Watchtower

Early MH2 Nonsense

Modern Horizons 2 won’t be out in paper for more than a week still, but we’ve already had a few days of it being out on MTGO, and that’s resulted in some pretty interesting decklists. Urza’s Saga proved to be an early winner in multiple decks and as such is very expensive right now (I expect it to come down), and Ragavan has been hailed as the best red one-drop ever printed, showing up in a huge number of Legacy decks and a fair share of Modern ones too.

Today I want to have a look at some of the cards that might currently be underestimated, or that have proven some results but are yet to gain traction and pop off.

Living End (Foil)

Price today: $8/$25
Possible price: $20/$50

Firstly, an older deck that’s benefitted from a new-to-Modern card from MH2 – Living End. The deck’s been around in the format for many years now, drifting in and out of relevance, but now that MH2 has introduced Shardless Agent into Modern, people are back on the deck again and performing well with it. Shardless Agent replacing something like Demonic Dread or Ardent Plea is actually big game for the deck, because getting a 2/2 rather than effectively nothing from your Cascade card is enough to push the deck back up a bit.

With some solid performances over the weekend, it might be that Living End is back to stay or it might be that it’ll drop back to tier two after a week or so…but either way, I really like the look of Living End foils right now. We’ve only got two printings of the card with no extra treatments, first in the original Time Spiral and then the reprint in Time Spiral Remastered. Original foils are getting very hard to come by, with only five NM listings on TCGPlayer starting at $25 – and although there are a few more copies in Europe they’re no cheaper, as this is really a Modern-only card. TSR foils are a fair bit cheaper starting at around $8, but supply isn’t very deep on those either as it was printed as a Mythic.

Both versions of these foils seem like great pickups here to climb quickly, especially the older version. When you bear in mind that people buying these foils for their deck will be needing three or four copies at once, the remaining supply could disappear very quickly.

Arcbound Ravager (MCQ Foil)

Price in Europe: €8 ($10)
Price in US: $20
Possible price: $30

Another older deck that’s had a huge resurgence with MH2 is Affinity – a relic of days gone by before Mox Opal got axed from Modern. There are a few new variants flying around at the moment, given new life by cards like Urza’s Saga and Sojourner’s Companion. There are some classic builds and some Hardened Scales builds, and Arcbound Ravager has started to pop off as a result.

We have a few different premium treatments for Ravager now, with the MPS one over $150 now and original Darksteel foils over $100. Here I like the look of the MCQ promo, because although supply has been chewed up in the US already, there are still plenty of copies hanging around in Europe under $10. It might not be the best version of the card, but for the price point in Europe I think it’s an excellent arbitrage opportunity. Affinity could well be back to stay as one of the top decks in Modern, so keep an eye on other pieces of the deck as we get more results from MTGO play.

Witch’s Oven (Foil)

Price in Europe: €1 ($1)
Price in US: $???
Possible price: $10+

Cat Oven decks quickly became a staple in Standard, Historic and even Pioneer soon after Cauldron Familiar and Witch’s Oven were printed in Throne of Eldraine, and even became dominant enough that the Familiar had to be banned in Standard. Since then, similar sacrifice decks have remained popular in Historic and Pioneer, and now that Modern Horizons 2 is here, people are trying things with Oven in Modern.

Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar with Ovalchase Daredevil and The Underworld Cookbook makes for an incredible value engine, and once you get that train going you can quickly power out a Feasting Troll King and/or start pinging people to death with a Mayhem Devil. Feasting Troll Kings have already popped off, and might be here to stay in the deck or might get replaced at some point. However, I think that Witch’s Oven is always going to be a mainstay of this archetype whether it’s in Modern or another format, and foils are looking quite tasty right now.

I’ll give you a moment to go and check TCGPlayer for Witch’s Oven NM foils. Done? Yeah, there aren’t any. Pretty wild. There are a couple of LP and MP copies there but that’s it, so we need to go and look at Europe instead. There are a load of copies under €1 on MKM and I think they’re slam dunks to sell in the US for $5+ immediately, and could easily hit $10 pretty soon. Yes, it’s an uncommon, but it’s only had a single printing nearly 2 years ago and supply is reflecting that. Around 4000 EDH decks on EDHREC back it up a bit too, and until we see another premium treatment of this card it’s looking great.

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 and a new writer for MTGPrice in 2020, he’s an active MTG finance speculator specialising in cross-border arbitrage.

Casual Fridays

Too Much, Too Soon

1 Comment

If there’s one thing I wish people would stop doing, it’s pre-ordering cards. 

The prices right now for Modern Horizons 2 are incredibly high due to hype and lack of certainty, two factors that combine with the recent price spikes of older cards to lead to a real ‘What on earth is going on?!?’ sort of feeling.

I’m here to tell you to calm down, to not buy anything yet, and be patient. Let’s talk about some current examples of preorder pricing and examine why these are such bad ideas.

First of all, today’s focus is on the regular frame, nonfoil versions of things. There are some scattered preorders for special frame/special foiling versions of MH2 cards, but frankly, we don’t have enough to support a trend. Most vendors are content to sell what they open, and not over-commit to what’s coming and what’s going to be opened.

Second, most of my pricing is taken from eBay, which makes it relatively easy to find numbers for sold items.

Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer (multiple sold at $80 on eBay) – Is this a good card? Absolutely. Is it overpriced because people are talking it up as a new Dreadhorde Arcanist in Legacy? Partially. Having the Dash ability does make this resistant to sorcery-speed removal, but this price is ridiculous. 

It’s not going to hold a price above $50 unless this is literally the best red creature ever printed. I’m going to go out on a limb and forecast that Ragavan will be available for under $20 within six weeks. (I actually think it’ll go even lower, but a 75% loss is already a big drop)

Subtlety ($45) – Force of Negation premiered in the $40 range, hopped up briefly, then settle back down into the $30-$40 range as blue players gained a greater and greater need for the card.

I expect Subtlety to follow a similar path, but I don’t want to be buying right now. If at all possible, I want to be waiting and buying copies in about two months. Remember that Forgotten Realms is due out on July 23, so the hype is going to move and what stores draft will change. (If your LGS is even open!) I think this has a lot of potential in the long term, but $45 for the regular nonfoil is too high a buy-in when I’m expecting a whole lot of this product to be opened.

Grief ($60) – Interesting. Thoughtseize needed less than a year to hit $75, getting near $100 as it became one of the most common spells in Modern. Repeated reprints have made it cheaper than ever, too:

But now we have a no-mana variant, Unmask in a different form, and it offers some truly backbreaking potential turn 1 with Ephemerate (three cards!!!) or even Cloudshift. We know what Thoughtseize can do, financially, but we don’t know how popular this will be. Thoughtseize broke $60 as a rare, and Grief might be worth it at $60. 

My thought, though, is to let the hype settle down and get to the $30-$40 range if you’re thinking about playing with the card. Most prices are going to fall, and this will be no exception. If the card is real, and if paper play is back, this will shoot straight to the moon.

Dauthi Voidwalker ($40) – If Grief is a big player, this will come along too. It’s an excellent aggressive followup to turn one discard, having a 3/2 unblockable that will sometimes be able to cast their huge spell is a winner too. This is also quite overpriced, though, and I’m expecting this to fall by at least half, and more likely to $15 as a rare.

Damn ($15) – The only sweeper that can kill both Thrun, the Last Troll and Gaddock Teeg, this is a phenomenal card. Being able to kill one or kill all is a really potent combination, even if the BB mode is also sorcery speed. This flexibility is going to lead to this seeing a lot of play in both Modern and Commander. I think this will make it back up to $15, given time, but in the meantime it’s going to fall as far as $5-$7.

Now let’s talk about some of the reprints, and where those will be heading.

Fetchlands (3 at $40-$50, 2 in the $30 range) – We’re about to get a lot of fetchlands. Granted, a big chunk of the fetches opened by individuals will be slotted right into decks, but every Collector Booster box is going to come with 3.3 fetchlands, on average. Keep in mind that these are regular rares, and if we’re cracking a ton of product to run drafts at newly-reopened stores, that’s a large amount entering circulation. Flats and Mesa will be under $20, and I think you’ll have a chance to buy Tarn, Misty, and Verdant at under $30. Make sure that you end up with enough fetches for your current decks, and set aside a few extra to sell or trade when they climb back up again.

Cabal Coffers ($60) – Let’s see what the graph looks like for a card that helped get Prime Time banned from Commander, yes?

This hasn’t had a reprint since Planechase in 2009. Twelve years of Commander players getting more and more insistent that they need the big mana, and of them paying bigger and bigger bucks for that big mana.

Coffers is one of the biggest reprints in this set, and it’s a mythic. A lot of money is going to chase the borderless and the borderless foil, and picking these up in regular nonfoil seems likely under $30. I’m going to try and be patient on this one, but it’s going to rebound from this reprint pretty easily.

Patriarch’s Bidding ($16) – I can see why people want to get this at $16. It’s a $40 card from Onslaught. NINETEEN YEARS they waited to reprint this card! Again, a lot of copies are going to get kept by the people who opened them, which will cut off circulation a little, but there’s generations of players who are clamoring for this in whatever tribal deck they are playing. It’s only good for those tribal deck, though, and only the ones with black as a color. As a result, I think this will fall pretty far…all the way to $5 and if I’m lucky, lower still. If it got to $3, I’d buy them all.

Mirari’s Wake ($17) – Another casual star with minimal reprints, Wake got to its cheapest point when it was reprinted in Conspiracy, followed a couple years later by a Commander reprint. This gave a big window for prices to be down and stay there:

The card is too good, though, and as you see, the price has come roaring back. With this printing, we’re going to see a lot of copies circulating, and that’s going to lead to a race to the bottom. I’m sure it will drop to under $10, but I’m not certain how much lower it’ll go and how many copies it’ll take before I have had enough. If it’s $7, don’t you feel buying it all up is the right play, even for the regular frame nonfoil?

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: Cleaning Up

Readers!

As usual, there is a bit of a feeding frenzy for obvious stuff and cards that are less obvious to people who are just reacting to what they see on Twitter but are just as obvious to us are still available. Let’s see what all is going in these decks and see if we can’t make some money while everyone else is fighting over the obvious stuff.

I’m tempted to go super shallow across all of the top commanders, but I think there is enough time on the non-obvious stuff to do that over the next few weeks like I always do. Let’s go pretty deep on one or two commanders and see where we end up. This set is pretty bonkers, especially for a set not called “Commander Horizons.” Let’s take a look at what I think matters.

We have a non-zero number of decks and some of these cards have only been spoiled for a day or two, so it’s good to have any amount of data. I don’t expect Chatterfang not to be #1 long-term, but I don’t expect Yusri to stay #2. I expect people will realize Garth is boring but it will stay Top 5 because 5 color goodstuff decks are fun and might I suggest good for the format, actually, as long as they’re not like… Golos. I think Ragavan will join Chatterfang, Yusri, Garth and Lonis in the Top 5. Lonis is nutso, by the way, and I think Aeve is slept-on because it’s mono-Green but I think it is very powerful and fun.

Not much new out of Chatterfang since it’s Squirrel cards that were all obvious, token producers that were already in play because of Strixhaven and token deck infrastructure that is, again, already moving or having moved because of Adrix and Nev. I’m going to ignore Chatterboi.

Yusri, though, is kind of interesting.

Yusri, Fortune's Flame

Krark came along and despite having partner and getting paired up with Sakashima a lot, Krark made thumb and a few mono-Red coin flip cards go up, but not the Izzet ones. This is interesting because without an impetus to do much since Okaun/Zndrsplt (sp?) a lot of those are on the way down. I’ll show you one card I think is particularly interesting.

Extra turns cards and coin flip cards are both in play right now, but for some reason, Stitch is lagging pretty far behind some of the other coin flip cards. The only Izzet one that’s really going off is Frenetic Efreet and that has more to do with it being on the Reserved List than it does coinflip shenanigans, imo. Krark’s Thumb is going off early and often but I think some of the other cards are a bit slept-on.

The craziest card to go off because of coin flipping was Chance Encounter.

But Chance Encounter is dead as a spec, in my opinion because of this.

The reprinting made Yusri more interesting in some Limited games… I guess? Maybe? Anyway, it’s not a big deal, Yusri doesn’t really have a lot going on if you drill down. Apart from Stitch in Time and picking cards like Mogg Assassin out of your bulk, I think Yusri is mostly old specs paying off again. Yusri kind of sucks, if I’m being honest – it’s cool to dump your hand but it’s crazy to rely on it and Okaun and Zndrsplt can kill someone if you win like 3 flips, let alone 5. I think this is a meme deck, mostly, but people like memes.

Lonis, Cryptozoologist

Lonis is the coolest commander in the set, and while it’s not terribly novel for Simic, there are a few brand new cards that are in play, in my opinion, and I want to spend the remainder of the article focusing on them.

Shrieking Drake flirted with $2 before when people were excited about Chulane. I think the second spike is bound to be harder and higher because no one can find these for a nickel at the LGS anymore – anyone who wants one is paying retail. I think this is an easy $2 buylist out in 2 months and I think you can clean up if you buy these, even at its current $0.50 to $0.75. I don’t love paying a buck but if enough people pay a buck, everyone has to buy them from you for more. If you have these in your bulk, and you might, here is your shot. I was lazy and missed a bunch of these when they were getting outed at $2 but I set them aside and I’m ready for this to flirt with $3. If you’re not looking for a card that spiked already because everyone rooted them out of the bulk boxes at the LGS and that’s what you like to do, here’s a card like that for you.

An uncommon from Kamigawa is in higher supply than an uncommon from Visions, true, and maybe this can’t hit $2, but if Loomis is played about as much as Chulane (and maybe for longer since Chulane got stale quickly) this could be a card you buy a pile of for a quarter each at the LGS and buylist for a buck, and depending on the size of the pile, that could be very worth it. Not looking for nickels and dimes? OK.

Loomis likely makes this a $10 foil, then. The deck is pretty cheap to foil out since it’s got a lot of commons and bulk rares in it (although it has a lot of Legacy cards like Scryb Ranger, too) and being able to snag these around $3 seems like a no-brainer.

Actually, this deck probably doesn’t stay cheap to foil out for long.

Weirding Wood in particular has some overlap with potential emerging Enchantress decks spurred on by new Enchantress cards in Commander Legends 2; 6 months later edition. I like a lot of these low supply, low price foils that all absolutely go in Lonis, a card I think is potentially the most fun Simic commander in years.

This barely counts as uncommon since it’s worth more than like 9/10 of the rares in that set.

I think Lonis is a deep well and even if you’re not looking to buy foils of durdly Investigate stuff, there are a ton of solid cards that have other reasons to be on the move – Second Harvest, Ice-Fang Coatl, Inspiring Statuary, etc. Check out the whole list.

That does it for me this week. Next week I’ll be back with more Commanders that are moving the needle on your Kamigawa bulk, but until then, do some browsing of EDHREC yourself, and mop up that low supply goodness. Your LGS will be so glad someone came in to dig through old boxes, they won’t even notice you’re taking all of the underpriced goodies. Until next time!

Watchtower

Strixhaven Bulk

Strixhaven: School of Mages has been out for a little over a month now, and I think that we’re round about peak supply right now – which means it’s likely the best time to be picking up your spec targets. Today I want to have a look at what I think are some of the best options to be looking at grabbing in bulk – cheaper cards where the regular versions are probably going to have very attractive buylist outs in a year or two.

Solve the Equation (Foil)

Price in Europe: €1 ($1.20)
Price in US: $3
Possible price: $5

Solve the Equation is one of the top EDH cards from Strixhaven, clocking in at over 4000 decks registered since Strixhaven’s release. It’s kind of better and kind of worse than Merchant Scroll – it costs an extra mana, but you aren’t restricted to only blue spells, and to be honest I think that’s more upside than downside. Unfortunately not instant speed like Mystical Tutor but you are getting the card straight to your hand instead of the top of your library, meaning that you don’t need to wait for your turn again or draw an extra card to have access to it.

Merchant Scroll is a staple in combo decks as well as just being useful to go and find counterspells or a Cyclonic Rift to reset the board, and I don’t doubt that Solve the Equation is going to be put to similar use. The US seems to have realised this already and albeit an uncommon, Solve the Equation is already a $3 foil and $1.50 non-foil. Over in Europe it’s a different story, with foils at €1 and non-foils right down at €0.25 or so.

That’s some great arbitrage to take advantage of, both for the foils and non-foils, so if you can target some bricks in Europe then you’re going to do well. I think that buylists for this are going to be strong a little way down the road, and foils might even get high enough to be worth selling on TCGPlayer or eBay as well.

Wandering Archaic // Explore the Vastlands

Price today: $5
Possible price: $10

Wandering Archaic isn’t quite as bulk-ish in terms of price as I’d like, but it is a really popular EDH card that I think has great long-term growth potential despite the relatively high current buy-in price. You have to scroll down a little way to find it on the EDHREC page because it’s colourless and so going by percentage isn’t that high on the list – but when you look at raw deck inclusion numbers, it’s damn near the top of the pile.

At nearly 5000 decks already this is a hugely popular card, and being colourless it can slot into any deck you’d like to throw it in. I honestly don’t know how good the Explore the Vastlands side is, but I’m pretty sure that most people are using this card for the front side. Putting a tax on your opponents is always going to turn out well in EDH, because if years of Rhystic Study and Smothering Tithe have taught me anything it’s that people never pay when they should. That means that more often than not I think you’re going to get to copy your opponents’ spells, which is just an incredible amount of value from your five mana 4/4.

As I said, $5 for these might be a little high of a buy-in and we might even be able to get these cheaper in a couple of weeks or so, so my advice is to pick a few up now and keep an eye on the price to see if you can’t get them any cheaper in the coming weeks – and if you can, buy down the ladder. Again, this is the third most popular EDH card from the entire set by quite a wide margin and so even as a regular rare, it’s going to hold up in the long run.

Valentin, Dean of the Vein // Lisette, Dean of the Root

Price today: $1
Possible price: $4

Valentin is an intriguing card to look into, because despite already being in 1800 EDH decks on EDHREC there are only 77 decks built with it as the commander. And honestly? I think it’s being slept on. Being played in the 99 is great, but I think that having access to Valentin as your commander is so much more powerful and can be a great build-around.

There are very few good one mana commanders, but being able to keep casting them for cheap makes the good ones even better. Valentin exiling your opponents’ creatures instead of sending them to the graveyard is an excellent passive ability considering the amount of graveyard interaction there is in EDH, and if you have the spare mana then being able to also turn that into tokens is a nice bonus. If you want to build around that then you can easily fill your deck with sacrifice outlets to throw the tokens at, and and potentially lifegain synergies to go with it. Lisette on the other side of the card can help out with that too; once you have an army of tokens and a way to gain life you can pretty easily steamroll someone.

Regardless of whether you’re playing this as a commander or in the 99, I think that it’s a great card and a solid pickup in bulk at $1. I could see this hitting $4-5 retail and $3-4 buylist a year or two out from now, and I’m actually a big fan of the FEA versions sat at around $4 now as well.

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 and a new writer for MTGPrice in 2020, he’s an active MTG finance speculator specialising in cross-border arbitrage.

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