This Week in Magic - Week 19

Pro Tour Amonkhet is upon us! Will Mardu Vehicles reign supreme, or has the meta adjusted? Quite a few decks have popped up over the last two weeks, and speculation on which deck will do well is surrounding this weekend. Let’s jump on our rocket sled and hurl ourselves through this week in Magic! Well, I guess April and May are officially “counters” months. Flourishing Defenses spiked this week, and along with cards like Blowfly Infestation, this follows the pattern. Oddly enough, Nest of Scarabs hasn't spiked yet, as it has a similar effect. I think five mana for Flourishing Defenses is too much for Modern, but it is green and it does make elves, so who knows? Dusk Urchins was an obscure, barely known card. Guess what? You know it now! Spoiler alert: this deals in -1/-1 currency, so Dusk Urchins has LITERALLY gone from rags to riches. Ouphe that was a convoluted pun. (You see, an urchin is a mischievous, poorly dressed young kid.) Nonetheless, this is another cute card to add to your -1/-1 library. Might as well make a commander deck with that theme. Hmm… Debt of Loyalty was legitimately on my notepad for Best Commander cards you're not playing, and now the secret is out of the bag. It's a reserved list card, so you won't see too many copies of it, but let's not overlook the awesome story depicted on it. I used to run this in my mono white Commander deck with cards like Lapse of Certainty, Reconnaissance and Abeyance to constantly keep my opponents guessing as to what my deck could do. I want to put that deck back together now with my Standard Bearer and crew. Spirit Link, one of the first neat tricks we had for creatures spiked. I used to cast this on my opponents Shivan Dragon and Craw Wurm, basically making it a dead card. It's been reprinted several times, but nothing can beat the original Legends printing. It's not on the reserved list, so I'm not sure why it spiked, but it IS Legends, so anything is possible. Torrential Gearhulk hit a pretty solid mark this week. It's not as high as it was back in October, but it's still a great gain. It's essentially the best creature in Standard right now, and a sweet one at that. U/R and W/U control decks are fairly popular right now, which is probably why it has gone up in price. I dumped all mine back in October, and I somewhat regret it because while I may have profited, I don't see myself buying more until they rotate. I just want to take the time to point out Legends version of Nicol Bolas. Ever since we learned of his return on Kaladesh, his price has been all over the place. It has nothing to do with the card seeing play and everything to do with speculation on Nostalgia. When we do finally get the next Nicol Bolas card, people might come down with a case of the feels and buy the OG gentleman himself. # Foils of the Week! Can I just say, foil Lorwyn Thoughtseize?! Wow! Not, that they are selling for $1,000 each, but it is pretty cool seeing a foil from a set as recently as Lorwyn breaking the $1,000 mid mark. Foil Diregraf Colossus, part of the standard zombies deck, spiked this week. Foil Cryptbreaker went up as well. This pains me to say, because I didn't buy them yet, but foil Fatal Pushes went up again and are ungodly expensive. They haven't really been cheap since release, but they are definitely not getting cheaper. # Cheap pickups of the Week! Gideon of the Trials has barely been tried, and you can probably negotiate a solid price for them. Now is a great time to pick up Kaladesh rares and mythics. Cool cards like Panharmonicon, Nissa, Vital Force and Gonti, Lord of Luxury are dirt cheap right now and make for great Commander cards. Blinkmoth Nexus is rock bottom right now, so now's the time to move on everyone's second favorite Nexus land. Aetherworks Marvel amazes me. It's very, very powerful and yet cheap right now. With the Pro Tour this weekend, this card could spike again, so now is the time to get your copies. # Mtgstocks mystery chart of the Week! Last week's mystery chart was Celestial Colonnade. I got pretty lazy with the hints, so some were able to figure it out right away. This week, a great card! Some think it signaled the deterioration of Magic, while others quickly and suddenly found a new favorite card. If you're guessing a card from the reserved list however, that would be a BG, or bad guess.  # Conversation of the Week! 1v1 Commander leagues have hit MTGO and things have gotten pretty nasty right away. As if it were a surprise to anyone, it is HIGHLY competitive and very degenerate. I've played about 4 leagues and people so far seem less friendly than any other league. I don't think it's possible to have a friendly and competitive league either, as they will both basically contain the same decks. I also saw a few cards that might get the axe pretty soon, one of which is my Commander, Vial Smasher the Fierce. All in all, the leagues are very interesting, but I think the deck selections will narrow very quickly as building a 99 card competitive deck is much harder than a 60 card deck. Only time will tell how many players will quit playing, as it is in no way casual, which is to be expected from a league. That being said, it's still a commander game, so it feels very…odd. # The best Commander card you’re not playing! The best card you're not playing this week is Cauldron Dance. I used to play it in my Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund dragon tribal deck. Coupled with things like Bladewing the Risen and Broodmate Dragon, you get a ton of value.