This Week in Magic - Week 5

Pro Tour Aether Revolt is happening as of this writing, and I'm excited to see what the pros bring to the table for Standard. Also, Star City Games has regionals (Modern) going on all over the US, so it will be a great weekend of Magic. Let's see what has been making movement in the market this week.

 

Well, unfortunately, I have to be boring and mention Retract. Again. It is at the top of the charts this week, nearly doubling in price AFTER its spike last week. Cheeri0s is a real deck and many pros have showed what it can do on stream. I've played a few matches verses it in Modern and while it can have some busted turn 2 wins, it can be fragile. We will have to see what kind of results the deck puts up this weekend, but I don't expect Retract to fall below $10 any time soon.

 

Runed Halo has jumped to nearly $20 and it's a very powerful, but under-utilized card in Modern. With all sorts of brews coming out of the woodworks, there's no telling what the next big Modern deck will be. It sees sideboard and mainboard play in a number of white based control decks, and is surprisingly hard to deal with.

 

Primal Vigor, the fair version of Doubling Season has finally caught on as the budget alternative. Sadly, with the spike this week, it's no longer a budget alternative. In Commander, I always played Primal Vigor over Doubling Season because it usually made me some friends.

 

With the same theme of Cheeri0s, Puresteel Paladin spiked fairly hard, pushing it to over $50 per playset. While the deck may have been budget for the pioneers, it is quickly becoming out of reach. Puresteel is the better version of Sram, Senior Edificer, I think, because the equip cost of 0 randomly is great. It's a rough time for Commander players looking to build metalcraft or artifact based strategies. 

 

Disallow made its way up this week and I think it's well overdue. A strictly better Voidslime is very playable. Control decks are starting to take over Standard and this card is very rarely dead. I think Disallow is a fantastic long term investment, even though it just spiked. 

 

Mox Opal is yet another part of Cheeri0s, but also sees play in other Modern decks. With Affinity quickly becoming the fastest beatdown deck in the format and Cheeri0s breaking the rules, I'd be very careful picking up Mox Opals, especially at their current price.

Cheap pickups of the Week!

Boros Reckoner has fallen very, very far from the days of exploding players and commanding a $20 price tag. It's a great commander card, a great casual card and even Modern playable. Not many cards have a similar effect, and with hybrid mana, it's easy to cast. Runeflare Trap is a card most people have forgotten about, but it has applications in a constructed deck or casual. Reality Smasher is about $0.05 from it's all time low, but at $3, why would anyone pass this up? With Fatal Push taking over Modern, there will be a premium on creatures that cost over 4 mana.

Foils of the Week!

Well, if you have any foil Sleight of Hand, you're in luck. 9th Edition have spiked to well over $100! Infernal Tutor gained a cool $100 and is sitting at $450 now. Herald of Leshrac is a very rude, but cool creature. It's still pretty cheap, but the foil gained $5. Pretty much everything from the Modern Cheeri0s list skyrocketed alongside the non-foil copies. 

Conversation of the Week!

With Wizards having the power to ban cards more frequently, some feel that it's an unpredictable time to invest in Standard cards. Let it be known that the last thing they want to do is ban cards in Standard. That means they messed up pretty big and they generally try to avoid that at all costs. However, depending on how this weekend shapes up, people may become even more displeased with the lack of diversity. Fingers crossed we get a diverse top 8!

The best Commander card you're not playing!

Tired of having your creatures destroyed by targeted removal? Dense Foliage is just the place you want to be. A cheap and efficient way to make sure your creatures dodge those pesky Royal Assassins and Swords to Plowshares.