Weekly Winners (2-2016)

A lot of movement this week. Old cards for the 93/94 format are bouncing up and down, while speculation on Modern makes the more recent cards go up. Once again, I present you the cards that will be the talk of the town tonight.

 

#1 Heartless Summoning +574.2% ($4.18)

A huge spike for a card that looks a lot of fun, especially in a casual multilplayer setting. Heartless Summoning looks like one of those cards that should have seen a lot of kitchentable play, before it got this pricey. But now, it has found its way into competitive magic. Heartless Summoning allows you to -together with Eldrazi Temple- put your Eldrazis in to play quickly and mana efficiently. The smallest creatures are 4/4, so that -1/-1 is not a big problem. Check out this StarCityGames article by Gerry Thompson if you want to read in-depth about the workings of a Heartless Eldrazi deck.

The reason this card spiked so hard, so high and so suddenly is probably because it got bought out by speculators. The steep spike and the quick fall afterwards is typical of a buyout of a card without a proper, real demand behind it. Don't expect this card to fall back to its original $0.50 price, but it might drop a little in price in the coming days. 

#2 Tempt with Vengeance +404.9% ($5.20)

The price increase of Tempt with Vengeance is a bit of a mystery. In most cases, competitive magic or new casual formats are a driving force behind increases of this magnitude. In the case of Tempt with Vengeance, there is no recent competitive deck running it, and since Tiny Leaders is no longer a thing, a hip casual format cannot be the reason behind its sudden popularity.

Speculation is also out of the question, the price increase is far to gradual to speak of a buyout or concerted effort to corner the market. It seems that there is a real demand behind the price increase.

The most probable reason behind it is the power in multiplayer kitchen table magic. If you play with a few friends, it is powerful and hilarious to see how many tokens can hit the table, especially when you can hide behind a row of blockers (or protective spells), those extra tokens the caster gets might be less of a problem for you. And even if nobody accepts the tempting offer, its caster still gets X 1/1's for only XR; which is pretty decent.

 

#3 Leonin Arbiter +154.3% ($5.39)

Leonin Arbiter's recent spike is due to a combination of an increase in popularity and speculation. Death and Taxes is becoming a little bit more popular in Modern, although the power of the Modern deck is not (yet) comparable to its legacy counterpart. This is an interesting Reddit thread on the subject.

This week a Death and Taxes/ish deck 5-0'd a MTGO league, drawing some attention of players and speculators. One good result does not prove anything, but sometimes it is enough to spark the interest of people looking for new decks to play, or new deals to be made. A $2 price tag on a card like Leonin Arbiter is low. It is a decent hatebear that takes advantage of decks that use a lot of fetchlands. It has an effect that is not as good in a late-game situation, but in Death and Taxes (if the deck does its job) a late game means Death and Taxes is winning. Especially against fast (combo-ish) decks. 

Leonin Arbiter's price increase is a good example of a price correction.

 

Old card movement

Over the past weeks we have seen a lot of cards from the oldest expansions bouncing up and down. This started when the '93/'94 format became popular. In my articles I usually don't adress these cards, and I have been getting questions why. This is why:

1. The supply/ print run of the oldest cards is so low, that the MID price is based on very few cards, therefore a single trade can influence the price on a card. That makes a good analysis on why/how a card spikes or drops almost impossible. (Because some random dude from Arkansas bought three copies)
2. '93/'94 is a small format with a huge impact on prices, but that does not make the cards more relevant to discuss in the Weekly Winners. Tiny Leaders was a big hype, with a lot of talk around it and interesting price changes, those did make the Weekly Winners.
3. Prices are extremely unstable. There are price difference of up to $30 dollars a day. With City of Brass in december for instance.

In conclusion: there is not much to say about those cards, nothing that is really relevant or helpful for you as a reader. But, when a card does increase and is interesting, I will cover it. Sometimes this is the case, and you'll hear that from me.

 

Expensive Pickups

Last week I saw an interesting development that continues this week: we see an unusual amount of cards reaching an all time high, while the number of cards on an all time low is dwindling. So instead of a cheap pickups, I present you a list of expensive pickups. 

Crucible of Worlds $55.77

 

Arcbound Ravager $50.17

 

Karn Liberated $49.99

 

Auriok Champion $37.95

 

Doubling Season $33.97