Weekly Winners 2024 - 14

Plenty of cards to talk about for various reasons. And our first spike from the Clue Edition is a fact!

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.

Star Wars: A New Family

By popular request, we launched a new spin-off of the Stocks-family. As you may be aware, Star Wars: Unlimited TCG is a fairly new card game and seems to have a quite popular reception. Multiple people have approached us and asked for a Stocks-version for this new game, and we didn't really have a different choice than to obey. Thus, we launched SWU Stocks at https://www.swustocks.com. This adds another member to the family!

• LRC Stocks - Lorcana TCG
• SWU Stocks - Star Wars: Unlimited
• FaB Stocks - Flesh & Blood
• Yugi Stocks - Yu-Gi-Oh!
• Pika Stocks - Pokemon TCG

Articles

Harvey McGuinness's comprehensive guide, An Introduction to Pricing Alpha, Beta, and Unlimited, dives deep into the intricacies of valuing Magic's foundational sets, illustrating how factors like historical significance, card condition, and rarity influence market prices. This piece is invaluable for collectors aiming to understand or enter the high-stakes world of collecting these early, iconic cards.

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Onto the Weekly Winners!

#1 Carnage Interpreter $18.73 (+827%)

Before we get into the first winner of the week, I'd like to mention a small personal note. The coming four weeks I'll be on holiday with my family in the US. I'll do my best to keep writing the Weekly Winners every week, but it's hard to make a promise that I can get around to it. So if I'm missing a week, please forgive me!

This is our very first spike from the Ravnica: Clue Edition set. Before we get into why this card went up, let's first briefly discuss what this Clue Edition set is about, since it's relevant to explain the price of Carnage Interpreter. It's a standalone multiplayer murder mysterday game set on Ravnica and part of the Universes Beyond series. The only way to purchase it, is through the sealed product case. Each case includes eight boosters, each containing a Jumpstart style half deck. These boosters are a selection of eight out of twenty possible half decks. Only one of these half decks contains Carnage Interpreter, meaning that you're not guaranteed to find this card in your bundle.

The Clue Edition does not seem to have sold very well compared to other Universes Beyond sets and other product released around that time. And this is where the supply and demand problem comes in. A set that was not very popular, and hasn't sold as well, means that there are less of these cards in circulation. This means that the supply is relatively low and thus easier for a card to spike if it becomes popular. It seems like this is going on here. Now let's get into why this card became popular.

There seem to be a few reasons, but recently the card was added to the MTGO Vintage Cube. Luis Scott-Vargas also talks about the card on stream and has been propping the Devil Detective up in some previous streams as well. It also showed up in a Legacy UB Reanimator deck in the sideboard.

$0.48 $0.59

I've also seen people trying to make Carnage Interpreter work with Stingerback Terror since discarding your hand would immediately grow the Dragon, while still having access to cards through the Clue tokens. It also seems to find some fringe play in commander decks around Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar.

Carnage Interpreter	CardKingdom $9.99	TCGPlayer $18.73
Stingerback Terror	CardKingdom $0.99	TCGPlayer $3.34
Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar	CardKingdom $0.59	TCGPlayer $0.48

#2 Elenda's Hierophant $11.15 (+181%)

Last week we talked about Charismatic Conqueror's spike: a white Vampire that wants to create tokens for you. Do you see the similarities with Elenda's Hierophant? She's also a Vampire that slots nicely into most Vampire decks. And looking at the decks that she currently is being played it, we obviously see Clavileno, First of the Blessed which is the commander of the Blood Rites precon that Elenda's also included in.

$17.37 $1.49

Now it also seems people are anticipating that Elenda may be a good upgrade to the upcoming Most Wanted precon from the Commander: Outlaws of Thunder Junction set, or that people want her to build new decks around the commander of the precon: Olivia, Opulent Outlaw.

Elenda's Hierophant	CardKingdom $7.99	TCGPlayer $11.15
Elenda's Hierophant (Extended Art)	CardKingdom $7.99	TCGPlayer $8.92
Clavileno, First of the Blessed	CardKingdom $0.99	TCGPlayer $0.78
Olivia, Opulent Outlaw (Borderless)	CardKingdom $1.49	TCGPlayer $17.37

#3 Valki, God of Lies $9.97 (+97%)

Valki is a God printed in Kaldheim. For two mana you get a decent play on turn two where you get to disrupt your opponent's hand, and you even get to turn Valki into the creature you exiled. However... when people talk about Valki they are usually more interested in Tibalt which we find on the other side of the card which we can cast for seven mana. Tibalt was actually one of the most mocked and worst planeswalkers ever printed when it was printed in Avacyn Restored. Tibalt, the Fiend-Blooded was only two mana, which was insane for a planeswalker, but it's abilities simply weren't good.

Like I said, Valki has mainly been popular due to its Tibalt side, but because of it's dual mana cost, people have mainly been trying to cheat Tibalt out with some alternative way to cast it. Not too long ago, people tried to cheat it out with Tibalt's Trickery by countering their own (cheap) spell.  The new way to try to cheat Tibalt out ahead of the curve comes from Outlaws of Thunder Junction. In this case Jace Reawakened's second +1 ability can let you exile a nonland card with mana value three or less from your hand. If you do, it becomes plotted.

$7.00 $9.99

Plotted is a new keyword from the Thunder Junction set. When a card becomes exiled and plotted, you get to cast the card from exile without paying its mana cost on a future turn. Valki has mana value two, and thus can be exiled with Jace. When you then cast it from exile you however get to choose which side of the card you want to cast, and chances are you're going to try to cast Tibalt. Jace itself is preselling around $25 at the moment, but since the set has not released yet, we don't know where it's going to settle.

Valki, God of Lies	CardKingdom $8.99	TCGPlayer $9.97
Valki, God of Lies (Showcase)	CardKingdom $7.99	TCGPlayer $14.92
Valki, God of Lies (Borderless)	CardKingdom $8.99	TCGPlayer $12.29
Valki, God of Lies	CardKingdom $8.99	TCGPlayer $9.87
Jace Reawakened	CardKingdom $17.99	TCGPlayer $25.74
Tibalt's Trickery	CardKingdom $9.99	TCGPlayer $7.00

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.

Vexilus Praetor $4.99 - Moving up!

Vexilus Praetor has been identified by the MTGStocks Premium Penny Stocks feature as a card that has reached its bottom and is starting a consistent uptrend.

Kira, Great Glass-Spinner $4.49 - Moving down

Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger $2.88 - Moving down slowly

Vexilus Praetor	CardKingdom	TCGPlayer $4.93
Kira, Great Glass-Spinner	CardKingdom $5.49	TCGPlayer $4.49
Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger	CardKingdom $3.99	TCGPlayer $2.87