Bolt) and half the spells in the deck consisting of one-mana blue spells, there is no shortage of cards to pitch to Force of Will Disrupting Shoal.
Jordan Boisvert’s write-up on how he came to the list and the decks choice of cards is well worth a read. In his article, Jordan mentioned that Huntmaster of the Fells excels in any matchups against fair decks. Based on his individual matchup analysis, Huntmaster seems to be brought in post-board the majority of the time, even against aggro decks like Burn and Affinity, against Grixis Delver, and even Twin decks in anticipation of grindy post-board games.
The question now is: was the deck merely a one-hit wonder?
Adam Fronsee, impressed with Jordan’s list, brought a Delver deck that runs the same core as Jordan’s Temur Delver list (delve creatures, Disrupting Shoal, and Stubborn Denial), but contains black instead of red, which gave him access to more Delve creatures and Abrupt Decay. His list was one of the best-performing decks in the Modern portion of the Invitational. Adam Fronsee finished 12th, probably let down by his Standard showing.
Sultai Delver by Adam Fronsee.
It looks like the pure tempo version of Delver running the Disrupting Shoal and Stubborn Denial core may be the next direction of Delver’s evolution. It’s hard for Delver to play the midrange game with Jund and Abzan doing it much better. The addition of powerful Delve creatures like Tasigur, the Golden Fang and Hooting Mandrills gave Delver more options for undercosted creatures, improving the archetype’s tempo game.
The Modern Force of Will, Finally?
Should Delver move towards a tempo-centric build, Disrupting Shoal would be the card that stands to gain the most price-wise.
Finally fulfilling its destiny as Modern’s Force of Will?
Disrupting Shoal is not the Force of Will that Modern needs, but the Force of Will that Modern deserves. Having dodged reprint in both Modern Masters, the supply of Disrupting Shoal is dangerously low. I dare not even posit its ceiling shall Delver decks move towards the Boisvert’s tempo core that runs a full four Shoals. After a spike in January 2014 due to Travis Woo’s ephemeral Ninja Bear Delver, it is now back down to $6. I think it is a safe bet to buy in a this price, or at least pick up your own playset if you ever intend on playing Delver in Modern.
Delver for Charlotte
One of the reason why I am bullish on cards related to new Delver tech is that Delver, be it Grixis, Temur, or Sultai, seems to be in a good position for Grand Prix Charlotte, assuming the metagame shifts in response to last week’s Star City Games Invitational and Modern Open results.
At level zero, we could expect more Green-Red Tron decks, seeing that Green-Red Tron took down both the Invitational and Modern Open. Delver decks have a great matchup against any deck that attempts to resolve seven- and eight-mana spells. Temur and Sultai Delver probably just eat Tron for breakfast with their slew of undercosted threats that survive Pyroclasm.
The Tron decks would probably eat up the fairest-of-the-fair Jund and Abzan decks. While Delver can handle Jund, Abzan is an atrocious matchup, so having to face less of those decks improves the odds for Delver. Luckily, Abzan is falling out of favor and players are opting for Jund once again, which is good news for the tempo-oriented Delver builds: no more Path to Exile and Siege Rhino, the best answers to Delver’s undercosted fatties. Abrupt Decay is plain useless against Delve creatures.
At level one, we can expect more Twin and Infect, two natural predators of the Tron decks that can scarcely interact with them in game one. Delver has a favorable matchup against both these decks, as Boisvert explained in his write-up.
Based on the above, I think there is a good chance we will see at least one Delver deck finally make top eight of a large event in the post-Treasure Cruise-and-Pod landscape. It’s hard to predict which build would be the one to make it all the way, but after watching Boisvert’s Temur Delver demolish the popular Grixis Delver in Jeff Hoogland and Mat Bimonte’s Crash Test series, I think the tempo-based Delver decks running Disrupting Shoal stand a better chance. After all, if Delver decks are king at the Grand Prix, the Delver that eats other Delvers would be emperor.
Thanks for reading today. Do share your thoughts and predictions for Grand Prix Charlotte in the comments section below or catch me on Twitter at @theguoheng.
MAGIC: THE GATHERING FINANCE ARTICLES AND COMMUNITY
Thoughtseize – Let’s start off with an easy one. Before it’s reprint Thoughtseize (Lorwyn) fetched a ~$75 price tag. It’s been in the $15-20 range (Theros) throughout most of its time in Standard despite the massive amount of Theros product opened. This is one of your last chances to pick them up before they start to climb again. It’s simple the best discard spell. Pick up as many as you can. Currently $24 Fair Trade Price
Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx – Though Nykthos has only seen fringe Modern play in Mono-Green devotion decks, the cards power is real. WotC uses restrictive mana costs to keep powerful cards away from other colors. No one wants play in a Boros Reckoner + Phyrexian Obliterator fight deck. Ok, that does sound pretty sweet, but minimizing the amount of decks powerful cards can be in keeps the formats diverse. Nykthos rewards you for playing all the restrictive CMC cards of a chosen color while also helping you accelerate them out earlier than opponents are comfortable with. My point is, WotC isn’t going to stop printing restrictive mana costed cards. Nykthos can only get better with each new set printed. It’s one card away from Tier one Modern play. At worst, casual players will keep its market demand up. Currently $5 Fair Trade Price
Courser of Kruphix – I know has only been a two-of in a few successful Modern lists. It falls to Abrupt Decay but survives Lightning Bolt. It’s dead weight against combo but great for creating card advantage and hitting your lands for the late game. You know it’s power if you’ve only playing a few matches of Standard. Speculating on a Bant control deck utilizing Courser might be a stretch, but labeling it as unplayable doesn’t seem correct either. The current $6 price might still be a bit high, but picking up a playset for $12 at rotation shouldn’t be a bad investment. This might be the only card on this list that’s worth waiting for a lower price. Currently $6 Fair Trade Price.
Spirit of the Labyrinth (FOIL) – Why foil? Cause, Legacy. Legacy players love foils and Legacy foils love having oddly high prices. Foil Spirit has been a steady $10 while only seeing 1-3 copies in successful Death & Taxes lists. In May, it dropped to $6. D&T hasn’t put up many high places finishes in a while. But, if you play Legacy, you know the meta is always changing. It’s only a matter of time before it falls back into favor. With zero play in any other format, Spirit’s price has been solely dependent on the Legacy environment. This is a good time to pick up while you can still find them. Currently $6 Fair Trade Price.
Mana Confluence – This upgraded City of Brass will continue to take its place in Modern and Legacy decks. It’s been as high as $20 but has mostly stayed around $10-12 during its lifetime. I don’t predict them going that much lower but wouldn’t be surprised to see them follow a slightly slower price trajectory as Cavern of Souls. Plus, it’s a powerful non basic land. Always a worthy investment. Currently $12 Fair Trade Price.
Eidolon of the Great Revel – Probably the best eternal playable card printed in this block. It sees four copies in both Modern and Legacy Mono-Red lists and will continue to do so. Picking up these should be just as obvious as picking up Thoughseizes. To be honest, you probably should have picked them up when they were $5. Currently $11 Fair Trade Price.
Chord of Calling – Chord fell from $40 to $20 after its M15 reprint and has steadily decreased slowly over the past year. Previously played alongside the villainous Birthing Pod, Chord fell when Pod was banned and never found a home in Modern Collected Company decks. Its lack of recent play doesn’t reflect the power of this convoking tutor. Though Pod won’t be unbanned anytime soon, I think Chord will learn to stand on its own again in a future Modern meta. Zero chance this card falls to bulk after rotation. Currently $5 Fair Trade Price.
