I spent a lot of time last week thinking about how we were going to build Superfriends decks in the future because our mana is going to be so crazy bonkers with the advent of a bunch of four-color decks that people will be able to be super greedy. While I think it’s true that Superfriends are about to get a bit of a bump, I think it’s also worth taking a lot at other ways players plan to play cards with their wacky new cards. I have a few different theses to cover so I’m going to launch right into it because I want to get all of my thoughts out before I hit my word cap. I mean, it’s a soft word cap. You’re not going to want to read a 4,000 word article, true, but I’m also going to hit like 2,300 words and think “I’m not getting paid any extra for this” and that’s going to sap my enthusiasm in a hurry. So, like I said, I’m not going to waste time – I am going to get right to it and cover what I want to cover. I think you readers are worth it.

Thesis Number the First – People Will Build New 4-color Decks

And why not? They’re going to get new cards that are 4 colors. I have to imagine there will be at least one good creature and one good spell per deck that are 4 colors and if it’s that hard to cast that spell, the effect is going to worth it. Just look at the spells we have now that cost 5 mana – Coalition Victory, Last Stand, Conflux, Maelstrom Nexus – these are good spells. They’re difficult to cast because they require a mana of every color and they’re even more difficult to cast in EDH because we have to have a general with all 5 colors in their identity.

4 color spells are obviously easier to cast than 5 color ones but not all that much easier and, again, you can only play them in a deck where the general has all of those colors in their color identity. How are people going to cast those spells?

They’ll fix their mana

This one seems obvious, but it’s worth mentioning. There are a few ways I think people will try this.

These would have been better to buy at their historic lows, but now that they’re starting to rebound, it seems fairly obvious that it’s time to get these if you need them. You can fetch these with fetchlands and Farseek and you don’t need to shell out for a Savannah to get basically a Savannah. Sometimes people put ABU duals in EDH decks. Super, go ahead and do that. Or, you know, sell them and build a new deck for basically every dual you sell. I’m not trying to tell you how to live your life, but I will tell you that shocks are going to go up more and people will need them. In a 4-color deck you can play a lot of them. You can play 1 in a 2-color deck, 3 in a 3-color deck, 10 in a 5-color deck and 6 in a 4-color deck. If every new deck that gets built means the builder needs 6 new fetches, they will be closer to $20 than $10 in a year or two if they’re not reprinted. Return to Return to Ravnica doesn’t seem all that close so I think we’re safe for a minute.

Ditto here. These aren’t at a historical low or high, but I bet this plateau means they’re not going anywhere for a minute. Dealer interest is waning, so I’d wait for these to crater and recover, but EDH demand could give these some upside, although supply is super high right now with everyone having them in their decks and binders, still.

Them putting these in every deck seems as unlikely to me as them putting them in only some decks. I think this doesn’t get reprinted and I think the price goes up. Conspiracy might be a good venue to print this but I bet they won’t. I bet this card gets ridiculous before it gets reasonable.

This card has some real upside. It is a creature that is also mostly a Chromatic Lantern and people are starting to notice. With a new focus on mana fixing, this is going to be a player if people remember to use it. This even lets you use utility lands for mana if you have something like Tabernacle (you don’t have a Tabernacle) or Maze of Ith that doesn’t tap for mana.

This probably won’t get bought more because it’s so expensive, but I bet it gets played more. EDH demand could start to make it disappear from Pucatrade which could signal other markets.

This are like $2 in other printings. That has to change the farther we get from the last time it was printed.

How else will people play stuff in 4-color decks?

They’ll Cheat

Not at Magic, necessarily, I mean they’ll cheat stuff into play. There are a lot, lot, lot of ways to do this and they all have upside.

A guy with this in his Legacy deck isn’t going to trade it to an EDH player. He won’t want any of the cards the EDH player has. But some rando busting this in a pack in the LGS might be inclined. The new supply might hurt the price for a while, but if it gets low enough, EDH demand could buoy the price based on people who wrote the card of as unobtainable before now using it. This is a fine way to cheat.

This has been printed a ton but the price doesn’t seem to want to dip below around $7. This has a decent reprint risk but it also has demonstrated an ability to mostly shrug off reprints. I like this as a pickup.

Meanwhile I bet this never gets reprinted. This is starting to move up and I bet if more people play it because the new creatures are savage and hard to cast, this could see movement. This is just a solid gainer in my view and it looks like markets and dealers are finally on board with that assessment.

It would take a lot to drag this above bulk but it is worth remembering this card exists. It’s too good.

Bet you thought this was still bulk, didn’t you? Well, it’s not. The price has basically doubled in the last year and that’s good for business. This is on its way up and I bet this could hit $5 if it’s not reprinted. And why would it be reprinted?

I’ve made money off of this card twice and it would please me to do so a third time. With copies concentrated in the hands of dealers, how easy would that be? Very easy, that’s how. Very easy.

Mirri’s Guile, Sylvan Library and Sensei’s Divining Top are nice pairings with this spicy vintage. Cream of the Crop, too. All of those cards can go in a deck that can have green in it. Mayael, anyone?

I bought all of the copies I have years ago for $2 each. That’s about as fair as putting something into play with this. Granted it’s not the best way to throw out an Eldrazi, but can you really complain about having a creature that big if you miss a few of its triggers? It That Betrays doesn’t mind getting tossed out EOT with this beauty. This card isn’t even close to being done growing.

This may do it randomly, but don’t pretend it’s not cheating. This card is rare from an old set and it’s on the Reserved List. If this gets any notice at all it could hit $5 fairly easily and it would be pretty boss to chop into Pucapoints rather than buylist for $3.

Everyone realized this would be nuts with Narset and the price went up accordingly. However, this is a great way to cheat creatures into play. If you have nothing but fatties and tokens, it’s even better. This is taking a break from climbing, but it will be back at it as soon as something else is printed that is saucy with it and there is only one deck from Commander 2016 that won’t have blue in it meaning you have 4 chances to find something saucy to go with this.

Modern spiked this card, which sucks because that deck doesn’t play it anymore, the price is really high for an EDH card and the copies are concentrated in the hands of dealers meaning a second spike will be much harder and faster. The only bright spot is that this seems relatively easy to reprint. Just kidding, that’s terrible because everyone who paid $10 for these will eat it in that case. I don’t know when they’re going to reprint this, or even if they will, but this is destined to go beyond $10 just on EDH demand and it’s too much fun to play this card. Dealer confidence is creeping up which means they’re selling copies which means the price shift is organic and predicated on real demand. This bodes well. Graphs that look like this make me want to buy.

This is on its way back up. The reprinting made the price very reasonable but Modern hasn’t gone as cuckoo for this as they did a few years ago and the new supply did wonders for controlling the price. This is a very easy way to cast a creature with a nutty effect and goofy casting cost and you can even tap tokens to do it. What could be better? This is a fine way to cheat at Magic.

Legacy and EDH are keeping this card pretty expensive since it’s banned in Modern. Eternal Masters copies are going to make this dirt cheap and if this hits like $2 I recommend investing like $100. It could get reprinted again which will make it take a while before you can recoup your $100. More likely is that it recovers and lands around $5 because it’s so good in EDH. Less likely is that it’s unbanned in Modern and becomes like $15 overnight and then you look like Nostradamndamus. I’m not saying it will happen but I am saying that there are three basic scenarios and in the worst case you still break even eventually.

This card is very expensive. This card is also tailing down a bit and since it’s demonstrated the ability to be $25, you might want to watch it crash then buy in because it will go back up because how could it not? It’s Tooth and Nail. This is in so many EDH “I win” combos it isn’t funny. No, seriously, have you lost to this card? It isn’t funny. It’s annoying. I cast this entwined to get Kiki-Jiki and Zealous Conscripts on turn 4 one time. It wasn’t funny. I mean, it was to me, but when 4 out of 5 people at a table think something isn’t funny, maybe you’re the one who’s wrong. That’s Comedy 101.

At this point, I’m going to audible and save my second thesis for next week. We still have plenty of time before we start getting any cards previewed so we can look more at how players are going to cheat using the new cards next week. I have plenty to say on the topic and I really don’t want to load this article with too much information. Let’s reconvene next week and look at a second way I expect people to cheat using older cards to help them cast newer cards. It should be a hoot. Until then!

Fade in

Ext. A swamp in an undisclosed location. A dragonfly lands on a leaf and a mutated lizard with two heads grabs it with its tongue and bites it in the midsection, licking one of its eyes with the other tongue.

Int. A dimly-lit lair, dominated by a long conference table with a podium in the center. At the podium stands Lex Luthor. I feel silly even having to have to describe Lex Luthor. He looks Lex Luthory. You know, one of the most famous comic book villains of all time because he’s the only one they put in Superman movies despite there being a ton of powerful Superman villains. General Zod was cool in Superman 2 but in 3, he fought… Richard Pryor? You’re going to tell me a man with heat vision struggled to take down a guy who once accidentally lit himself on fire? And don’t get me started on Superman fighting Duckie from Pretty in Pink plus that weird sun guy they cloned from Superman’s hair. Anyway, be quiet, he’s about to say something. 

Lex Luthor – We need to formulate a plan for how to handle Commander 2016.

Sinestro- Our mana sucks right now. They need to reprint Chromatic Lantern! I should know, lanterns are kind of my thing.

Lex Luthor – In every deck? I don’t think so.

Black Manta – How else are we supposed to build a mana base that isn’t a million dollars?

Sinestro – I could make every color yellow so that every land adds yellow mana and you can cast all of your yellow spells!

Riddler – What has lame powers and won’t shut up about turning everything yellow?

Sinestro – WHO DARES?! Silence yourself, Nigma, or by Oa I will come over there and

Captain Cold – Turn him yellow?

Lex Luthor – Maybe he’s onto something.  Also, most of you are terrible villains. I wanted to invite just Captain Cold, Brainiac and Bizarro Superman and the rest of you just kind of showed up. Meeting adjourned.

Fade Out

Fade In

Int. Wrestling arena locker room

First wrestler guy – Are you sure we’re legally distinct enough not to get sued by DC comics or Hanna Barbera or something? I’m nervous about calling ourselves the Legion of Doom

Second wrestler guy – I’m just here because I think people should play Cream of the Crop in more decks.

First wrestler guy – Wait, that wasn’t even us. That was Macho Man Randy Savage

Second wrestler guy – Are you sure?

First wrestler guy – I’m positive. Besides, Cream of the Crop is only good in decks with huge creatures. Are there going to be any of those in a four-color deck?

Fade out

You know what’s really likely to happen when people have to build a four-color deck?

This junk. It may be time to take a second look at anything that matters in those decks before everyone starts building them. Five new decks with wonky mana bases, new mana fixing cards, strategic reprints and new spells is bound to lead to an uptick in the number of people saying “Screw it, let’s make a goodstuff pile” and for my money, you don’t get many better goodstuff piles than you do when you throw a pile of superfriends into said pile.

What’s New?

Superfriends have gotten a new cycle of helpers and some of them actually matter to superfriends decks and are decent in EDH. Some of them suck.

This is a pretty small effect for something that’s kind of tricky to trigger and dealing 3 to a creature is likely wasted a lot of the time (but very useful others) but I don’t know if this will get adopted enough to have upside. It’s at its bottom, though, so there’s nowhere to go but up. I see this getting jammed to complete the cycle more than anything.

This has a very cool secondary ability and could be very solid for keeping your planeswalkers alive more often or sometimes triggering abilities sooner. If you have Doubling Season this is even better. This is also likely at its bottom, price-wise but the real play on this and Chandra’s Oath is to snag cheap foils in case EDH play increases the multiplier. There’s no time to buy foils that haven’t hit yet like when the non-foil is a bulk rare.

This is a card that isn’t bulk because people can’t decide if they’re OK paying 2U to do a weird Brainstorm thingy. The scry ability on the secondary is going to be great if you have 3 or 4 ‘walkers out and I think this probably is going to dip and will have to get adopted a bit to even hit where it is, now. All of them will have to climb a bit to hit $1.

This one doesn’t really have as much upside unless it tanks soon, which I doubt. This is a green cantrip. The reason I’m so excited about this in Superfriends is that it’s a second Chromatic Lantern that draws you a card instead of tapping for a mana. The fixes your mana in a very profound way and replaces itself when you play it making it one of the least obtrusive inclusions in a planeswalker deck, ever. Are they going to waste a removal spell on this when you have Doubling Season and The Chain Veil in play? This is so much better than the other ones in a planeswalker deck that the only reason you’d play the others is to have the cycle going.  I say that with a healthy amount of respect for Oath of Jace. This is a card to watch – this could dip, maybe at rotation, but this is going to be a real card in Superfriends decks and doesn’t seem that likely to get reprinted.

The plateau says everyone has forgotten about Dre. The price was only $1 initially because it was not going to have any impact on Standard and the players who wanted them got the 1 copy they needed, leaving a lot of unclaimed copies. The thing is, this card is going to go up over time. The farther we get from this card’s printing, the more cards are going to end up getting forgotten in boxers and binders. If this card spiked hard those copies would come out of the woodwork. We don’t want that. We want as many copies in the woodwork as possible because it makes it easier for our copies to go up in value. This tutors for a Planeswalker provided you’re playing white in your deck. Best of all, the foils are only $2.50. The foils are the play, I think. Still, both of these prices will go up over time and it’s never too early to pick these up in trade and throw them in a box. I feel like this is similar in obviousness to Dictate of Erebos, a card that was a bulk rare when it was in Standard.

My hundreds of copies are making me very happy and I sold enough at $3 to pay off what I bought so the rest are pure profit. I feel like we’ll see a similar graph for Call the Gatewatch, albeit with a much more gradual slope, I think. Still, Dictate has a lot of other cards like Grave Pact (more expensive) and Butcher of Malakir (much less expensive) that do the exact same thing and Call the Gatewatch really doesn’t. I’m not in for cash on Call, yet, but I’m trading for them aggressively. Seems obvious.

What’s Not New

I think it’s worth checking in to see how my call of “The Chain Veil” is going.

Hmm. The price hasn’t gone up much and online stock hasn’t gone down a ton. That’s not to say it won’t – I don’t think I’m saying anything controversial by saying EDH and casual both like effects like this. The farther we get from this set’s Standard legality, the more we’ll see this climb. It’s a mythic which means there aren’t as many copies of it as a card like, say, Sliver Hive. Sliver Hive is more likely to get bought as a playset, but I’m confident that The Chain Veil is going up. Are you also confident? Well, you have time to trade into these before anyone signals TCG Player by buying enough copies to trip anyone’s algorithms, so just target these as a throw-in when a trade is off by $1. Also, learn to make it your business to make trades off by $1.

Everything people said about this card a year ago is still true today, except when they said this would be printed in Commander 2015 to facilitate Experience counters. That didn’t happen and the card has climbed even more since. At a certain point, this is going to be worth reprinting, but until then, pair this with Superfriends and don’t look back. This does everything you want a card to do. The price of this as it rises and the price of the $13 (down from $20+) foil are beginning to converge. This means there is still organic demand for the non-foil and that if the foil comes down, it will sail past the equilibration point. As the non-foil climbs, the higher it gets, the higher the foil multiplier will be, which means the foil price falling will hit a brief window where it’s lower than it should be and is good to be picked up. I don’t know mathematically what that number is but I know what I think those concepts should look like vaguely and shape-wise. I’ll sketch what the hell I’m talking about on a graph.

The red line is the vague slope of a non-foil that is climbing from organic demand. The blue line is the slope of a foil price that spiked too fast due to hype and is overcorrecting due to falling demand. The green line is vaguely what the foil multiplier should make the price based on organic demand for the non-foil. The better the card, the greater the demand for foil copies so the price should diverge. I think there is money to be made if the foil comes down too much more since the non-foil is still climbing. It’s still a good card. Wotc is still going to print creature tokens and hydras and planeswalkers. What isn’t clear is whether they’re going to reprint Contagion Engine. Commander 2015 was a very good time to do it. Will Commander 2016 be as good a time? We could see a reprinted planeswalker in every deck. We could see Dune-Brood Nephilim in the deck with no white in it. Then again, we could just see them not reprint it and then we’re another year from its standard legality and there will be more cards it interacts with. Hype made this card grow a lot, but that’s not to say merit wasn’t going to do so anyway. We even wrote about Contagion Engine in this series before we knew anything about Commander 2015 so everything we said then should still apply now, only now a lot of copies have been pulled out of the woodwork and are concentrated in the hands of dealers, which means one effect that would dampen the ascension of the card’s price a second time is already taken care of. 3

I think we can take a look at other ways to make our mana better in both Superfriends and also just generic 4-color decks (and 5 color, really – you could combine some of the C16 decks in a Progenitus shell or something) next week, so stay tuned. In the mean time, check out the Eternal Masters spoiler coverage and our discussion forums here on MTG Price. Hit me up in the comments. Until next time!