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!

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 to Price Non-Playable Magic Cards by Harvey McGuinness

Hidden Gems for Ms. Bumbleflower by Adam Berg

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Onto the Weekly Winners!

#1 Penance $13.20 (+1058%)

This uncommon from Exodus has shot up. Being worth about $0.50 before the spike, it has now reached new heights. Penance is an enchantment that lets you put cards from your hand on top of your library. As you can imagine, this card sees play in commander decks that care about the top of the library. When playing such a strategy, popular commanders are Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign, Djeru and Hazoret, and Arthur, Marigold Knight.

$24.00

However, these cards are not the reason for the spike. There is a new commander that was previewed that fits the theme, Aminatou, Veil Piercer, the front-facing commander of one of the Duskmourn decks. Aminatou gives enchantment cards in your hand the miracle ability, making its miracle cost cheaper than the mana cost of the card. Now we have some things to unpack here, but let's start with the miracle ability itself: "You may cast this card for its miracle cost when you draw it if it's the first card you drew this turn."

So notice that you can cast a card for its miracle cost after you've drawn it, and thus is in your hand. Now Aminatou makes sense! You've drawn the card, and Aminatou has now given it the miracle ability so you can cast it for that adjusted cost.

$1.23$1.49

$4.99$5.99

In the older days in Legacy, there was the Countertop Miracle deck that tried to win with cards like Entreat the Angels and have Terminus as sweeper. Both have the miracle ability. But when a player announced the Miracle trigger and paid for the cost, you could then flash in Vendilion Clique and take the card from their hand, since it was still in there. Good times! Now, can you guess my age?!

Penance	CardKingdom $0.99	TCGPlayer $13.20
Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign	CardKingdom	TCGPlayer $0.55
Arthur, Marigold Knight	CardKingdom	TCGPlayer
Aminatou, Veil Piercer	CardKingdom	TCGPlayer $24.00

#2 Surveyor's Scope $15.19 (+586%)

This artifact is a nifty, but somewhat weird, piece of ramp that can help you catch up with other players if you've fallen behind, or if your opponents are ramping faster than you are. You can exile this artifact and then you get to put X basic lands into play, where X is the number of opponents that have two or more lands than you.

$0.25$0.49

$6.05$5.49

This decade-old rare mainly sees play in Commander decks where lands get bounced or sacrificed, like Ib Halfheart, Goblin Tactician, Tameshi, Reality Architect, or something a little bit more exotic, Taniwha.

The only thing that remains is the question why this card went up now. I couldn't really find a good reason among the cards previewed of Duskmourn around that date. It seems that it had nothing to do with Duskmourn, but with Richard from MTGGoldfish, who excitingly talked about the card in a Shark Tank episode on their YouTube channel. Richard put together a whole presentation with numbers, backing up why he feels the card is actually pretty good.

And seeing as the card spiked immediately after, it turns out that the audience has either agreed with Richard's assessment, or people at least picked up a few copies just because the card wasn't really worth anything before the spike and figured "why not?" The fact that Surveyor's Scope was only printed in Commander 2013, and the Commander Anthology set four years later, means that the supply is relatively low and the copies that are around are probably in people's bulk boxes.

Surveyor's Scope	CardKingdom $2.99	TCGPlayer $15.19
Surveyor's Scope	CardKingdom $2.99	TCGPlayer $5.59
Taniwha	CardKingdom $5.49	TCGPlayer $6.05
Tameshi, Reality Architect	CardKingdom $0.49	TCGPlayer $0.25

#3 Battlefield Improvisation $4.47 (+247%)

This common, yes common, from Universes Beyond: Assassin's Creed has gone up quite a bit this past week. The Assassin's Creed set was a bit of a weird one. I feel it's received far less promotion than most other Universes Beyond releases, and frankly, most other regular sets as well. But seeing as it came out not long after Modern Horizons 3, people may also just have been hyped around brewing new Modern decks with these cards rather than the Assassins.

Battlefield Improvisation is an Instant that gives a creature +2/+2 until end of turn, and if it's attacking you may attach any number of Equipment you control to it. Sound familiar? Because Hammer Time is an archetype in Modern where you try equip powerful Equipment to your creatures like Colossus Hammer. If we compare Battlefield Improvisation against other cards in that deck, for example, Sigarda's Aid or Forge Anew, you see why this card fits nicely into the deck.

Battlefield Improvisation	CardKingdom $1.49	TCGPlayer $4.47
Sigarda's Aid	CardKingdom $13.99	TCGPlayer $8.51
Forge Anew	CardKingdom $2.29	TCGPlayer $1.80

#4 Forsaken Wastes $4.04 (+325%)

Let's kick this fourth winner off with an important disclaimer: it's on the Reserved List. This means it'll never be reprinted ever again, and thus has a really low supply compared to cards not on the List. Forsaken Wastes is an enchantment that prevents players from gaining life and makes each player lose one life during their upkeep.

The reason for the spike wasn't that hard to find. Valgavoth, Harrower of Souls is the front-facing commander of the Duskmourn Endless Punishment precon deck. And Valgavoth grows the first time an opponent loses life during each of their turns. Plus, you get to draw a card! That seems like a pretty good combo.

Forsaken Wastes	CardKingdom $10.99	TCGPlayer $19.50
Valgavoth, Harrower of Souls	CardKingdom	TCGPlayer $23.18

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.

Harvester of Misery $5.07 - Moving up!

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

Morophon, the Boundless $7.02 - Moving down

Selvala, Heart of the Wilds $5.95 - Slowly moving down

Harvester of Misery	CardKingdom $5.49	TCGPlayer $5.60
Morophon, the Boundless	CardKingdom	TCGPlayer $7.00
Selvala, Heart of the Wilds	CardKingdom $8.99	TCGPlayer $5.72