Weekly Winners 2024 - 08

This was a fun week, with cards spiking from Pioneer, Standard, and Commander. Are you ready for the Boros Convoke deck?

Like every week, just in time for FNM, I'll tell you about the Magic: the Gathering cards that'll be the talk of the town tonight! Come discuss this week's price movements with us on Discord.

Articles

• Harvey's Three Barometers for the Magic: the Gathering Market provides a deep dive into three key indicators that track the game's market trends: the value of Revised dual lands, fluctuations in Standard singles' prices post-release, and Collector Booster Box prices. This comprehensive analysis offers invaluable insights for players and investors alike, seeking to understand and predict the financial landscape of Magic.
• In New Staples for Commander from Karlov Manor Steve introduces players to a variety of potent cards poised to become mainstays in Commander decks. His keen analysis identifies cards offering new angles on classic effects and highlights how they might alter the Commander landscape, promising to refresh deck-building strategies with their unique capabilities.
• Matt's Top Picks From the Karlov Manor Commander Decks highlights key cards and reprints from the latest Commander decks, evaluating their gameplay impact and potential market value. This detailed assessment provides valuable insights for players looking to enhance their Commander experiences with strategic additions from the Commander: Murders at Karlov Manor set, making it an essential read for strategic deck builders and collectors alike.
• Max's Karlov Manor Guild Leader Variants For Your Collection in the Variant Vault series ranks the collectibility of different showcase variants from Murders at Karlov Manor, with a focus on invisible ink, Ravnica City, and Dossier treatments. This detailed guide is a must-read for collectors aiming to understand the nuances of card variant values, providing a comprehensive look at the art and economics of collecting.

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Onto the Weekly Winners!

#1 Gleeful Demolition $3.17 (+188%)

Let's start the week off with a fairly recent uncommon card. Gleeful Demolition, printed in Phyrexia: All Will Be One, is one you may have seen already in Standard. It sees play there in decks that try to churn out a lot of little creatures as fast as possible. When Gleeful Demolition is paired with, for example, Voldaren Epicure, you can play the Vampire on turn one, and use the Blood token as the target for Gleeful Demolition on turn two, netting you four creatures. The deck then tries to use these creatures to help pay for Knight-Errant of Eos or Venerated Loxodon using Convoke and generating value. The latter of the two seems to have been pushed out of these decks lately in favor of some new cards we've seen printed in recent sets.

That the card works well in these decks has been known for quite some time already. So what makes it go up now? The answer seems to lie in Pioneer, where it's also doing fairly well in Boros Convoke decks.

For this very reason we see Knight-Errant of Eos, also included in the Pioneer build, going up as well. We're also seeing movement in the prices of Imodane's Recruiter and Warden of the Inner Sky.

 

Gleeful Demolition	CardKingdom $0.79	TCGPlayer $3.17
Knight-Errant of Eos	CardKingdom $5.49	TCGPlayer $6.45
Venerated Loxodon	CardKingdom $0.79	TCGPlayer $0.50
Warden of the Inner Sky	CardKingdom $1.49	TCGPlayer $1.70
Imodane's Recruiter	CardKingdom $0.35	TCGPlayer $0.29

#2 Necroskitter $29.84 (+199%)

Let's start this card off with a little nuance. The Eventide version of this card has shot up to $30, but the Modern Masters 2015 version of the card can still be had for around $13, still going up 20% since last week. This Elemental has the Wither ability, and thus it deals damage in the form of -1/-1 counters. But the card is mainly powerful because of its second ability: whenever a creature with a -1/-1 counter on it dies while Necroskitter is on the battlefield, you get to draw a card.

$1.10$1.79

$2.91$1.79

Necroskitter already saw Commander play in decks around The Scorpion God, Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons, and Skeleton Ship, unsuprisingly all cards that care about distributing -1/-1 counters. But in Karlov Manor we see a new card showing up that drove interest towards -1/-1 counter based decks, and Necroskitter in particular. That creature is Massacre Girl, Known Killer. She gives all your creatures Wither, and can also let you draw cards whenever a creature dies with toughness less than one. That's a pretty good synergy!

$17.38$20.99

Necroskitter tends to spike more often when there is new support for -1/-1 counters. For example, we also saw this back when Yawgmoth, Thran Physician was printed.

Necroskitter	CardKingdom $12.99	TCGPlayer $29.84
Necroskitter	CardKingdom $12.99	TCGPlayer $13.00
The Scorpion God	CardKingdom $2.29	TCGPlayer $2.25
Skeleton Ship	CardKingdom $1.79	TCGPlayer $2.91
Massacre Girl, Known Killer	CardKingdom $15.99	TCGPlayer $15.46

#3 Aetherworks Marvel $6.99 (+84%)

Good old, Aetherworks Marvel moving up again. The artifact is a way to cheat out big expensive, and hopefully, game-ending spells for cheap. But you do have to make sure that you gather sufficient Energy counters to activate it. This isn't the first time we've seen it show up in the Weekly Winners. The last time was last October when it shot up to about $6. There is however, in my opinion, a very interesting thing about this spike. It's exactly for the same reason as back then.

While it was about a dollar before that spike in October, after the spike it dwindled down again from $6 to around $4, and has regained interest because of new previews from the Universes Beyond: Fallout set. In October the names and commanders of the precons were previewed, and among them is the Science! deck. The Commander of this deck is Dr. Madison Li, and another known card in the deck is Rex, Cyber-Hound. As you can see, these both utilize Energy counters and thus it seems like the deck will revolve around them. This led to Aetherworks Marvel going up, and a week later we also saw Gonti's Aether Heart move up quickly.

$9.93$1.99

$5.34$4.99

With more Fallout previews being shown to us, people seem to be eager to already invest in upgrading their precon, and expect Aetherworks Marvel to be good again. It's mainly interesting to see that nothing really significant has changed, and yet there is another spike. I get that people are excited when they see new cards, but we already knew Energy counters would return. That being said, I'm personally really excited for Universes Beyond: Fallout. I have especially played so much of the first Fallout game while I should have been studying.

Aetherworks Marvel	CardKingdom $3.49	TCGPlayer $6.99
Dr. Madison Li	CardKingdom	TCGPlayer $21.93
Rex, Cyber-Hound	CardKingdom $1.99	TCGPlayer $9.93
Gonti's Aether Heart	CardKingdom $4.99	TCGPlayer $5.34

Cheap Pickups

Please note: for our 'record low' we consider the price of the card over the past seven years. Many cards were even cheaper (a) decade(s) ago. Also note: some cards are still going down, and might be even cheaper pickups next week.

Inti, Seneschal of the Sun $4.99 - Moving up!

Inti, Seneschal of the Sun has been identified by the MTGStocks Premium Penny Stocks feature as a card that has reached its bottom and is starting a consistent uptrend.

Karakas $10.23 - Slowly moving down

Teferi, Time Raveler $6.70 - Slowly moving down

Inti, Seneschal of the Sun	CardKingdom $5.99	TCGPlayer $5.00
White Tower of Ecthelion	CardKingdom $16.99	TCGPlayer $10.23
Karakas	CardKingdom $18.99	TCGPlayer $14.95
Teferi, Time Raveler	CardKingdom $8.49	TCGPlayer $6.74