This Week in Magic - Week 2

Alright stop...ban hammer time! If you were absent this last week, Wizards had a huge announcement, release the ban list early! Standard and Modern are in for a shake up, so prices are all over the place. Oh yeah, they also printed a turn 4 infinite kill in Standard ala Splinter Twin. This should be an interesting week...

 

Saheeli Rai ALMOST made my cheap pickups last week due to the fact that any Planeswalker under $5 is a deal (yes, even Tibalt!) Wizards spoiled a little kitty called Felidar Guardian. Combine that with Saheeli Rai and you have infinite 1/4 hasty cats. Bam, turn 4 win. Fortunately, Standard is filled with ways to interact with the combo, via killing Saheeli on your turn 3, killing her with the -2 ability on the stack, killing the Felidar Guardian in response to Saheeli targeting it, or just having something like Authority of the Consuls. This is a perfect example of how the market reacts to speculation in the spotlight. The combo is real, but how good it will be won't be known for a few weeks.

 

The instant that Golgari Grave-Troll was announced as a ban in Modern...again, his little brother Golgari Thug stepped in. Honestly, while Golgari Thug is not Golgari Grave-Troll, I think the banning may help dredge in the short term. With the bannings going live on MTGO yesterday, Jan 11, sideboards have already started lightening the Dredge hate. I don't think Dredge got hit quite as hard as some people think, so keep an eye on the MTGO meta over the next two weeks.

 

Unmask had what seems to be a complete short term buy out, and it really only sees play in Legacy reanimator. I can't see it maintaining the spike for very long, as it is not a reserved list card and sees limited it play. Force of Will this is not. That being said, this card is still pretty powerful against certain decks. Had they made this an instant speed, I have no doubt it would be much, much stronger.

 

I think Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger is finally priced near where it should be. It went up over $10 this week, and I think some of that is due to the banning of Emrakul, the Promised End. Now, Ulamog remains king! I've been seeing more Modern Tron decks online lately, and with the banning of Gitaxian Probe, it's possible that more people will feel comfortable playing Tron.

 

For us old school EDH players, Rainbow Vale was our Command Tower. There weren't many options for the longest time, so this was a premium. After the printings of many good lands, Rainbow Vale became a group hug card. It finally saw a healthy gain this week, and that's good! We can't let Forbidden Orchard hog all the glory.

 

Coalition Relic is finally reaching that “too expensive to buy for my deck” range. It's been a rarely played, but always awesome mana rock. With the 4 color Commander 2016 decks being released a while ago, I'm surprised it took this long for it to go up. I would probably forgo buying a Coalition Relic if you're looking for a mana base on a budget, but all the good mana rocks are starting to go up. I'd look at getting your Gilded Lotus and Chromatic Lantern before they reach the Coalition Relic mark.

Cheap pickups of the Week!

Cheap pickups are going to be tough this week. With a big shake up in both Modern and Standard, people will be exploring many different avenues or options. Plus, Aether Revolt prerelease events are upon us, so that market is yet to stabilize. So the cheap pickups this week are…mill cards. Ok well, traditionally mill cards are never “cheap.” There is a casual group of both kitchen table and commander players (myself included) that love mill. That's the reason cards like Glimpse the Unthinkable are NEVER cheap. Looking across the spectrum, most of the mill cards have been on a downturn over the last year. They may keep falling, but mill cards will always be in demand, and it's not even played competitively. Hedron Crab, Consuming Aberration, Mind Grind, Mind Funeral, Traumatize and Mindcrank are as cheap as they have been in a long time. Go get your mill on!

Foils of the Week!

Most of the foils this week follow their non-foil counter parts, but yet another pain land foil has spiked: Sulfurous Springs went from $22 to $75! As long as Eldrazi are playable in constructed formats, I feel like having access to colorless mana is very beneficial. Foil Memory Jar, an amazing card, also jumped to $75 from $32. I love the look of older foils. Foil Lux Cannon tripled in price from $5 to $17, and I've seen them in person. They are very pretty foils, plus a great commander card.

Conversation of the Week!

Obviously I am going to discuss the ban list and the impact on Standard/Modern. Gitaxian Probe being banned made me extremely happy. I could talk forever about why it needed to go, but suffice it to say that I'm glad it's gone. The card was so powerful that it might even lead to some U/G infect players to switch to a B/G or B/U/G brew. Modern might just slow down a turn, and that will see some slower decks coming out. Standard saw Emrakul, the Promised End, Reflector Mage and Smuggler's Copter banned. That is going to cause a huge shake up, and with the incoming Aether Revolt cards, everything is up in the air. It's a very volatile time in the Magic market, so you either have to sit back and wait out the craziness, or be at the forefront of what people are brewing so that you can get in at the ground level.

The best Commander card you're not playing!

On the theme of mill, Riddlekeeper is definitely the best card you're not playing. It's not the traditional prison card, but definitely very fun to play and watch your opponents mill themselves. Also, this card was only printed in original Commander, so you definitely won't see it very often!