Another week, another Weekly Winners! We see some price fluctuations due to Modern and Commander. This last format was shaken up a bit by a surprise banning of Hullbreacher and people who play it have been scrambling for a replacement.
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!
Come discuss this week's price movements with us on Reddit.
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For the ones who have missed the announcement, this week Hullbreacher was banned in Commander. The average price of Hullbreacher went down from $25 to $18, and the market price went from $21 to $6.50. This another clear sign that commander really drives prices, because Hullbreacher does not only see play in commander, but also in Legacy and Vintage.
So how does that tie in with Notion Thief? It seems people flock to this as replacement for Hullbreacher in the decks that can play both and . And if you put it like that, the reasoning kind of makes sense. People "simply" replace Hullbreacher if they can, and demand goes up. But in my opinion that reasoning is a bit flawed.
First, as I kind of already mentioned, you can only replace Hullbreacher in commander decks that play both and , so it definitely is not a 1-on-1 replacement and can only be done in the decks that play these colors. But second, the decks that play and would most likely already play Notion Thief if it synergises so well with it. Especially since it was quite a cheap card to include anyway. The third reason is that even though the cards look similar effect wise, they really aren't. Hullbreacher denies your opponents extra cards, and netting you a (large) mana advantage in the process. Especially when you play it with cards like Wheel of Fortune or Commit // Memory, you deny your opponents the cards, create a bunch of Treasures which you can use to play the cards you have just drawn. But with Notion Thief you deny your opponents the extra cards, and draw these extra cards yourself. So with a "wheel"-effect, you will draw a lot and a lot of cards and probably don't have the resources to cast them (all).
This leads me to believe that Notion Thief was mainly bought out by speculators and people who are afraid to miss out on the replacement without actually thinking it through. Or maybe a lot of people didn't know about Notion Thief until their attention was focussed on it by the banning of Hullbreacher. I think the Thief may have been undervalued before, but I am not sure if it should remain $6 in the short term.
| Notion Thief |
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| Zendikar Rising: Commander Decks |
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| Dragon's Maze |
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| Masters 25 |
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The Modern Horizons 2 effect still is not over. We see modern players still brewing, and mainly tuning their sideboards to the new meta, and they are picking up Alpine Moon as part of their sideboards. It also already saw some play in Vintage and Legacy, but is now widely played in Modern sideboards.
It is an alternative to Blood Moon if you cannot afford to play it when your own mana base cannot support it. It is sideboarded in against, for example, Rakdos midrange with Shinka, the Bloodsoaked Keep or Shizo, Death's Storehouse. Both of these lands were discussed in recent Weekly Winner articles as well because they have picked up steam. It obviously also shuts down Urza's Saga which is a big hitter in Modern now. But there are also several decks in Modern now running Inkmoth Nexus, like Hammer Time, Hardened Scales, or (obviously) Infect.
| Alpine Moon |
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| Core Set 2019 |
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Maybe not entirely fair to discuss a card that hasn't even released yet on paper, but it has been released last week on Magic Arena, meaning it technically sees play and the power level can at least be somewhat assessed. There is a combo in Standard with The Book of Exalted Deeds along with Faceless Haven. If you have both on the battlefield, along with 5 other (white/snow) lands, you can make Faceless Haven a creature, and since it has all creature types (including Angel) you can target it with The Book of Exalted Deeds' ability putting an enlightened counter on it and it gains "You can't lose the game and your opponents can't win the game".
When Faceless Haven stops being a creature at the end of the turn, the counter and ability stay on it. It doesn't lose the ability when it stops being an Angel, meaning that as long as you don't activate the Haven to be a creature, it is really hard to interact with and the opponent will need land destruction or something like Kiora Bests the Sea God to try to get control of the land. The deck does not have a real win condition other than to sit and wait until your opponent decks itself. Imagine the mirror match where neither can win!
Now combos like these usually aren't that bad when the meta has cards like Field of Ruin or Cleansing Wildfire in the format like currently in Standard. But in Magic Arena you barely see these cards played in BO1 since (and especially the latter one) mainly sees play in sideboards. To make things worse, on Arena there also is a "Standard 2022" format where both The Book of Exalted Deeds and Faceless Haven are legal but Field of Ruin is not, meaning there is barely a way to interact with the combo. This has led Wizards to ban The Book of Exalted Deeds in this format since it led to really frustrating game plays. The first question that came to my mind is when they'll ban Tibalt's Trickery because it leads to boring non-interactive and frustrating games where your opponent is basically wasting your time </rant>.
Anyway, I wrote most of this article yesterday and saw the book high up on the Interests, but figured I wouldn't write about it just yet because of the banning and I couldn't imagine it still going up after the ban. It lost a little value since the ban when looking at the average price, but the market price went up slightly. I am not sure what the crowd buying this card is. Are they people who anticipate it to be good in Standard? Or maybe after rotation? Does it appeal to casual and/or commander players? Or is it just hype at the moment? There obviously is a good chance the price will tank when the card actually gets released in paper.
| Kiora Bests the Sea God |
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| The Book of Exalted Deeds |
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This Golem is quickly going up the past week. Barely a dollar before the spike and now up to almost $6. It has gotten some more attention in commander since the printing of Zabaz, the Glimmerwasp in Modern Horizons 2 where it fits in nicely with the Modular ability theme. But it also seems that people include it in commander builds with Oswald Fiddlebender.
It also sees some fringe play in commander decks with Fain, the Broker and Alibou, Ancient Witness.
| Zabaz, the Glimmerwasp |
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| Arcbound Reclaimer |
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| Oswald Fiddlebender |
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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.
Mana Drain $49.90 - Slowly trending down
| Monologue Tax |
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| Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver |
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| Mana Drain |
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