Tag Archives: Magic Origins

Strength of Languish

By: Houston Whitehead
languish full art

Since the exit of Supreme Verdict, players who enjoy resetting the battlefield have struggled to find an ‘always good’ sweeper.  Crux of Fate and End Hostilities were too late at five mana, unless you’re the only dragon owner in a control mirror. Drown in Sorrow and Anger of the Gods just never seemed to get everything in games two and three.  Now, I feel Languish is filling the void at the CMC we expect from a sweeper. Sure, it’s not the Damnation reprint everyone and their mother speculate during every spoiler season for the past year, but this should be powerful enough to asset in shaping the future metagame.

The list of creatures it kills is long and probably not worth talking about.  The list of creatures it can’t kill are far more important.  This could give hints on speculation-worthy rares for new Standard.

erebos titan

Languish doesn’t Kill, but rotates: Most Theros gods (if active), Doomwake Giant, Polukranos, World Eater, Reaper of the Wilds, M15 Soul/”Titan” Cycle.

Languish doesn’t kill, and doesn’t rotate: All Dragondlords (except Ojutai), Erebos’s Titan, Gurmag Angler, Siege Rhino, Tasigur, Archangel of Tithes, Sagu Mauler, Sidisi, Undead Vizier, Surrak Dragonclaw, Woodland Bellower, and Ashcloud Phoenix (4/1 mode).

Clearly not a lot of speculation prospects listed above. Some have multiple printings, don’t have enough power for consistent Standard play, or are already expensive.

elvish mysticThoughts on a Languish Standard format

  • Elves and goblins have a lot of hype but both easily fall to a well-timed Languish.
  • Abzan Midrange or Control will improve with the addition of Languish alongside metagame removal.
  • Green-based devotion strategies will fall out or favor due to their dependency on early mana dorks.
  • White devotion receives Tier 1 potential with Heliod and Archangel of Tithes at the top end of the curve. Brimaz and Wingmate Roc advance the board without over committing. Banishing Light and Chained to the Rocks (if splashing red) remove problems while also increasing devotion.
  • Black devotion receives tier 1 potential. I made many of these validations in last weeks article , Financial Five: Magic Origins. Erebos’s Titan along with the other returnable creatures help recover devotion without losing card advantage.

 

Focus Cards

Abzan Midrange/Controlelspeth sun art

Elspeth, Suns Champion ($6) – Even though she has two printings and will be rotating in a few months, she’s still a powerhouse.  Languish encourages players to play larger creatures. Elspeth wipes out those creatures.

Ajani, Mentor of Heroes ($10) – Potential value without being affected by Languish and also fits in decks that want to play Languish.

Tasigur, the Golden Fang ($8) – You should already be picking up this card anyway.  Surviving Languish is just added to the list.

 

Mono-White Devotionheliod god of sun

Soldier of the Pantheon ($0.50) – Potential evasion & Lifegain to avoid force-blocking

Knight of the White Orchid ($3) – Increasing or quickly recovering devotion while continuing to curve out.

Heliod, God of the Sun ($2) – Easier to turn on with Origins printing Knight and Angel.

Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit ($2) – Rewarding you for playing creatures and might even pull a few creatures out of Languish range.

Brimaz, King of Oreskos ($10) – One of the best creatures to cast on an empty board.  Best post-Languish play.

Wingmate Roc ($2.75) – A powerful top end to take advantage of your Nykthos.

 

Mono-Black Devotionherald of torrment

Despoiler of Souls ($1) – Recurring devotion plus reasons from last weeks article.

Bloodsoaked Champion ($1.75) – Recovering devotion plus reasons from last weeks article.

Herald of Torment ($0.25) – Bestow allows sweepers insurance, evasion, devotion assistance.

Master of the Feast ($1.25) – Survives Languish, blocks most dragonlords, evasion.

 

Final Thoughts

battle for zendi gideonLanguish doesn’t guarantee a defined Standard meta, but it does serve as an arrow pointing us in the right direction. From past experience, the influence of removal has on shaping the meta.  It hasn’t always guaranteed a profitable spec, but it does happen an above average amount of the time.  Clearly, the largest Standard card pool is going to increase my chance of overlooking deck potential, but we can learn a lot from past Standards.  Look at the influence of Hero’s Downfall over the past year.  Look at Lightning Bolt or Abrupt Decay and their influence on shaping the eternal formats.

Also, with the thought of rotation haunting the back of your mind, that doesn’t mean it’s time to dump anything Theros. Understanding the potential movement of Standard can set up optimal opportunities to dump rotating staples at key moments before they actually crash at the Battle of Zendikar release.

As always thanks for reading

@TNSGingerAle


 

PROTRADER: Standard Pickups as Magic Origins Hits

I’ve spent a lot of time talking about Modern in this column recently. And it does make sense, after all. Modern is the new Legacy. Modern is the place with all the news happening. Modern is the place with the price spikes (did you catch the Living End spike? That one seems random). Modern is the place with high-profile events, and Modern is the place with the exciting innovation.

That could be changing soon.

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Grinder Finance – Sealed Product and Post Modern Masters

I’m going to start this article on a bit of a somber note.  News has come to my attention at the time of writing this article that leaves me in a reflective mood.  Satoru Iwata, only the 4th president of Nintendo, died at 55 years young.  It is truly a terrible day in the life of any gamer to see such a revolutionary and dedicated figure in the gaming community pass away.  Mr. Iwata was a gamer first and foremost just like the rest of us.  He was a role model for gamers and business men alike. While you may not play Nintendo’s games, his work is a part of our culture and we will need many more Iwatas to continue to push ahead the future of gaming.

“On my business card, I am a corporate president. In my mind, I am a game developer. But in my heart, I am a gamer” – Satoru Iwata

EN_ORI_ClshPK_SeekeroftheWay EN_ORI_ClshPK_ValorousStance

On a lighter note, we have some great news!  The recent release of the deck list for the Magic Origins clash packs is fantastic! The deck list can be viewed here. The number of valuable tournament staples included in these clash packs is a great opportunity to buy in at a suppressed price.  The reality of clash packs is they are not infinite in number and these are unlike the last few.  They included much better tournament cards for the alternate art foils.  They also included many cards that will be included in decks as 4 copies.  What does this mean for us?  A lot and we’ll discuss it all.

EN_ORI_ClshPK_DromokatheEternal EN_ORI_ClshPK_HonoredHierarch

The last few clash packs (which alternate with event decks every other set now) include two 60 card decks that are meant to be like duel decks.  They are made up of entirely standard legal cards and include 6 alternate art foil cards.  Clash Pack’s retail price is $30 similar to Event Decks but they can be found on Amazon and other similar sites for approximately $20-25.  That means the contents of the deck must be collectively be worth less than $30 in order for this to not be a “good” buy.  Coincidentally, as of this writing, two cards in the package combined have a MTGPrice fair trade value of $32.33.  This means there could be literal basic lands in the other 118 cards in the deck and it would be worth buying.  This is a huge step up from previous event decks that included very little of value outside of one card.

EN_ORI_ClshPK_SandsteppeCitadel EN_ORI_ClshPK_SiegeRhino

Another important thing to note is that the cards that are seeing tournament play from this deck are part of decks that play four copies of them.  This strongly incentivizes people to buy four decks and keep most of the higher value cards.  I think this is a great buy for anyone who doesn’t have four of the tournament staples because you can’t really beat the price. The fact that the deck has such high value cards that are likely to be kept by the player opening the deck means the price drop of these cards won’t be very steep.  Courser of Kruphix was in the last clash pack and saw an initial dip before rebounding back to close to its original price.

Collected Company by Franz Vohwinkel.
Collected Company by Franz Vohwinkel.

What does this mean for us?  Well if you follow me on Twitter you likely could have bought in early.  I pre-ordered four copies of this deck because it’s just a no-brainer.  There is tons of value and the pieces you don’t need can be easily traded out.  It is important to be on top of supplementary sealed product releases just like these decks as they can also be great opportunities to purchase expensive cards for much less.

Windswept Heath by Yeong-Hao Han
Windswept Heath by Yeong-Hao Han

Well, what if I don’t play standard?  This is great value even for m=Modern players!  Each deck includes 1 Windswept Heath and 1 Collected Company, which are major players in Modern right now. However, I would not suggest Modern players to invest their money in this above other things.  Cards from Modern Masters 2015 are finally out of their rut and all beginning to rise again.  Tournament staples like Spellskite and Fulminator Mage continue to get more popular and supply is very quickly outstripping demand, though this could change very soon.

fulspell

These charts show that despite being a rare these cards are still in very high demand to combat popular archtypes.  Spellskite is even above its presale price now at just a touch under $20.  Without any real reason for Wizards of the Coast another printing of the card lined up, it’s poised to continue climbing.  The only Modern Masters 2015 cards that may continue to fall are more casual cards that require less copies.  I think the time to buy your Modern Masters 2015 staples is very quickly passing.

If you’re thinking about finishing off cards outside of those sets, it’s still time to keep waiting.  If history repeats itself we should get major spoilers for Battle for Zendikar during Pax Prime (August 28th – 31st).  Wizards of the Coast hosts a party that included the spoilers for allied fetch lands last year.  That date is going to be important to note because if they don’t spoil Zendikar fetch lands during that party, I think it is highly unlikely they will be reprinted at all.  Fortunately, a panic shouldn’t trigger unless they are confirmed not in the set so you will have some time to pick up the remainder of your Scalding Tarns or Verdant Catacombs to finish your deck.  After that you can pretty much wait until December for the best prices.

cryptic

As you can see from this graph, before the reprinting of Cryptic Command in Modern Masters 2015 it had it’s most significant dip in late December into early January.  The best line to look at here is the best buylist price.  If stores are not willing to pay a lot on the card it can be inferred that supply is high and demand is low.  The buylist line is slowly creeping up now after crashing during GP Vegas.  Take a look at the price graphs of cards you’re interested in owning and consider the buylist line as an indicator of future growth.

Thanks for reading and hopefully next week we will have some interesting results after a weekend with Magic Origins to talk about!

UNLOCKED PROTRADER: Shaman of the Boats

By: Jason Alt

As I alluded to last week, I am going to spend the next few articles looking at cards from Origins that may either launch new archetypes or strengthen existing ones. I think there is plenty of EDH gas in this set and that there are a few archetypes that are going to get plenty bolstered.

Last week, we discussed future Superfriends builds brought on by the new planeswalkers in Origins, and I think we uncovered some really interesting cards that are overlooked, undervalued, and poised to do big things. Inexorable Tide shows us what a reprinting can do to prices, but it can also make foils look safer, and EDH player sure do love their foils, don’t they? With the emergence of Cube as a format that can affect foil prices, as well, foils are very saucy targets moving forward. So we may not know what we want to talk about this week, but at least we know how we want to talk about it when we figure that out, so that’s good.

Packing Shamans

There was a card in particular in the spoiler for Origins that really caught my eye. It’s not getting discussed much at all, probably because it’s not a mythic rare, or even a rare. It’s an uncommon and there isn’t much financial upside to the non-foils of this card. So why am I so excited about it? Why would we spend an entire article discussing a card that doesn’t have  a ton of upside? Well, the answer to that is simple: we’re talking about the boats that are lifted by a rising tide, and sometimes you don’t need to drop a very big rock in the water to make big waves. Sometimes the card is a butterfly flapping its wings across the globe and a chain reaction of events takes care of the rest. Strap in, nerds, because it’s El Niño season and we’re about get hit with a wave so big that every other boat’s going to be all jacked up and our boat will be fine because we were prepared and got ahead of the storm and Lieutenant Dan was just daring the storm to kill him but he survived and I’m mixing my metaphors. Let’s just show the card I mean.

Shaman of the Pack

That’s the card. Does it fit in a narrow list of decks that are able to run it? Possibly. Would it benefit most greatly from being in a deck with Rhys the Redeemed, a potent token generator? Possibly. Does that mean this isn’t a ridiculous auto-include in more decks than you might think and a potent finisher? No, this card isn’t going to routinely deal 10 or more damage to people. You have to have a formidable board state to make that happen, but this spell breaks ground stalls open and that’s the most useful thing an EDH card can do in my opinion. So which generals are able to play this card and benefit easily from it?

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This is a big one. Nath is a nathty character, he makes elf tokens, he strips cards out of opponents’ hands, and he sets you up to benefit from making them discard aggressively, turning cards like Mindslicer, Mind Shatter, and Waste Not into potent cards. Pop quiz, hotshot. How much is Waste Not worth?

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Three dollars? It’s up from $2, down from $8, this card’s price is confounding. I don’t think $14 makes sense, but if someone bothered to buy the card out at one point, a lot of the copies were concentrated in one person’s hands for a minute. This could dip even more at rotation, even though this price is entirely predicated on EDH and casual and I think this is a $5 to $7 card long-term. It’s very unlikely to get reprinted (there’s no precedent for reprinting a “you make the card” winner) and the foil has upside either way.

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This is a crazy, crazy graph. Instead of maintaining a multiplier, it has held at just about $10 even as the non-foil approached that price several times. If the non-foil has upside at $3, you’d better believe the foil has upside at $7.50. I like this pickup a lot. This is like Geth’s Grimoire on steroids.

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Speaking of which, with a decreasing spread and increasing upside, Grimoire isn’t a bad trade target in foil if you find any. The more Nath we see, the more people will want to cheat with a Geth’s Grimoire.

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Savra is another sweet legendary build-around, and having lots of elf tokens to sacrifice will really help out. Savra is a good general in her own right and an inclusion in my Nath deck as well. She’s fine in any GB elves build and also works with the GB graveyard-based strategies we see. Dredge is very potent with sac outlets, and green and black have plenty. A few that work well in decks with a lot of tokens and other elves have real upside.

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Completely unperturbed by the reprinting in a Commander deck, this card shows solid growth and is a solid, solid card.  Attrition does everything you want a sac outlet to do, and sacrificing one elf token that you got when they discarded a card to kill one of their creatures with Attrition plus everyone losing a dude to a Grave Pact trigger is potent. I think there is upside at $2.50 to $3, even with another reprint possible, seeing how Attrition shook that first one off. I used to buy these for a quarter out of binders and sell them for $5 a playset on eBay. Those were the days. I kept enough for my decks, which ended up being a pretty large number since I don’t know a ton of black decks that don’t want an effect like this. I’ve used this to protect my general from tuck spells back in the tuck days, get value out of a removal spell of theirs, and avoid returning creatures I have borrowed with Threaten effects. Attrition is a solid gainer and I would get on the train now, even with the spread doing goofy things. The foils are too expensive to trifle with.

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Recently. the buylist price was so high on foil Perilous Forays that we see something I want to take a second to talk about. I am going to zoom in a bit on a region of the graph before I come back and discuss the card.

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See the white area? When you graph the price (green) against the buylist price (blue) you sometimes see “white” regions where the buylist is above the retail price. This is an arbitrage opportunity. I won’t go a ton into arbitrage because it’s a bit outside the scope of this article and the series, but even if you don’t pounce on every arbitrage opportunity, what you can do is take note. There were two periods of potential arbitrage over the graph of foil Perilous Forays, which means dealers think there is upside. Currently the buylist price has backed way off, which tells me one dealer was paying a lot to get these in stock and then got enough copies and removed the card from its buylist, causing the buylist price to be set by the next-highest buyer. That means the demand for this card may be regional. Still, two “arbs” popping up in a one-year period coupled with the strong growth tells me this is a lowish buy-in with upside, demonstrated power, and the benefit of being in foil and less susceptible to a reprint blowout. I like foil Forays a lot, and tapping a Priest of Titania and sacrificing 11 elves to pull every last basic out of my deck in response to a Massacre Wurm saved my bacon in a game this weekend. It’s expensive to get out, but it’s worth it. It replaces Boundless Realms in my decks that want a sac outlet.

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This is a terrible sac outlet in a deck that runs 1/1 tokens, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out how flat the price has been for a while. This is an EDH staple and it’s sicko in Cube as well. I think there’s upside here, eventually. Trade for these at $6 and put them in a shoebox and forget about them.

So what else is good in decks that want to have a ton of elves on the battlefield?

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This card has been reprinted basically into powder.  A price of $3 is a pretty cheap buy-in considering this card has demonstrated the ability to be way more and lords are always interesting, but I think it’s been printed too many times and could be printed more.

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Wizards’s demonstrated willingness to reprint foils of this card make me wary as well. I don’t know if there is a ton of downside to buying the cheapest non-foil you can for $2.50 (the entire green Commander 2014 precon is looking like a great buy with Ezuri surging), but be careful. I brought up Perfect because I think it’s a deceptively bad buy.

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This has been printed as a foil many, many times. Four times. That’s so many times. That’s one more than “too many” times for a foil to be printed. The thing is, though, I like this as a pickup at $3. Why? Let’s think about where this can get printed as a foil. Hardly anywhere! From the Vault: Elves? Commander’s Arsenal? Core sets that they’re not doing more of? I think the dealer price surging(ish) and the increasing demand for elves with Ezuri resembling the new Birthing Pod spells real upside for foil and non-foil alike. This card is bonkers and when copies start drying up, I expect foils to diverge wildly from non-foils. Priest of Titania this card is not, but sometimes it’s better and it’s legal in Modern which helps it immensely. Besides, why debate the merits of Archdruid versus Priest in EDH when you clearly run both?

If you’re trying to destroy them with Shaman of the Pack, you’ll want a way to find him.

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Check out the foil Elvish Harbinger: a recent arbitrage opportunity, steady(ish) price, and a multiplier of two on a card with two printings. There is upside here, I think. The card is fluctuating between $4 and $5, but it wouldn’t take much of an increase in play to push it up. There just ins’t much movement here—the buylist price for the Duel Deck non-foil hasn’t budged a penny in two years. Any activity could see the few copies snapped up quickly. Don’t buy in for cash on a stagnant card, but be aware: this card is very good.

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Not shocked to see that this card looks strong. It’s a good tutor in the best EDH colors. It lets you search for Craterhoof Behemoth at the end of their turn. That’s quite good. Enlightened Tutor has established that the ceiling could be around $16, so buying these at $8 seems fine, especially with the strong growth we’ve seen lately. Dealer confidence is up; retail price is up. Expect a leap and a plateau of $2 next year.

Just finding him isn’t enough, recurring him to smash them is important, too. How do we do that?

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No super-duper upside here, but just remember to keep some of these on-hand to trade out. Wirewood Symbiote is bonkers with elves that have enters-the-battlefield triggers, and since there are so few, Symbiote is underplayed right now.

We talked last time about how Superfriends would give us some real upside with Doubling Season but not so much with Primal Vigor. How’s Primal Vigor doing?

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Not bad! Having called this a pick at $4, I obviously feel great about the price doubling since then. Vigor isn’t done, I feel. While you can’t stack counters on planeswalkers and you can accidentally benefit your opponent, Primal Vigor is nuts with token decks. Imperious Perfect, Nath, Waste Not: your deck really benefits from spitting out a ton of tokens and this can help you go very wide. Doubling the number of elves you put out matters a great deal when you can KO your opponents with Shaman. This is good in lots of other decks, so the overlap will be very good. I said to buy these at $4 and I’m saying now that $8 isn’t a bad buy-in either. You don’t like to buy stuff after it doubles since it doubling again is somewhat unlikely, but this card has upside and low reprint potential. An $8 card in a $20 precon could do any number of things, all of them good.

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This could be based on an irrational fear, but Parallel Lives strikes me as a card that is super, duper, duper reprintable. I was buying the non-foils very cheaply and still had a lot left when they hit $4 and I sold then. I am just waiting for the next EDH supplementary product or even Duel Deck to have a Parallel Lives reprint (new art would be sweet). The foils can help us dodge that.

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Now this I can f@#% wit. A mere multiplier of two, very steady growth, decent dealer confidence, art that looks good in foil—I expect a divergence from the non-foil price soon. I think a higher multiplier is more appropriate and I expect that to be on the horizon. This card is a no-brainer, honestly.

I think these are all cards that have significant upside once Shaman of the Pack is out. I think Shaman will be a card you will find randomly in draft chaff for free sitting on tables, and I plan to pay cash for any foils at the prerelease that I can find. This card is good and it just might make some other cards better.

Do we want me to stop this format after Origins is released? Immediately? Sound off in the comments! Until next week.