Tag Archives: Standard

Jim Casale

Grinder Finance – SCG Baltimore Analysis

6 Comments

If you haven’t watched all of the Magic on Shadows over Innistrad weekend and don’t want to be spoiled go watch it now and stop reading!

Spoiler warnings aside, congrats to fellow New York Rangers aficionado Jim Davis for his win with Bant Company.  If you played a Rally deck before the rotation this one is pretty similar make up (largely a backbone of Jace / Collected Company deck) so a switch would be easy.

Archangels and Lieutenants

Let’s take a look at the decklists from the Open and see what  information we can glean about the future:

craig wescoe

Thanks Craig!  Yes, half of the Top 8 of this event was some version of a white Humans Aggro deck.  Nine of the top 32 decks were a flavor of Humans Aggro deck.  Some decks stayed to the tried and true mono-white while others splashed blue or green for some exceptional main deck humans and additional sideboard flexibility.  What all of the decks have in commons is this base:

thaliaslieutenantknight of the white orchidalways watching

White-based human decks are likely to become a mainstay for people who really like to put on the beatdown.  That being said, I think the current price of $2-3 for these rares is unsustainable for a deck that was 29% of the top 32 meta game.  I expect these cards to creep up slowly because they’re not very flashy.  However, if a humans deck does get a win they will probably spike.

Goggles in the Ice

If you watched the Open you get to see StarCity Games’ writers a lot if they’re doing well.  Well, Todd Anderson was doing pretty well this weekend with this monstrosity of a deck.

thingintheice

Thing in the Ice was definitely a very important part of this deck as it let Todd go from defense to offense very quickly and close out a game almost immediately.  That being said, it’s price is still very confusing. The diverging buylist price and average sell price have me concerned that the player demand is not actually there.  I am still of the opinion you should sell these cards until we can see if it does anything in Modern and Legacy.  From the results this past weekend it doesn’t look anyone is trying it besides the “fun of.”

PyromancersGoggles

The price on these have already gone crazy (TCG low is $10 as of Sunday, up from about $2 on Friday) so I wouldn’t buy them until it all settles down.  I tried to play a Pyromancer’s Goggles deck a while back but it always ends up being frustrating when you draw the wrong half of your deck.  Lightning Axe might be the removal spell it needs to make Goggles consistent enough to play but I don’t think this card can really carry a $10 price tag for long.  I’m a seller.

fallofthetitans

Boom flavor, right?  This was played in Todd’s deck and is still a bulk rare.  If you’re really intent on playing the deck I can’t imagine these being cut.  It uses all of your extra mana and works great when forked with the goggles.  This is the kind of card I wouldn’t be surprised if it gets played in larger quantities later and goes up to a few bucks.  Right now you can buy in for a quarter (and worst case scenario sell it back for a dime) so there is little downside to picking up a personal playset.

avacyn

White is really good

Roughly 85% of the top 32 deck lists at SCG Baltimore played basic Plains.  Of the five decks that didn’t, only one was in the Top 8, and only one more in the Top 16.  Turns out all of the white spells are really good right now.  Declaration in Stone, Archangel Avacyn, Archangel of Tithes, and Gideon, Ally of Zendikar showed up in multiple different types of decks this weekend.

declarationinstone

Declaration in Stone showed up as a 4-of in the 75 of six of seven Top 8 decks it could be played in.  The seventh deck was Jim Davis’s which only played a paltry two.  It’s clear this is a real show stopper for a lot of decks and allows the rag tag human army get past anything with ease.  I’m going to say this is going to end up a lot like Hero’s Downfall.  It has the potential to hit $15-18 for a week or two and then fall down to a more reasonable number once MTGO redemption starts.

archangel avacyn

This card has a real chance to be another Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy.  I’m not sure yet if it can keep climbing (it’s already $30 on the cheapest places on the internet).  There wasn’t the full four copies in every white deck because some of them played 22 lands and having consistent 5-drops is overly optimistic.  The casual angel appeal will also keep this card high so I’d expect it to follow Declaration in Stone’s trajectory and become cheaper once MTGO redemption starts.  Right now I’m selling my extra copies to lock in profit.

Tokens

westvale abbeySecure the Wastes

Westvale Abbey was definitely really good in the decks it was good in.  That sounds pretty obvious but Dragonlord Ojutai was really only mediocre in the decks it was good in.  Token decks that can dedicate whole turns to flipping the Abbey will be a real factor in Standard.  Their ability to chump humans until they can assemble a 9/7 haste lifelink to catch them up is huge.  Going forward this style deck might morph into a more all-in version with Cryptolith but time will tell.  I think this deck will be most affected by testing and tuning done at the Pro Tour.  All that information aside,  I’m super not interested in hanging onto Abbeys or Secure the Wastes with their current price tag.

 

Final Thoughts

  • Ancestral Vision probably won’t be as good as people want it to be.  I didn’t see very many in the Top 8 of the last Modern Classic
  • If we are going to see great innovation in Modern I would keep a close look at GP LA/Charlotte weekend.  We will see big movers then.
  • Shadows over Innistrad EV is very high right now. I’d sell everything you are not actively playing with while you still can.
  • If you want to meet up I will be making the tournament grind the entire month of May, hitting up GP NYC, SCG Indy, GP LA, and probably GP Minneapolis in an effort to secure two byes for the next year of Magic
Accumulated Knowledge

PROTRADER: The Miracle and the Sleeper; Introducing HUFAs

Let’s start off by quickly acknowledging the B&R Announcement from Monday. Here is an excerpt from an article I wrote in January, a week or so before Pro Tour: Oath of the Gatewatch:

“So why is this time different? The answer is Eye of Ugin. Between Oath and Battle for Zendikar, we suddenly have a respectable amount of colorless Eldrazi creatures along a much broader curve. Eye of Ugin, despite not actually tapping for mana, functions as an extremely powerful accelerant, with the additional ability to find your strongest threats late in the game. When used in conjunction with Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, Eye of Ugin can tap for mana, making it the closest corollary to Mishra’s Workshop we’ve ever seen (it’s actually better when you are playing more than one creature a turn, but worse in the sense that it’s legendary). Eldrazi Temple similarly functions as a worse Eye of Ugin, providing copies five through eight…

…I also don’t expect this archetype to last another six months.”

All I’m going to say is that ProTraders have been having discussions about this series of events since BEFORE the deck actually broke out. Seems good to me.

The rest of this content is only visible to ProTrader members.

To learn how ProTrader can benefit YOU, click here to watch our short video.

expensive cards

ProTrader: Magic doesn’t have to be expensive.

Jim Casale

Grinder Finance – Shadows over Standard

1 Comment

So I’ve got a pretty important tournament coming up at the release of Shadows over Innistrad so I’ll let you know what financially relevant information I’ve gathered from decks I’ve been seeing.

White-Blue Humans

Here‘s a rough idea of what this deck might look like.  It’s still very rough (like many of these deck lists) but we can glean some of the more powerful cards from it.

always watching

Always Watching is soon to become a lynch pin in a very aggressive day 1 deck.  They are easily found right now for a buck or two and can see a big camera spike this weekend if they get a lot of camera time at SCG Baltimore.

thaliaslieutenant

Thalia’s Lieutenant looks pretty mediocre at best but there are a large number of aggressive 1 mana humans that can lead the stampede.  I recommend grabbing a few if this kind of deck is your jam.

dragonlordojutaiArchangel of Tithes

These mythic rare white creatures might finally see their last big hurrah.  Both creatures benefit greatly from the vigilance granted by Always Watching and have already seen an uptick in price the last few weeks.  I would dig out any extra copies you may have and not want to play with.  Pro Tour weekend could be big for these two mythics before they start their final descent.

declarationinstone

“But it’s not Path to Exile!” is what most people say looking at this card.  But in Standard it will be pretty close to Path to Exile.  I am expecting to see people quickly increase the number of these they want to play in their decks until they can’t play any more.  At $3-4 I’m not thrilled buying them but they’re a very important piece of the human deck.

spirit_awakening_riley2

Cryptolith Rite by Zack Stella
Cryptolith Rite by Zack Stella

G/X Cryptolith

The original version of this deck has already spawned many offshoots but remains here.  The gist of the deck is to play many small creatures and some that produce tokens(like Hangarback Walker and Scion Summoner) to funnel mana into Cryptolith Rite to cast some big spells or use Evolutionary Leap.

Cryptolith Rite has already seen a spike as more people caught onto its power on Reddit.  It started as a G/B deck to fuel Ulamog and Zendikar Resurgent but people have been testing it to ramp out Dragonlord Atarka as well.  I’d say there is “something there” but it might take a few weeks for people to find the most optimal way to use this card.  I don’t like holding my copies mostly because I think this card gets drastically worse once Hangarback Walker rotates in October.

westvale abbeywestvale abbey b

Westvale Abbey was first on everyone’s radar in this deck.  It was a very reasonable way to turn a bunch of thopters or scions into a formidable 9/7 flying, lifelink, haste, indestructible creature.  That has driven the price of this sky high as people realize you can just play it in anything really.  It’s great with Secure the Wastes and does a decent Vitu-Ghazi, the City-Tree impression.  I think the price point looking a few months out will likely be around $10-12 if it puts up results.  If not, it will likely fall to the $4-5 range quickly.

ob nixilis reignited art

White-Black Control

This will likely be a player in some form in the near future.  It has the most options to stop the most varied threats.  You can find a decklist and some play testing by Michael Majors here.

soringrimnemesis

Sorin is very good on a clear board.  He doesn’t usually kill quite as fast as Chandra, Flamecaller but he will allow you to play a very grindy game that White-Black Control is definitely well equipped to fight.  Going up to 7 loyalty means Chandra cannot immediately kill him without help.   I don’t forsee him finding Elspeth, Sun’s Champion or even Chandra, Flamecaller levels of play so his $20 price tag right now seems unsustainable.  He may see a quick peak during Pro Tour Shadows over Innistrad weekend but I’m not in any rush to buy in here.  If you don’t play Standard you can likely pick him up in late August or early September for $6-10.

obnixilisreignited2 (1)

Ob Nixilis is the king of Standard 5 mana planeswalkers right now (I feel).  His buylist price has seen about a 25% jump in the past month but some retailers have been slow to follow suit.  As you can see here the spread among vendors is still pretty big.  At the time of writing (Sunday night), the highest buy price (Channel Fireball) is 60% of the lowest sell price (Strike Zone online).  In fact, Strike Zone is currently cheaper than all but 1 of the listings on TCGPlayer.  All of this points to Ob Nixilis likely being on the move soon.  I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if he jumps to $15 for a month.

languish

Languish was relegated to the side lines in the face of the Siege Rhino menace.  As Siege Rhino’s last farewell it will drag Languish back into the fold.  It being a turn faster than Crux of Fate and being able to kill larger creatures than Flaying Tendrils means it will likely become the sweeper of choice.  With B/W control intentionally being light on creatures it would make sense to support this.  On a related note, Languish is not able to be stopped by Archangel Avacyn.

Archangel Avacyn

Speaking of Avacyn…. It’s odd to see Majors not playing any copies in his 75.  Avacyn can quickly close out games and often can be masked with an activation of a land (like Shambling Vent or Blighted Fen) or just an instant speed removal spell.  This card has doubled since it’s debut pre-order price ($15).  At $30 I’m pretty happy selling her and re-purchasing them in June.  I’m expecting her to hold a reasonably high price due to being a legendary angel and a flip mythic.  I don’t think it’s unreasonable for her to maintain $10-15 price tag in June.

This weekend we will get the first taste of Shadows over Innistrad and the day before my article comes out we should get the Modern ban list shake up.  Hopefully we’re in for a great weekend of Magic and we can talk about it next week!

Accumulated Knowledge

PROTRADER: The World’s Most Efficient Set Review: Shadows Over Innistrad Edition

9 Comments

We are going to try something a little bit different this week: my set review is still going to be in its beloved Quick Hits style, but we are going to start with an eye towards something that really doesn’t get broken down much, especially this time of year. I’m talking about the Obstacles.

When we view cards in a vacuum (the most common mistake made in set reviews, since time immemorial), we are basically just putting on a straight, flat, artificial green. Yes, the card does the thing(s) it is printed to do, but is that any good? Is it something that even matters at all?

This is not my office; mine is MUCH nicer.
This is not my office; mine is MUCH nicer.

The rest of this content is only visible to ProTrader members.

To learn how ProTrader can benefit YOU, click here to watch our short video.

expensive cards

ProTrader: Magic doesn’t have to be expensive.