Weekly Winners (48)

27 Nov

by Peter

This week, all three winners are Modern cards. GP Pittsburgh shook up the markets this week. Once again, I present you the cards that will be the talk of the town tonight.

#1 Rise // Fall +387% ($2.24)

Rise // Fall spiked this week and costs you $2.24 now. Its huge increase in value was due to the fact that Cory Burkhart piloted his Modern Grixis Control deck into the top 5 of last weekend's Grand Prix Pittsburgh. When a second tier deck makes it that far into the tournament, it will attract attention and coverage to itself.

This will spike interest under players and traders, who will start looking into the cards they need (or think other people will need) to complete the deck. Rise // Fall was the cheapest uncommon in the deck. Usually this fuels speculators to buyout a card they deem too "cheap". What happens is what they call a 'price correction'; a previously undervalued card is now worth what it should be worth, considering its role in the game.

But, (huge but), such a price correction usually occurs across all printings of a card. In the case of Rise // Fall, this is not true. Its Duel Decks printing is still only $0.30 in price, although it climbed in price a few cents. Considering this, and the fact that all near-mint copies of Rise // Fall are sold, it just seems like a (incomplete) buyout.

Between sets are always price differences, but in this case, even if its Dissension printing was far more popular, a $1.94 price difference is just not realistic.

#2 Footsteps of the Goryo +348.9% ($4.04)

Footsteps of the Goryo is a piece Zac Elsik's Protean Hulk Combo deck. In the past weeks I have reported the rise of Protean Hulk and the spike of Footsteps of the Goryo is connected to this. It is not that Zak Elsik netted a to 16 result on the GP Pittsburgh, but he did get coverage in Corbin Hosler's article on this deck. Any coverage on lesser knowns can lead to a run on the cheap cards in a deck. And especially from a writer that has his roots in MTG Finance. Check out the article to learn how exactly the deck works.

These kind of spikes in price are always speculative, simply because the deck has not proven itself enough in the tournament circuit. Buying into the hype might result in a good profit, but chances are that the deck won't take of and you have your hands on a set of ridiculously overpriced Footsteps of the Goryo's.

#3 Protean Hulk +78.6% ($8.93)

For the third week in a row, Protean Hulk is a weekly winner. It started at #1, last week it was #2 and this week #3. The reason I keep mentioning the card is because it is pretty unusual for a card that is featured in a "rogue" deck to pop into our interests for several weeks. Usually the hype dies down quickly. When a card is obviously underpriced, we see a huge spike and a fallback in price the weeks after.

Protean Hulk did lose some value compared to its Sunday spike ($12.97), but it is still 78.6% higher in comparison to last week. The hype continues. It seems that the card is popular and people decide to buy into it.

Other Interesting Risers

Since there are very little cheap pickups to report, I will bring you some other interesting risers this week!
For those who wonder: I do plan on returning to the Cheap Pickups, but I do need to have some real nice pickups to report to you.

City of Brass

The price difference between the Arabian Nights version and its other printings is now $97.38. One of the biggest price differences on cards between printings we have on file (not counting ABU cards). Its increase is probably due to the 93/94 format. Please do note that the print run back in the day was so limited, that even small amounts of trade can lead to huge price differences.

Command Beacon

Last week it was in the Winners, and it keeps on growing this week!

Aluren

Aluren is creeping up in price since the deck running it netted some decent results. It's far from a hype in Legacy, but this price increase does tell me that traders start to take Aluren seriously again. Certainly a card to keep your eye on!

Null Rod

Null Rod is a card that sees a lot of sideboard play in Legacy and Vintage. The card stops pesky artifacts like Sensei's Divining Top

(centerpiece in Miracles and Storm) and Lion's Eye Diamond

(centerpiece in Storm).

More from Peter:

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