READERS!

I don’t want to talk about the literal spirit of Commander. I don’t even really want to call it Commander, since I like calling it EDH more, but since so many people are new and don’t even remember the good old days, I will, begrudgingly, call it Commander. I’ll come clean, the title is a stupid pun because we know we’re getting a tribal Vampire and tribal Spirits deck in Breaking Dawn or whatever and we should be ready for both.

We haven’t gotten confirmation that the deck will be Blue/White that I have seen (I’m sure there’s an article on the mothership or something) but based on the last 2 decks being two color and tribal, we can infer we’re getting RB Vampires and UW Spirits. On that basis, I decided to do what I did last week and delve this time into UW Spirits decks on EDHREC to see if there are any cards we should be buying in advance. A lot of the Spirits cards are reprintable and are nichey, but they have Modern applicability, too, so it’s possible we have additional chances for growth. That said, Modern applicability makes them even more reprintable. There probably isn’t a better target than last week’s Bloodline Keeper, but we can take a look anyhow.

In case you don’t feel confident navigating the site or feel like you pay me to do stuff so I should do it for you, here is the full Spirits tribal page on EDHREC. There are some non-Azorius cards here, which we can ignore, but it doesn’t suck to know how people are building everything. Let’s get into it.

This is… a mess. It’s pretty clear I should focus on a UW spirits commander. But which ones?

I can already tell that I am more likely to uncover some busted Kamigawa block tech in a Celestial Kirin deck than I am to find a good spec in the Ranar deck, but I’m going to do my due diligence anyway. Kykar is a combo deck that has Spirit tribal lords in it because why not swing for 3 with your tokens in a pinch, but I doubt it’s built like the new deck will be. Still going to look.

Let’s rule some stuff off right off the top, OK? I would bet money Supreme Phantom is in the deck, ditto for Rattlechains, Selfless Spirit etc. We can buy anything from that list that isn’t in the deck when the decklist is spoiled, but we’re not making money on Drogskol Captain any more than we did off of… the Dimir Zombie one. Diregraf, that’s the one. I am honestly more likely to lose money with a reprint of Skyclave Apparitions that are in a box somewhere that I will forget to sell in time than I am to make money with Shackelgeist. I think there IS a card that’s a couple bucks now that goes to like $8 if it’s not reprinted, at least in the short term, which means you need to buy now.

At a $2.50 buy-in, which is like $0.50 over CK’s buylist, this seems lowish risk. This is an easy dump to a buylist for $5 a copy in 2 months if we don’t catch a reprint. I don’t think there are too many other opportunities from that whole cohort of “Modern Spirits deck” cards. Spell Queller maybe? I like this as a medium-risk pickup. If it’s in the deck, you likely take a bath, but you may be able to panic dump to a tardy buylist site if you see it’s reprinted? I don’t know, I don’t react quickly enough to try and get others to subsidize my mistakes, I put them in a box, forget about them, they go up, I don’t sell, they get another reprint then I find them an cry. Your technique might be different.

While we’re talking about Spell Queller, I actually don’t hate it.

Queller isn’t getting cheaper barring a reprint, and with the USA deciding that not spreading Covid is boring, we’re likely looking at a return to sanctioned Modern, which could perk this back up. I like it at $3.50.

The Ranar page isn’t turning much up, so let’s get creative.

That huge spike in 2019 was me making you all a crapton of money when I saw that Teysa decks were going to make use of this. I am not going to make you “buying in at $0.50” money anymore, but I am going to make you some money if this isn’t reprinted. It’s actually not the most synergistic with Spirits in all cases, so the commander may matter, but with multiple Legendary creatures in the deck, I think this synergizing poorly with the main commander means it’s less likely to get reprinted but you still have chances for it to go in another deck. I like this for those reasons. I realize the decks are finalized and some people know the contents, but I’m still guessing here and I guess this is real solid at $5.

Rooting around in Cloudhoof Kirin’s cards, I found this bizarre gem. It’s actually super strong but 6 mana sort of bites. I think random stuff like this could be in play, but if you look at the Zombies stuff that went up, it was $5 cards going to $10 rather than $0.75 cards going to $2, and there aren’t a ton of $5 spirits. The issue with trying to find secret good tech in the Kamigawa Spirits is that all of the Azorius ones are like 6 mana. No wonder everyone hated Kamigawa block at the time.

This has turned into a bit of a bust. One thing I can do is look at what I think the commander’s abilities might be and try to see if there is anything that could synergize with… a thing I’m making up. It sounds lower value than I think it is, especially when I type ellipses.

For example, if something puts Spirits from your hand into play for free, which could be solid, bigger, more expensive Spirits are in play. The upside? Those dumb Kamigawa ones are better. The downside? Anything really good is likely reprinted in the deck.

If it manages to dodge a reprint and if it is at all decent with a commander like that, Drogskol Reaver is a solid card on its way to $8-$10 that could be a real player in that deck. A reprint likely knocks this down forever, but something like this seems necessary to beat the Vampires deck. Don’t forget, the decks were designed to play against each other and the Vampires deck likely swarms fast so it might be necessary to have some lifegain because spirits are all like 3 mana 3/1 fliers and it sucks to block a 1 mana 2/2 with those. I think Reaver is just a good card and people seem to like it enough for it to go from bulk rare status 5 years ago to over $5 now.

Kataki is in the process of going off, but if you can get copies under $10, see that you do. I wish I’d thought of it sooner.

That does it for me this week. In general, the cards that did the best from the Zombie reprint were $5ish cards and there are a few of them, albeit with decent reprint risk. Still, the Wilhelt deck didn’t reprint cards we thought they might, and they hosed some others’ Rooftop Storm specs. All I know is that you really only need one solid card to make some money with and while there aren’t a ton of great options here, you only really need one. I personally like Hallowed Spiritkeeper – something about cashing in on the same spec multiple times makes me happier than hitting with something new. That does it for me – until next time!

Readers!

We talk about how there are no “missed” specs, only opportunities to invest money elsewhere, and doesn’t it take a lot of experience and mental discipline to start to feel that way? When you miss the boat on a spec, it feels bad – doubly so if you wanted copies to play with as well. I won’t tell you we didn’t miss some stuff by virtue of ignoring it because it sounds like I’m making excuses for something it was too late to talk about – Wolves and Zombies going nuts. Predictably, very predictably, Wolves and Zombies got some extra attention with A Zombie precon and a Legendary Wolf creature in Innistrad: Team Jacob last week. We could do a post-mortem on what you should have bought so you know for next time, but we likely still would have under-estimated the demand based on how things shook out the last time we traveled to Innistrad. Instead, let’s look to the future and remind ourselves that way more people play EDH now than did 5 years ago and anything we get right here is bound to look even better in a few months.

It may be a bit too late for some Vampires, but not all specs are created equal. Do we expect Stromkirk Captain to be $9 just because Immerwolf went nuts? Not exactly, and any mitigating factors will be discussed here. However, we DO expect some movement, and we expect some reprints, too. So how do we get ahead of the movement and avoid the reprints? By doing what we always do – guessing.

Guessing with data, sure, but still guessing. Ultimately we may be way off-base with some of our guesses, but let’s look at some prices anyway, shall we?

Immerwolf has a very powerful effect, one printing, is the closest thing this tribe has to a Lord and is in the color of every wolf deck.

Stromkirk Captain has 2 printings, including one in a commander precon, is just another Lord in a deck with many and is in colors that aren’t always necessary to play in a Vampires deck considering there are a lot of White and White-Black Vampires in Ixalan. So do we expect this to do nothing? No, not exactly. The foils have only been printed once, can’t be in a precon and are basically gone from the internet. The foil basically went from $2 to $20 overnight, so that tells me the non-foils, preferred by actual EDH players anyway, are in play. At a $0.50 buy-in, these will buylist for a couple of bucks if not reprinted. Is the reprint risk kind of high? Yes, and that’s another reason why Captain can’t go off like Immerwolf did. Let’s look at cards with more potential.

WotC has said about 20 different times 20 different ways that they’re not putting DFCs in the precons. That means Bloodline Keeper has a basically 0% chance of a reprinting next month. This is already on a moonward trajectory, but these will be gone under $25 very soon and you’ll likely be able to get out closer to $40 than $20. This seems like a pretty sexy spec to me and $15 is just the beginning considering it got that high when the Vampire precon came out and more copies are in the hands of dealers than they were 3 years ago. All of this points to a pretty nice payday for people in a position to sell when the precon list is spoiled. Let’s be ahead of the curve instead of cursing ourselves for not predicting Gravecrawler would pop.

Foil Indulgent Aristocrat is a high buy-in at $10, but it also seems like the floor for now. Dealers seems skeptical given the high amount of daylight between retail and buylist.

Nocturnus is affordable and has been stable since the 2018 precon came out. However, it’s somewhat reprintable and while it’s obvious to people who built Vampires back in the day, it might not be obvious to new builders. I still think if you can get in under $10, and you very much can, it seems safe.

This seems like it mitigates reprint risk a bit by being kind of a weird Ixalan specific vampire. It doesn’t have a keyword ability or anything and it’s already gained a lot of value this year, so if you want to skip it, that is probably a decent call. Still, this is a card that doubles in price minimum under the right circumstances, so I would be remiss if I didn’t point out there was a chance for this.

This card is halfway between shrugging off its last reprint and flirting with $3 again. I think it gets there.

There are a few ways the deck can go. So far I’ve been looking at Edgar Markov lists for synergistic cards, but the different vamps have different high synergy cards.

I stuck with Edgar Markov because the Midnight Hunt precons were two color and they were the colors of the tribes in original Innistrad. That seems to basically rule out White vampires, but it doesn’t rule out a lifegain synergy rather than a +1/+1 counter one, so you could get ahead of the curve by correctly guessing the subtheme of the deck. You can buy specific cards when the decks are spoiled, but then you’re competing with everyone else and the whole point of thinking about this now is to avoid the rush later.

That does it for me this week, folks. Remember to go to the Vampire tribal page on EDHREC and look at the lists from every Vampire commander before you buy anything. Until next time!