With a new set, I don’t like to buy in right away. There’s plenty of room for things to fall as sets get opened, and with that in mind, I’ve put together a list of cards that I want to buy, if they get to the right price. We’ve got a little bit of EDHREC data in, but this is more about the cards that are either on a trajectory to very cheap or are due for a price correction.
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Cliff (@WordOfCommander) has been writing for MTGPrice since 2013, and is an eager Commander player, Draft enthusiast, and Cube fanatic. A high school science teacher by day, he’s also the official substitute teacher of the MTG Fast Finance podcast. If you’re ever at a GP and you see a giant flashing ‘CUBE DRAFT’ sign, go over, say hi, and be ready to draft.
I was planning on going deeper on more of the Innistrad commanders and, honestly, this just seems like a bad set for it. The commanders are either Slogurk – just another Simic goodstuff pile that has the same lands-matter cards as the last 10 Simic commanders, or it’s incredibly narrow – curses or Werewolves or something. I fully intended to dive into Lynde, and I just didn’t see anything to care about.
A bunch of cards that are basically never going to go up, and one that did. The worst one. I don’t get it.
I’m sure this went up for non-EDH reasons or something. I don’t know – the point is, Lynde isn’t really making anyone any money. The more specialized commanders get, the more obvious the picks get to people, but since they don’t have any idea of the scale we’re talking about, they’re guessing at the demand. Will every Lynde deck run Curse of Vengeance? Maybe, but how many decks is that? Right now there are 73 in the database and they’re all basically identical. Will people still want to build Lynde in 2 months when there is a new set out? Looking at just the data from the set, it’s clear Lynde is popularish, but what does that mean?
Sure, there are more people playing EDH than there were in 2018, but there are twice as many Legendary creatures every set as there were then, too. Most commanders won’t get built. Obviously bad ones won’t get built very much at all, but even decent ones won’t, and one reason is that they’ll be made obsolete soon. I gave up on a Lands-matter commander in Simic because every few months a new version came out. Is Slogurk the best one?
OK, this is going to turn into a lecture, so here’s something to tide you over – this card hasn’t been printed all that recently, it is in both Stickfingers and Slogurk, it isn’t likely to get printed soon and it shouldn’t be under $20
Back to my rant – I’m picking on Lynde a bit, but I could easily pick on Tovolar. Tovolar is running away with the number one spot in this set, but how about for the week?
How about for the month, then?
There is a LOT going on here. What gets missed when we move from set to set so quickly is that how good something is over a longer term matters a lot, too. Sure, if you had Immerwolves you could be selling them for $3 apiece on TCG Player direct right now if that’s your model, but if you like to buy retail and flip to buylists, the easiest way to make money, you’ll need some sustained demand for the buylist price to go up. The number one deck built from a set MIGHT do that the way Prosper has, but it’s pretty clear it needs to be more than just the best deck from that set. Looking at Weekly and Monthly trends is one way to identify longer-term demand and find better buys.
Here’s something interesting I found.
Prosper is number one, blah blah blah, but look at the rest of the top 5. Galea was the second most built commander in the set, with nearly as many decks as Sefris. Let’s look at the top decks of the last 30 days again.
Sefris is there, but where is Galea? Even though Galea was more popular overall and more popular in the set, in the last 30 days, people have continued to build Sefris decks and not Galea. Of the 871 decks in the database for Sefris, we can deduce that 586, or 67% of the total, were built in the last 30 days. Only 551 Galea decks were built over the same period. It’s not nothing, but it means Sefris is creeping up. How many Top 5 decks in a set don’t even chart a month later? 540 Volo decks, 325 Tiamat decks, 236 for Xanathar… feels like we’re already losing steam. Of everything we discussed today, only one deck, Prosper, makes the Top 100 in the last 2 years. Seeing more Galea decks than Sefris decks were being built 3 weeks ago tells us some stuff but not noticing that Sefris closes the gap by about 20 decks a week tells us a lot, too, and it’s information I’m largely not accounting for like I should be. Look how many of the set-specific EDH precon commanders are on this list – Lathril AND Anowon? We looked at Lathril picks the week the deck was spoiled and that’s it, but more people are building Lathril than Kenrith during a week that Golos got banned and that’s significant.
What does this all mean, in practical terms? To me, it means that while speculating on cards that are going to be good in Slogurk is probably smart since a non-zero number of Slogurk decks are going to be built, we need to focus more on the Prospers of the world. A Prosper spec seems like it’s twice as likely to go up and stay up compared to a Sefris spec, but we haven’t revisited either, really. All of that ignores the fact that we never even gave Sefris a serious look the first time. Should we have?
No, probably not. Still, though.
Since I have basically made the case that Slogurk specs are only worth it if they’re in more decks than just Slogurk since the growth potential is limited, let’s look at cards that are in Slogurk, Stickfingers AND Tovolar, shall we?
Behold! Your specs! Good night!
OK, so we’re clearly going to have to deign to look at cards in a mere 2 decks rather than all 3, which still gives us opportunities to find some hits.
The EA copies of Yavimaya are pretty hot, and since the lowest they ever were on CK is about what they are on TCG Player now, we can pretend we didn’t miss out on 2 weeks of solid growth by not doing this sooner.
Everyone loves a good sac outlet. Well, not Tovolar, but these other decks do, so that’s cool. There will liekly be another chance to make a lot of money on this as it dips to $2, which should have been a cue to leap on the copies with alacrity, but this isn’t done going up.
When I expanded the cards I included to all of the cards from the page and not just the 99 cards in the average deck (something I did for comedic effect to show you the average decks had few cards in common), Utopia Sprawl showed up for all 3 decks. I don’t know if this is the fixing everyone acts like it is, but this is a very good card and it has a ton of utility. Anything in the future that untaps lands, any future enchantress card, any deck that needs fixing – this has 100 chances to hit $12 barring another reprint.
Of the 3 decks, Tovolar, Stickfingers and Slogurk, the one deck that didn’t include this was Tovolar, the Wolf deck. This card is busted with a big graveyard, which Slogurk and Stickyboi both give you. Feast your eyeholes on this graph.
The foil has hit $5 before, expect a second spike to be closer to $10 than $5. This is a sneaky good card, but it’s tough to reprint the foil and with no Werewolf precon forthcoming, where would they print the non-foil? I mean, this isn’t a Wolf card, but people get hung up on the tokens it makes, so maybe WotC does, too.
Is Tovolar the next Prosper? Well, no. I don’t know if we’ll get another Prosper this year, but if you want to mess around with the list comparator tool for literally 10 minutes, I bet you’ll find some hits. Here are some lists I would cross-reference.
I would check Chatterfang against Stickfingers and Lathril.
I would check Sefris against Anowon.
I would check Veyran against Vadrik.
Being the best deck in a bad set isn’t half as good as being the second best preconstructed deck in a worse set sometimes, so make sure you check the macro view and don’t miss out on the Yavimayas for the trees. Until next time!
People always joke about every Masters set being “Commander Masters”, and although we got a swathe of excellent Modern cards in MH2, there are also some EDH gems in there too – both reprints and new cards. As expected, Europe is being sluggish on the EDH cards and I think that now is prime time to be looking at some arbitrage opportunities from the set, as well as some pickups that are still solid value on the US side of the pond.
Cabal Coffers (Borderless)
Price in Europe: €23 ($27) Price in US: $35 Possible price: $50
Cabal Coffers went so long without a reprint that it got to the point where it seemed like every upcoming set was sure to have it, until we finally got it in MH2. Bear in mind that this is the first reprint in eleven years; the last time we saw this card was back in Planechase, with only two small printings (original Torment and then an FNM promo) before that. With that in mind, there will have been a huge number of players priced out of this card – which peaked over $150 earlier this year – who are sure to have snapped up their copies with the release of the new set.
Bear in mind this is a card listed in over 35,000 decks on EDHREC, and I suspect that number would be closer to 50k if the card hadn’t been so prohibitively expensive these past few years. Every mono-black deck should definitely be running this, and it’s still very good in two/three colour decks too, especially when you have dual lands with basic land types on them. Add an Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth into the mix and you’re really off to the races!
MH2 has given us three new versions: regular and etched foil with the original art, and a borderless version with gorgeous new artwork. I’m a big fan of picking up the borderless versions in Europe here, as they’re a good chunk cheaper than those on the US market and in much more plentiful supply. Considering that the regular MH2 versions are already $21+ on TCGPlayer, I think that $27 for the borderless printing is a bit of a steal.
Mirari’s Wake (Borderless Foil)
Price in Europe: €11 ($13) Price in US: $20 Possible price: $40
Moving onto another very popular EDH card, Mirari’s Wake is another reprint with some stunning new artwork – in my opinion, the best one we’ve got by quite a wide margin now. I’ve held some of these and the borderless foils really pop in person, much more so than most of the other printings out there. The original Judgement artwork is still a great one, but good luck finding any of those foils at a reasonable price!
Mirari’s Wake is just a generically good card in any EDH deck that can run it, and even forgetting the infinite combos you can set up with your lands tapping for double mana, the card provides a huge boon to token decks, enchantment decks and more. As a lover of shiny things I know I might be slightly biased, but I know that if I had an old Mirari’s Wake in any of my decks then I’d definitely be wanting to upgrade to the borderless foil.
The borderless foils are going for around €11/$13 on CardMarket in Europe at the moment, and I really think that’s far too cheap on any length horizon, especially if you’re going to be selling them in the US. TCGPlayer’s floor is already at $20, and I fully expect that to increase quite a bit over the next 6-12 months. Before this reprint, the Commander’s Arsenal foils were almost $40, and the (far superior) Conspiracy and Judge promo foils were around $80, so I don’t think that $40 from this is too much to ask. Even if you’re picking up the $20 copies on TCGPlayer I think you’re going to do well; even if we see another Commander set printing of the card, it’s unlikely to be in foil.
Patriarch’s Bidding (Foil)
Price today: $5 Possible price: $20
Finishing things off today with a slightly more niche, but nevertheless very popular EDH card, Patriarch’s Bidding was given its first ever reprint in Modern Horizons since the card’s first printing all the way back in Onslaught (not counting the WCD versions, which don’t exactly add much to the supply on top of being gold bordered and not in foil). With that in mind, I think that the new foils from MH2 being $5 is murderously cheap, and time will prove that true.
Although only being in around 6000 decks listed on EDHREC (relatively little compared to our other two cards today), Patriarch’s Bidding is an auto-include in any tribal deck running black – reanimating everything in your graveyard for just five mana is pretty great, and as long as your opponents aren’t also running tribal decks then it’s likely to be fairly one-sided most of the time.
With around 68 NM foil listings on TCGPlayer right now, the majority of those are single copies and so I don’t think it’s going to be too long before a lot of those drain out. The etched foils are much cheaper but far less desirable, and any magpies are definitely going for the set foils over the etched. Europe has these a little cheaper too at around $3-4, but the $5 copies in the US are definitely good enough for specs too. The reprint (as expected really) has barely caused a dip in the original foils, so I wouldn’t hunt there unless you want that extra EDH bling.
David Sharman (@accidentprune on Twitter) has been playing Magic since 2013, dabbling in almost all formats but with a main focus on Modern, EDH and Pioneer. Based in the UK, he’s an active MTG finance speculator specialising in cross-border arbitrage.
All right, everyone, let’s get into the distributions of different Innistrad: Midnight Hunt cards. There’s three variants, plus the usual Extended Art treatment. Wizards has been good about not throwing any huge curveballs here since the 30% hurdle in Commander Legends, and it makes these calculations a lot easier. If you’re looking for your odds of a Borderless Foil Wrenn and Seven, look no further!
First, some raw numbers. There are 20 mythics in the set, and 64 rares. Plus, there’s 83 uncommons and 105 commons. Those won’t be as relevant to us, but as we’ll discuss, if a foil hits it big (Expressive Iteration, I’m looking at you!) suddenly that’s a very relevant number.
There’s two Showcase frames in this set: All of the Werewolves and Warlocks in the set get what’s called the Equinox frame, on both sides if it’s a two-faced card.
Then we have the Eternal Night frame, a black-and-white sketch art to go with a more translucent frame. This is done to every legendary creature which isn’t in the Equinox frame. If it’s a two-sided card, both sides get this treatment.
Finally, we get the Borderless treatment, which is new art and has no borders. This is just the five slowlands, and the three planeswalkers. Interestingly, Arlinn, the Pack’s Hope is the only card to get three different arts: regular, Equinox, and Borderless.
There’s not a special version of a single card, the way there was a Phyrexian Vorinclex in Kaldheim, or a special subset as in the Mystical Archive. Also, there’s no etched foils in this set. Thankfully, this is a straightforward set, and we can make clear comparisons to other sets.
Now let’s talk about what you get in the three kinds of packs:
In a Draft Booster, you can get foils or nonfoils of almost anything. Foil Equinox, foil Borderless, both are possible, but NOT the Commander-only cards and not the Extended Art versions of cards. One out of three Draft boosters have a foil, but that’s a foil of anything, including the basic land. (which is good–the foils of these Eternal Night basics should be solid, financially)
Set Boosters do have a slot for the Commander cards, but only in nonfoil. You can get the same foils and nonfoils, otherwise, just more of them to go with the 25% chance of card from The List, which is 300 cards long, everything is of equal rarity, and you need to open 1200 Set Boosters to get a full set of The List. (you won’t get it at exactly 1200 because of the way probability works, but the math is sound.
The rarest cards are going to be the Foil Extended-Art mythics from this set. Not the Equinox and not the Eternal Night, since those foils can show up in Draft and Set Boosters. The EA treatment is exclusive to the Collector Boosters, and Wizards’ own graphics tell us that there’s really only one slot to worry about:
So how rare is rare in that last slot? (Last, in this case, meaning that you’ll reveal it last. If you open a CB card by card, you’ll see things in bottom-up order!) Let’s have a table:
Type of card
Number of options
Odds of getting one of these in a given CB (last 2 slots)
How many CBs need to be opened to get a specific card with that treatment
Foil Mythic Equinox
1
.66%
151
Foil Rare Equinox
8
10.6%
75.5
Foil Mythic Eternal Night
3
1.9%
151
Foil Rare Eternal Night
11
14.6%
75.5
Foil Mythic Borderless
3
1.9%
151
Foil Rare Borderless
5
6.6%
75.5
Foil Mythic Extended Art
14
9.3%
151
Foil Rare Extended Art
41
54.3%
75.5
Remember, you are twice as likely to get a rare (65 options) as a mythic (21 options) and that’s where the denominator of 151 comes from.
So about 75% of Collector Boosters will have a foil rare of some kind in this slot. Note that Arlinn is the only foil mythic Equinox, as well as being a Borderless Planeswalker, so she will be 50% more common than any other mythic from this set. Put another way, for every two copies of Teferi, Who Slows the Sunset, there’s three copies of Arlinn, the Pack’s Hope.
Here’s a table for the nonfoils:
Type of card
Number of options
Odds of getting one of these in a given CB
How many CBs need to be opened to get a specific card with that treatment
Nonfoil Mythic Equinox
1
1.8%
55
Nonfoil Rare Equinox
8
29.1%
22.5
Nonfoil Mythic Eternal Night
3
5.4%
55
Nonfoil Rare Eternal Night
11
40%
22.5
Nonfoil Mythic Borderless
3
5.4%
55
Nonfoil Rare Borderless
5
18.2%
22.5
Nonfoil Mythic Extended Art (slot 3)
14
14.6%
96
Nonfoil Rare Extended Art (slot 3)
41
85.4%
48
Where does this set land compared to other sets? One more table!
set
Odds of a specific foil rare
Odds of a specific foil mythic
Innistrad: Midnight Hunt
1/75.5
1/151
Forgotten Realms
1/63
1/126
Strixhaven
1/154.5
1/309
Kaldheim
1/64
1/128
Modern Horizons 2
1/126.5
1/253
We can see that things will be a little more rare than in AFR, and this doesn’t have the Vorinclex effect that Kaldheim was blessed with. Strixhaven is going to be an outlier for most things, because of the way that they set up the Mystical Archive.
One thing I want you to note, if you love buying Collector Boosters: These last three slots have some rough math. About 85% of those packs will have these as the final three cards: nonfoil rare EA, nonfoil rare showcase/borderless, foil EA/showcase/borderless rare. For each of those slots, you’ve got about a 15% chance to hit a mythic. Buying a box of 12 packs, the math says you’re getting about two mythics in each slot.
I hope this helps inform your buying decisions. If you find an error here, be kind, and post a comment or come mention it in the ProTrader Discord.
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