Weekly Winners 2024 - 34

23 Aug
by Arjen

Commander and Standard are driving prices this week, and Lord of the Rings Poster cards are going hard.

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

Check out our other great content from this week.

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

Cards to Buy or Sell NOW for Modern by Corey Williams

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Secret Lair Value

This week we launched a new feature for Premium members! The "Secret Lair Value" feature provides a comprehensive analysis of all Secret Lair drops. It displays the MSRP, current sealed market price, secondary market price for exact printings, and the cost of acquiring the lowest-priced versions of included cards. This tool enables you to quickly assess the financial aspects of Secret Lair products, comparing their retail cost against current market values.

Did you know that if you buy the Prime Slime drop sealed it will cost you $50, while the separate prints from this set are only $30? But you can get the lowest prints of these cards for less than $2.50! The more you know, the better choices you can make. Premium members get all kinds of extra features, so at least check out the Go Premium page to see what you'll get.

Onto the Weekly Winners!

#1 Urabrask's Forge $12.58 (+172%)

Let's kick off the winners with Urabrask's Forge. This red artifact from Phyrexia: All Will Be One has been showing up in Standard since its printing. Every combat it will give you an X/1 red token with haste, where X is the number of oil counters on Urabrask's Forge. And every beginning of combat, you get to add such a counter on it. This can add up quickly over the turns, and gives you a "free" attack every combat since you have to sacrifice the token anyway at the next end step.

Boros Midrange by Yushi Uzuki

Planeswalker(2)
Enchantment(9)
2
$1,303.89
Artifact(8)
4
$0.15
Sorcery(4)
4
$7.13
Instant(11)
3
$5.30
Land(26)
4
$4.50
1
$3.89
1
$0.11
4
$0.15

This artifact sees play in Commander in decks around Migloz, Maze Crusher and Samut, Vizier of Naktamun, for example. But Commander isn't the driving force behind this spike. The real reason is Standard, and especially since a Boros Midrange deck piloted by Yushi Uzuki finished first place in the Japan Open.

But this deck is not the only Standard archetype where we see the Forge appearing. It's also played in Gruul Prowess, Boros Convoke, and mono-red aggro.

Urabrask's Forge
Urabrask's Forge (Extended Art)
Migloz, Maze Crusher
Samut, Vizier of Naktamun

#2 Plague of Vermin $39.99 (+63%)

Bloomburrow isn't done spiking cards yet! The past few weeks in the Weekly Winners we've already talked about how the creature types that Bloomburrow revolves around are spiking cards that benefit that type. Last week we talked about Frogs and Bats, for instance.

And when we read Plague of Vermin it's not hard to guess which creature type is spiking this one. This sorcery from Shadowmoor let's you, and your opponents, trade life for 1/1 Rats. And while everyone gets to build an army of Rats, you're going to try to be the one to benefit most from that. Because when you play this card, there's a good chance that your commander is a new one from Bloomburrow, like Wick, the Whorled Mind netting you a big big Snail. Or maybe you're playing Vren, the Relentless who wants your opponents' creatures to die. But to do that, you have to make sure they have sufficient creatures! Commander not from Bloomburrow, like Ashcoat of the Shadow Swarm, also work perfectly well with this sorcery. Speaking of Ashcoat, that's also a card that's been moving up lately because of the new Rat support.

Since Plague of Vermin is a rare with only one printing in Shadowmoor, the card is prone to being more expensive until it's reprinted. It's important to note that Shadowmoor came out in 2008 during the recession, meaning fewer people were inclined to buy Magic cards, so far fewer packs were opened compared to other sets before or after the recession. This makes it so that rares and mythics from this set tend to be more expensive.

Plague of Vermin
Wick, the Whorled Mind
Vren, the Relentless
Ashcoat of the Shadow Swarm

#3 Savvy Trader $4.74 (+168%)

Savvy Trader is from the Commander: Outlaws of Thunder Junction set, and to be more specific, it's found in the Grand Larceny deck. It's another card that's seeing more play because of Bloomburrow. This Human Citizen lets you exile a card from your graveyard and you get to play that card as long as it's exiled. But the thing that's more likely the reason for this card being good is the part where you get to play your spells at a discount, as long as you play it from anywhere than your hand.

Commander: Outlaws of Thunder Junction has been offering plenty of support for casting spells anywhere other than your hand, and especially commanders like Glarb, Calamity's Augur and Flubs, the Fool. The latter of the two is the Buy-a-Box promo of the set. Both of these commanders are enticing players to be creative with where their spells come from. And since it's likely that you're not casting from your hand with these, Savvy Trader will make them cheaper.

Savvy Trader
Glarb, Calamity's Augur
Flubs, the Fool

#4 Lord of the Rings Poster Special

The last week the Interests have been dominated by the The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth Borderless Poster cards. What is a Borderless Poster card you ask? Well, let me give you a few examples:

They tend to be pretty colorful and trippy cards and are obviously alternative styles than those of their regular prints. Articles have been written about these cards when they came out, and while some loved the style, others' main critique was that these cards are impossible to read. When Wizards talked about these cards in their article back in September, they also talked about pull rates. And since this was a huge article, I guess a lot of people missed how rare theses Poster cards actually are.

So let me check if I actually read this article right. These Poster cards are only found in Special Edition Collector Boosters. In these packs they're only found in 1 out of 9. The chance of pulling a non-foil or foil is even (so 2/9 to find the one or the other), so there are just as many foils as non-foil opened in total. That doesn't mean the price has to be the same for the two, since foils may have a higher demand and thus a higher premium.

Estimates say that there must be at least 11,000 of each circulating, but obviously the exact amount is unknown. Thing is that these cards may be more rare than people initially realized. The short story is that they've been going up rather quickly. The most popular, and expensive one, is the copy of The One Ring which has been moving from around $200 to nearly $400.

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.

Omenpath Journey $4.51 - Moving up!

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

Flare of Denial $7.41 - Moving down

Displaced Dinosaurs $8.45 - Moving down

Omenpath Journey
Flare of Denial
Displaced Dinosaurs

Arjen
Arjen

Arjen has been playing Magic since Ice Age and has mostly played the Legacy format. Ten years ago he founded MTGStocks because he and his friends wanted to buy Magic singles at the right time to play with.


More from Arjen:

Weekly Winners 2024 - 40

The changes around the Commander format are really having an interesting effect on the market. Fortunately, Pioneer and Modern are also making sure that things are moving.

Weekly Winners 2024 - 39

The recent bannings in Commander have had quite the impact on prices. And we're seeing a new archetype in Modern!

Weekly Winners 2024 - 38

Legacy and Modern are shaking up the Lhurgoyf stocks. And Duskmourn is also making sure the prices are moving.

Weekly Winners 2024 - 37

Duskmourn is starting to move prices, and we have a pretty interesting mix of cards this week. Come check it out!

Weekly Winners 2024 - 36

I hope you like old cards, because our winners are all from a long, long time ago in a set far, far away.

Weekly Winners 2024 - 35

The Banned & Restricted announcement of last week is shaking up the meta and making cards go up. But Commander is also doing its thing.

Weekly Winners 2024 - 33

More Bloomburrow related spikes this week. We see some cards moving because of Pioneer, Standard, and Commander.

Weekly Winners 2024 - 32

This week has turned out to be a Bloomburrow special. All cards moving up have to do with this set!

Weekly Winners 2024 - 31

Bloomburrow is making waves mainly in Commander, but we've also got one Modern spike!

Weekly Winners 2024 - 30

Bloomburrow has been fully previewed and we can see the set moving prices. This week it's all about Commander movement!