The past weeks have been a bit slow in the world of Magic prices. This week I can report about 2 interesting winners, and one big loser, that might suprise you a bit.
Like every week, just in time for FNM, I'll now tell you about the cards that will be the talk of the town tonight!
Every standard player knows how it feels when your opponent drops a Casualties of War. They either kill your best dude, destroy that planeswalker you've just painstakingly casted, or both. Or even take other permanents away as well. And Casualties of War is not only popular in Standard, it also sees play in Pioneer.
Casualties of War's playrate in Pioneer is lower than in standard, but we have many brews on file that use the card's versatile removal abilities. As a potential 5 for 1, Casualties of War can give its caster a huge amount of value and advantage. But its casting cost is steep as well. For it to function properly, it needs to be flanked by other, easier castable removal spells. Or in a deck that can ramp up to that 6 mana quickly. Casualties of War is worth nothing when you can't cast it yet, or when you are able to, in need of killing more than just one card of the different types.
And that last point brings me to something else completely. Casualties of War is only value when you can take out several permanents with it. And much depends on your opponent in being able to do so. In most decks Casualties of War is not in the maindeck, but in the sideboard. With Standard Jund being the exception, playing 4 copies maindeck. Check out these Standard and Pioneer decklists.
Wait! Before your jaw drops all the way to the floor, there is something fishy about this spike. Yavimaya Coast's Apocalypse printing might be $14.38, all other prints sit between $1.50 and $2.50, showing just slight upticks. This spike is a buyout, as simple as that. And luckily, in this case you have plenty of other options for acquiring the card for cheap.
At first, I didn't want to write about Yavimaya Coast, but then I saw that there is an interesting story to tell. Every format needs a mana base, and in Pioneer the Apocalypse pain lands are popular. When you look at the decklist below, the Simic Stompy deck uses a greedy, non-basic intensive mana base with not only Yavimaya Coast, but Breeding Pool,
Botanical Sanctum and Hinterland Harbor as well. Other Apocalypse pain lands have become more expensive too.
Looking forward, expect Yavimaya Coast to crash back down, as soon as tomorrow. It might end up being the most expensive printing of the card, simply because its supply is much lower than the reprints. But outside of that, nothing warrants any price tag higher than $5 - $7 on these cards. Unless Pioneer becomes so popular and drives up demand so much that all copies become much more expensive. But that's just simple supply and demand, leading to a slow price increase over a longer period of time.
When Stoneforge Mystic was unbanned, its price exploded overnight. The card was banned when the format was still in its infancy and only playable on MTGO. Before the format got paper tournament support, Stoneforge Mystic was already out of the cardpool. Its unbanning sparked a lot of enthusiasm, dread and many brews. Some speculated that the card would break the format, others stated that it would mean nothing at all for the Modern meta.
As with many things, the truth is not partisan but somewhere in the middle. Yes, Stoneforge Mystic sees regular and stable play in Modern, but it is not at all broken or dominant. It sees play in #5 of the top 5 decks in the Modern meta, representing only 3.75% of that meta.
In contrast to all the other weeks, this Weekly Winners features a Weekly Loser: Stoneforge Mystic. Sometimes not the winners, but the losers tell the most interesting story about the state of the metagame. So, instead of covering an insignificant spike, I have chosen to show you the price development of Stoneforge Mystic.
And as you can see, Stoneforge Mystic has dropped in price hard. We project that is will be worth only 50% of its post-unbanning price around New Years. And that is huge, considering that Stoneforge Mystic is one of the most sensational unbannings in Modern history.
But also note, that the $75 mark Stoneforge Mystic can be considered a proven ceiling for the card. It reached that price after people jumped on it, expecting that it would become one of the biggest Modern staples. Things did turn out a bit different, but that gives us a lot of information about the value range Stoneforge Mystic can have.
Cheap Pickups
Please note: for our 'record low' we consider the price of the card over the past 7 years. Many cards have been even cheaper (a) decade(s) ago. Also note: some cards are still going down, and might be even cheaper pickups next week.
Noble Hierarch $31.19 - Record low and going down
Ancestral Vision $6.82 - Record low and going down
