Watchtower

Neon Cycles

With Streets of New Capenna having been out for nearly a month now, and previews for Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur’s Gate well underway, I want to take a look back at Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty. A lot of cards from that set have found homes in a lot of different EDH decks, and I’ve actually been surprised at the adoption rate or some of the cards I wouldn’t have thought to be that popular. Let’s see if you feel the same way…

Sokenzan, Crucible of Defiance (Borderless Foil)

Price today: $10
Possible price: $25

I’m pretty sure I’ve written about Boseiju, Otawara and Takenuma before now, but the red cards in these cycles do seem to often get neglected. They may be less exciting and flashy, and so the adoption rate and price drags a little, but I think that just makes them a better opportunity for us. Sokenzan isn’t as powerful as some of the other lands in the set, but it can still easily replace a Mountain in your mono-red (or even multi-colour deck) for very little deck-building cost, giving you that extra little boost of creatures to use however you see fit.

Taking a look at EDHREC numbers, Boseiju takes the crown at over 31k decks, followed by Otawara, Takenuma, Eiganjo and then Sokenzan bringing up the rear. What’s quite interesting is that Otawara is in around 25k decks, but Borderless foils will run you over $40 – four times that of Sokenzan, but in just double the number of decks. Admittedly, Otawara sees more play in Modern, but I think this still indicates that Sokenzan is underpriced right now.

I think that the Borderless foils are the most exciting version of this not-very-exciting card, and can currently be had for around $10 on TGCPlayer. FEAs are running a lot lower around $4, with worse art and a higher supply. There are around 40 listings of Borderless foils right now, almost all single copies and still selling at least a couple a day, so those copies won’t last much longer with little more supply due to fill in the gaps.

Junji, the Midnight Sky (Borderless Foil)

Price today: $28
Possible price: $50

Another Borderless foil for you: Junji, the Midnight Sky. Again we’re not looking at the most popular of the dragons from this cycle here, but this time the second best – or at least, the second most played right now. I do actually think that it’s the best of the cycle; the red one – Atsushi, the Blazing Sky – is very strong too but I think that Junji has more flexibility and can slot into a wider variety of decks whilst still being able to make a big impact on any boardstate.

The drain effect on Junji might not quite stack up to the level of a Kokusho, the Evening Star, but forcing each of your opponents to discard two cards is very strong – especially if you start reanimating and re-sacrificing this dragon (which you definitely should be doing). Also having the option to reanimate a different creature when this one hits the graveyard gives the card another axis of attack, all the while having Flying and Menace to put the pain to your enemies and force them to deal with it – giving you another death trigger, which is exactly what you want.

Borderless foils of Junji are expensive for a standard set card that doesn’t really see play outside of EDH – but the price hasn’t been any cheaper than this and I don’t think it’s likely to get much cheaper than this any time soon. Supply on TCGPlayer is around 25 listings, and I don’t think it will be long at all before this is a $40 card. $50 won’t be too far off after that and as a Borderless foil Mythic the sky could really be the limit here.

David Sharman (@accidentprune on Twitter) has been playing Magic since 2013, dabbling in almost all formats but with a main focus on Modern, Pioneer and EDH. Based in the UK, he’s an active MTG finance speculator specialising in cross-border arbitrage.

Casual Fridays

The New Queen of Mean

Honestly, there were a lot of puns I could go with in the article title, but Tasha, the Witch Queen is an amazing card. I saw this in the preview stream and immediately took to Scryfall, trying to find the most busted things to do with her.

Frankly, this is a mechanic with a lot of flavors. Some versions play out of the graveyard. Some play off the top of their deck. Some intercept a spell (Spelljack!) and let you play it. Tasha loves all of them equally and that’s why she gives you a 3/3 demon every time you do it. 

So let’s get into some early picks for this Queen, and beat the rush when people wake up.

Memory Plunder ($3 for cheapest version, up to $30) – The Lorwyn/Shadowmoor blocks were under-opened compared to other big sets at the time, and as a result, foil rares from those sets can fetch quite a premium. This is a card that doesn’t see as much play as it should in Commander, but that’s because when it’s good it’s game-winningly so or when it’s bad it’s stone unplayable bad. With Tasha telling you what to do, it’s clear you need to just dive in and get value where you can. Keep in mind this is an instant! Copy a counterspell, or how about a Sublime Epiphany? 

Right now, copies can be had in NM foil for about $30, but as of this writing, there were four of those. Entirely possible that in a week or two, $60 is the new price point because of the scarcity of foil Shadowmoor rares.

Covetous Urge (ten cents to $1) – This is an uncommon from the first set with Collector Boosters, so there’s a whole lot of them out there. There’s no special versions either, so you can get many many copies. No one has all the foils, there’s no vendor with 20+ copies, and that means this might not go too badly. You definitely want you foil now at $1 before it jumps to $3 or even $5, as you get to cast the Urge and then wait for the best moment to use the stolen spell.

Hostage Taker ($1 to $6.50) – This is in the AFR Commander decks so we’re unlikely to get another nonfoil right away, but again, it’s a fantastic Tasha card. Tasha on five means that on six mana, you get to cast the Taker, steal a one-or-two-mana rock, and get a 3/3 demon as a bonus. Winner all around! 

It’s already in 16,000 EDHREC decks, and those are the people who love to link a deck. The actual number is probably much higher, as reflected in the high foil multiplier. An excellent candidate to jump above $10, possibly even to $15.

Gonti, Lord of Luxury (a quarter to $6.50) – A mere 30,000 decks online and one of the most fun cards to flicker/reanimate, Gonti will definitely see a bump sometime soon as people build this deck. You don’t get a discount, but you do get the flexibility to cast Gonti first, then play Tasha, and have the stolen card ready to be cast. A 2/3 deathtouch also does a lovely job protecting Tasha. 

This should follow a similar path as Hostage Taker when the deck starts getting built. I’d expect an immediate jump, and to a higher number given the smaller number of foils out there. 

Chaos Wand (a quarter to $2) – This doesn’t have as much EDHREC play at just under 10,000 decks, but there’s not a lot of foils from Magic 2019 out there either. No one has more than four copies, so it’ll only take 20 or so people wanting foils to make this jump, and 20 more to drain the market. Unlike most of the cards on this list (I have a playset from a different casual deck I built years ago) this is repeatable.

Your first spell is seven mana, but the second activation gets it down to a five mana average. It’s just a fun minigame too, pointing the effect at the blue deck when you need a counter or the white deck when you need a Wrath. Note that casting a Wrath means you’ll lose the Demon you’re creating, but no one’s perfect.

Siphon Insight – ($1 to $7 for Double Feature Foil) – The FEA versions under $3 are likely your better target, but Double Feature has had some surprises lately. This card lets you steal a land, and while that doesn’t trigger Tasha, it is a very good effect when you want it. 

There’s just a little Standard play propping this up for now, but being able to flash it back a second time? Very nice and very useful. .

Nightveil Specter – ($.50 to $3) – There’s less than 25 NM copies on TCG right now, but the key to this card is that it has to stay in play. A lot of these other cards don’t have that qualifier, and that’s a bad thing to have. As a result, you might get more than one card, but it’s got to hit once per turn and then stay in play. Hard to do in Commander, when you’re fighting three other decks that want to wrath the boar and get your Specter online.

Diluvian Primordial ($1 to $7) – 16,000 decks, and this little guy comes with three 3/3 Demon friends if you wait to cash this in during the mid-to-late game. All of the ‘cast without paying’ cards are good, but this might be the best of all. Who knows what amazing things you’re getting? Seven mana for a 5/5, three 3/3s, and the three best instant/sorcery spells in your opponents’ graveyards? Sign me up! 

I’m about out of words for the week, but I also want to give a mention to Praetor’s Grasp (already expensive, could get even more so), Fallen Shinobi, Nashi, Moon Sage’s Scion and Silent-Blade Oni (ninjutsu goodness for the top of their library), Thief of Sanity (more flying and stealing) and Mnemonic Betrayal (the Yawgmoth’s Will for their yards) as more cards that could see a significant spike in coming days as Tasha begins her non-benevolent reign over all.

Cliff (@WordOfCommander) has been writing for MTGPrice since 2013, and is an eager Commander player, Draft enthusiast, and Cube fanatic. A high school science teacher by day, he’s also the official substitute teacher of the MTG Fast Finance podcast. If you’re ever at a GP and you see a giant flashing ‘CUBE DRAFT’ sign, go over, say hi, and be ready to draft.

Jason Alt, Unlocked ProTrader

Unlocked Pro Trader: Mopping Up

Readers!

We covered a lot of what is going to matter from New Capenna and New Capenna EDH decks which is great because previews started today for another product already so I guess we’re done with New Capenna.

We hardly knew ya, but you live by the streets, you die by the streets. Filling the void in our lives created by New Capenna being printed, thus depriving us of the cavalcade of spoilers that have been giving our lives meaning. For what is content creation without an incessant stream of new products, and the announcement of Secret Lairs which will charge your credit card $3,000 like 6 months after you forget you ordered them?

Before we close the book on New Capenna, let’s take one final look at how the Commanders are doing in terms of popularity. Now that the set is a week old, I think it’s finally fair to put them in the “Tops decks of the last week” category rather than sorting by set. That’s right, New Capenna is all grown up and ready to join the full data set and be judged against it. I feel like a proud papa here. Like a proud papa, I took pics.

Raffine and Jetmir not being able to beat Prosper makes sense – Prosper is the face card in an EDH precon and it’s also a super boring and obvious deck. I rail against boring and obvious because that kind of stuff offends my tastes as a deckbuilder and I need to constantly remind myself that I rely upon boring stuff to actually make money at MTG Finance. It’s not gambling if you remember your fundamentals, so let’s pick some boring cards and get out of here, I guess. Boring doesn’t have to be bad.

Archmage is popping? Let’s make sure.

This is how long these things take, now. Emertitus has a lot of versions, the bordless version of which is the best, but the multiple versions and sheer volume of product being poured down the throats of the community and the new perverse incentive to gamble at $1,000 a hand instead of $100 like in the past in the form of collector booster boxes has created such a glut of good, new, non-mythic rares that it takes some real doing to get a card to move. This is on its way, and while you might not break off any $2 borderless copies, we now know approximately how long this takes now. If it’s information that helps us in the future remains to be seen.

I don’t have much to say here, but this seems like an $8 card gettable around $2 some places until all of the $2 copies are gone which could be soon. This is a messed up card, but 8 mana is becoming increasingly trivial in EDH these days.

Cards are getting lost in the shuffle at a pretty rapid rate here and I think things are getting missed. Like this, at $1, is just a better version of this

which took 2 reprints to knock below $5. I don’t think Rampy boy necessary hits $7, but it’s not in the regular set and it’s not a card anyone is talking about which means you can snapple cheap copies while people don’t care about it because there are literally too many cards to even read these days.

Hear me out – this $12 card is way too cheap right now. I know $12 looks like a lot but it’s actually not enough. This is a $20 card and I don’t see how they reprint it.

Midnight Vow and Crimson Hunt were out for 15 minutes, no one drafted them because of Covid, they released an overpriced premium Black and White product that EVERYONE hated and now there are a bunch of standard rares that probably go to $10. Adeline is a profoundly unfair Magic card and everyone missed it because by the time the set was spoiled, they started spoiling another one. Besides, everyone is so unfamiliar with those sets that you didn’t even noticed I switched the names Midnight Hunt and Crimson Vow around earlier in this paragraph. It would have been great to get these at $2 but I literally still thought this was like $5 because I haven’t checked on this set in over a month.

Commander Legends spoilers started today so I guess it’s back to the content mine to mine more content until I die of content lung when I’m 40. It’s not much, but it’s honest work and doesn’t take a physical toll on me, so there’s that. If you ever get bogged down by the sheer volume if it all, just remember that no one else can pay attention, either. You pick a card you feel good about, you buy low, and you sell high when no one even thinks about the set 2 weeks after it’s released. You don’t have to read every card, you only to read 1 if it’s the right card. Maybe next week we’ll talk about knowing which card is the right card. Until next time!

Watchtower

Modern Movements

It’s a Modern week! There have been some shifts in the Modern metagame and I’m here to talk about them, the decks that are doing well and the cards from those decks that you should be buying if you want to keep on top of things.

Chord of Calling (Foil)

Price today: $7
Possible price: $20

I’ve written about the Yawgmoth Modern deck a couple of times previously, and until now it’s mostly been a tier 1.5ish deck that has had moderate success but never quite been one of the top dogs. In the past couple of weeks, however, it’s been seeing a lot more play and a lot more top finishes, so here we are again seeing what might be ripe for the picking.

Chord of Calling has always been a staple of this deck, and although the card has four printings now, supply – especially on foils – isn’t particularly plentiful any more. Original Ravnica foils are silly money, but M15 and Double Masters foils can still be had for around $7 right now, which I think could be a steal. There are only 17 2XM listings and 22 M15 listings for NM foils on TCGPlayer, and if you want a playset for Modern then that’s going to severely deplete the available supply quite quickly. There are also the promo foils to consider, of which there are a few more around at the same price, but again not too many.

Europe has everything a buck or two cheaper if you have access to those, but either way I think you should be rewarded on these fairly quickly. EDH demand will always back up the competitive play – this is in over 43k decks on EDHREC and that number isn’t going down anytime soon. Pick these up under $10 whilst you still can!

Dauthi Voidwalker (Retro Foil)

Price today: $15
Possible price: $30

Another deck on the up and up in Modern is the Rakdos Midrange archetype, curving Ragavan into Dauthi Voidwalker into Seasoned Pyromancer, and stacking full playsets each of the MH2 Elementals Grief and Fury. This is a super-streamlined deck that wants to attack your hand and your life total whilst keeping your board clear, to finish the game fast whilst still controlling your opponent’s every move.

Dauthi Voidwalker has become a big part of this deck, with most lists playing the full four copies. It’s an aggressively costed creature that is unblockable for the most part, and the graveyard hate is often very relevant in Modern. The bottom ability is what makes this card really powerful though – being able to play an opponent’s card without paying its mana cost can be a huge boon, especially if a game drags out into mid/late stages.

Retro foils are still only around $15 for this card, but supply is starting to dry up. Compared to the $7-8 regular non-foils, that seems quite cheap for the retro foils, and I think that they should do pretty well a little way down the line. This is also a card in an incredible 50k EDH decks on EDHREC, way more than I thought it would be – but it does make sense. This card is an EDH powerhouse that provides incidental graveyard hate whilst giving you access to your opponents’ most powerful cards.

David Sharman (@accidentprune on Twitter) has been playing Magic since 2013, dabbling in almost all formats but with a main focus on Modern, Pioneer and EDH. Based in the UK, he’s an active MTG finance speculator specialising in cross-border arbitrage.

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