Cards to Buy or Sell NOW for Modern

21 Aug
by Corey Williams

On the eve of many local game stores’ Bloomburrow store championship, and the looming banned list update at the end of the month, musings in the Modern format have been rather few and far between. A couple weeks ago, I discussed some choice cards, mostly from Modern Horizons 3, that seemed like sleepers in the current meta as we await an inevitable Nadu, Winged Wisdom ban.

Today, I look beyond the recency bias associated with MH3 and Bloomburrow and look at a couple powerful cards legal in the Modern format that have trended down and are hovering at surprising lows. Now, of course, not all cards in the format are hitting new lows. In point of fact, there are a couple singles that are commanding an excruciatingly high price tag worthy of discussion, too. So let’s dig in!

Flare of Denial

I argued when MH3 was previewed that Flare of Denial was the best of the Flare cycle. I still stand by that assessment. While not on the same power level as the evoke Elemental cycle, the adoption of the collective Flares is still relatively lower than what it should be. 

Flare of Denial, unfortunately, just hasn’t found enough homes to really command a large price tag. In Modern, Blue Moon and Merfolk have adopted Flare of Denial, as they have the creature base that can be leveraged for paying Flare of Denial’s alternate casting cost. 

Around release, Flare of Denial was commanding well over $30. Today, however, you can pick it up for around $7. While I don’t find Flare to be worth its release price, I do think it is criminally undervalued. A playset of these for less than its release price for one copy speaks volumes. Again, not to beat a dead horse (or a dead Bird in this case), but Nadu overshadowing the meta really pushes cards like Flare to the margin of the card pool in the Modern format. 

At the very least, it is my expectation that in a post-Nadu world both Merfolk and Blue Moon gain more traction in the format’s meta. If only for that potential uptick in demand alone, I would recommend getting a jump on Flare of Denial. Beyond these two decks, however, Flare also has utility in Commander and cEDH, as well as other eternal formats. Overall, Flare of Denial just seems like a criminally undercapitalized card insofar as free counterspells go, and seems worth the small investment for a potentially massive return.

Flare of Denial
Flare of Denial (Retro Frame)
Flare of Denial (Borderless)

Leyline of the Guildpact

In the awkward limbo between Violent Outburst’s ban and MH3’s release, Leyline of the Guildpact defined the Modern format with decks like Domain Zoo being the decks to beat. However short-lived Domain Zoo’s reign may have been, it did illustrate the power and potential of Leyline. While Murders at Karlov Manor’s chase rares have been relegated to the surveil land cycle, Leyline still is worth a second look, especially given the reality that this card sat around $15-$20 for a couple months right up until MH3’s dawn on the format.

Today, Leyline is a little less than $5. Again, much like Flare, this seems a little bit low relative to its potential – potential that we have already seen in action. Unfortunately, the steep fall in price is reflective of an even steeper fall in demand. Since MH3, domain-style decks are seldom piloted. Whether this is because they are objectively weaker even in the potential absence of Nadu or incentives to adopt domain archetypes to a post-MH3 world are too low is difficult to parse out.

Having said that, the versatility of Leyline is high enough where I would consider it a reasonable spec depending on how the meta shakes out at the end of the month and into September. At the very least, Leyline sees gameplay in cEDH in some Sisay, Weatherlight Captain builds, although it’s far from a staple. 

Leyline of the Guildpact
Leyline of the Guildpact (Extended Art)

Minamo, School at Water's Edge

The fifth article I ever wrote looked at the stagnating prices of some choice legendary lands from Champions of Kamigawa, of which Minamo was at the center of the piece. More than a year ago, Minamo used to be around $30, and was flatlining much like Leyline of the Guildpact and Flare of Denial are now. Today, however, Minamo is commanding an average price of more than $80 a pop. 

What is driving this price resurgence? A couple things. Firstly, Jeskai control in Modern utilizes this gem as a one-of to untap The One Ring, thereby allowing multiple uses of it in one turn, and to occasionally untap Phlage, Titan of Fire's Fury. However, you and I both know that Modern is just Nadu, Nadu, and Nadu at the moment. So while Jeskai Control is popular and certainly within the meta, its presence is still in the minority, so it cannot be Jeskai Control alone driving this price surge, right?

You’d be correct in assessing that, yes, it can't be just this singular inclusion in Jeskai Control driving this recent spike. You’d be saddened to know that a lot of this variation is coming from the presence of Nadu in the cEDH meta. In just a couple months, Nadu has solidified itself as one of the best decks in the meta with a remarkably high conversion rate of 33.33%. Nadu in cEDH utilizes Minamo for two reasons: to untap The One Ring for additional card draw (if said pilot is even playing The One Ring), and to target Nadu to untap Nadu, thereby triggering Nadu, and allowing the pilot to get some easy value from Nadu’s triggers.

While it would be reductive to attribute the entirety of Minamo’s recent price spike to either of these decks alone, it certainly is a combination of both along with a still fairly low supply driving this variation. When the pool of existing copies of Minamo are limited to Champions, The List, and Commander: The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth, you’d find yourself scrambling to find a spare copy to suit your needs, as Champions has been out of print for over a decade, while both The List and Commander: Lord of the Rings are both scant in relative supply altogether. 

Will this price spike stick? Probably not. Minamo, if anything, feels primed for a reprint. I personally would not pay $80 outright for this card. In fact, and I rarely say this, now would be a good time to liquidate copies of Minamo from your personal collections if you’re not using them. Cards with relatively low supply like Minamo need only one small increase or reprint to drag the entirety of its average price down to an all-time low. Take for instance Oboro, Palace in the Clouds, which just over a year ago was commanding a price tag of $50. What decks play Oboro? Not really any popular ones at the moment, thus its reprint in Lord of the Rings was enough to bring about a meaningful increase in supply to the market just enough to finally match the little demand that there already was. As such, today, Oboro is just a little over $25. I would imagine that Minamo should reasonably sit around $35 to $40, and expect its price to plummet to that point if a reprint is announced at some point. Turn and burn your extra copies while you can!

Minamo, School at Water's Edge
Dol Amroth

Soul Spike

Here’s a card that is characteristically so low in supply that even a small uptick in demand is enough to send its price to the moon and back. Mono-Black Necrodominance builds in Modern have loved this card and are the sole source of its recent demand uptick over the past month or so. In many ways, Soul Spike and the cycle of free spells it hails from in Coldsnap (get it? Hail?) were the precursors to the modern evoke-Elementals cycle (MH2), the Force cycle (MH1), and more recently the Flare cycle (MH3). Not for nothing, the cycle of free spells from Coldsnap are actually pretty solid, with Commandeer and Allosaurus Rider all seeing some splashes of play in Modern here or there in recent months, although Soul Spike stands as a significant outlier in price. 

In Mono-Black Necrodominance, Soul Spike can actually serve as a key win condition. Play Necrodominance, pay a lot of life, draw a lot of cards, play Soul Spike for its alternative casting cost, gain life, and then rinse and repeat. In the very best case, you go through all four Soul Spikes in your deck and deal 16 damage to your opponent and gain 16 life, which can be utilized to enable more Necrodominance draws, and in the worst case, deal four damage, gain four life, and get potentially four more draws from Necro.

For a while, this card was less than $1, but now it’s a little over $60. An increase of this magnitude over such a small time window characterizes a shallow pool of supply being drawn from to service a spike in demand for format play even from a deck in the minority of the meta share. Like Minamo, I would unload extra copies of these sooner rather than later. With cards like this, it only takes one small appearance as a List reprint to absolutely knock the market price down a large chunk. 

Soul Spike

Onward (and Upward?)

Of the four cards discussed today, two are shockingly low and overshadowed by stagnation in the Modern format, while the other two singles discussed are seemingly reaching for the sky in terms of financial evaluation, and demand in a pool of supply that feels all but dried up. Cards like Flare of Denial and Leyline of the Guildpact represent the tip of the iceberg of what are underutilized potential format staples, while Minamo, School at Water's Edge and Soul Spike represent demand in a specific niche whose prices can crumble at even one instance of reprinting. Exercise caution when speculating on cards like Minamo and Soul Spike. I would urge individuals holding and not utilizing these singles to sell them or trade them in while their prices are hovering at near all-time highs. As for pieces like Flare of Denial and Leyline of the Guildpact, now is a better time than ever to pick up a playset for your needs or speculatory desires!

Further Reading:

How Has the Print Change for Secret Lair Affected Prices So Far?

Corey Williams
Corey Williams

Corey Williams is an Assistant Professor of Economics at Shippensburg University in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania. He considers himself a macroeconometrician with his research body reflecting work in applied macroeconomics and econometrics. Corey is an L1 Judge who started playing Magic around Eighth Edition. He enjoys Modern, Commander, cEDH, and cube drafting. Outside of Magic, he loves running, teaching, and the occasional cult movie.


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