The first Weekly Winners of the year is here! This week we still see the impact of Modern's metagame shake-up, and Rabbits remain a casual favorite.
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.
If you want to receive an e-mail in your inbox when a new article is published, you can enable it in your e-mail preferences and/or join the Discord.
Onto the Weekly Winners!
Yearly Winners
Just like last year we put out a series of articles at the beginning of 2025 that look at the top winners and losers of 2024! We'll have the following sets of data for you to look back on:
The Modern metagame is still not finished settling completely. As you're most likely aware by now, several big cards were either banned or unbanned in Modern, which shook up the format. The past two weeks in our Weekly Winners we've already seen quite the price movements because of it.
Seasoned Pyromancer works very well in Mardu and Boros Energy decks. In the bannings these decks lost Amped Raptor and needed a card to replace it. Despite the ban, the archetype still remains a good contender within the current meta. When this Human Shaman enters you get to discard and draw two cards, and depending on what you discard you get to make 1/1 red Elemental creatures. And when it's in the graveyard you could potentially exile it from there and create two tokens. These tokens are relevant in the Energy decks, since it works well with Guide of Souls and Ocelot Pride. And having these disposable tokens also pairs well with Chthonian Nightmare.
While Seasoned Pyromancer fulfills a different role than Amped Raptor it does seem like a viable replacement. Another card that was banned is Jegantha, the Wellspring, which was often included as Companion in the Energy decks. But because of Jegantha's deck building restriction Seasoned Pyromancer was never really considered for the deck since it has in its mana cost.
| Seasoned Pyromancer | | |
| Seasoned Pyromancer | | |
| Seasoned Pyromancer (Borderless) | | |
Today isn't the first time we're talking about Jacked Rabbit. In August we talked about it because it spiked, and in November it was mentioned as a Cheap Pickup as it was identified by our Premium Penny Stocks feature to have bottomed out and starting an uptrend again. People love playing Commander, and while fluffy cute creatures have always been popular, with the printing of Bloomburrow Rabbits especially have gotten so much extra support and new commanders that it's now more popular than ever.
New commanders like Baylen, the Haymaker and Finneas, Ace Archer pair nicely with Jacked Rabbit by having a bunch of Rabbit tokens. But it's also popular in decks around newer commanders like Arabella, Abandoned Doll and Marvel's Black Panther, Wakandan King. And another card that's been driving Rabbits lately is Hare Apparent which also came up in three Weekly Winners articles in November.
While there are plenty of reasons for Jacked Rabbit to be good and popular, it's not exactly clear why it's been going up all of the sudden this past week. It doesn't seem like new cards have been previewed that indicate that there are some new synergies. But there are sufficient decks that want a card like this included in the 99, and we can expect that more commanders will be printed that care about more tokens.
Interestingly, while the regular version of Jacked Rabbit has gone up, the extended art variant seems to be behind on the price. The extended art version is currently being offered around $7, which is a big difference from the $18 the regular version is sitting at. The regular version also has a market price around $12. So if you're looking to get a copy, maybe get the extended art version one.
| Jacked Rabbit | | |
| Jacked Rabbit (Extended Art) | | |
| Finneas, Ace Archer | | |
| Arabella, Abandoned Doll | | |
| Black Panther, Wakandan King | | |
And another card we're not discussing for the first time in the Weekly Winners. In October we also talked about it as one of the winners, and we've mentioned it several times in combination with other cards. In case you don't know, Abhorrent Oculus is a pretty good creature. Having a 5/5 flyer for three mana that creates extra 2/2s with upside is already busted. Having to exile six cards from your graveyard usually isn't that big of a deal, but does often mean you can't play it on curve.
But what's even better is to just cheat it into play, avoiding the pesky six card exile cost In Standard this is a pretty popular archetype utilizing Helping Hand and Recommission to get either the Oculus or Haughty Djinn into play. But even before the ban it was also played in Modern. These Modern decks tried to play sufficient spells and self mill to play it out quickly. Players are also including Unearth in their decks to pull it out of the graveyard for just . It seems like with the metagame shake-up this deck is becoming more popular and may be better positioned.
But that's not the entire story. Abhorrent Oculus also is finding it's way into Legacy Stiflenought lists. With the amount of cheap spells in Legacy, having six cards in your graveyard is not exactly a huge challenge, and Oculus definitely is a creature that needs to be dealt with.
| Abhorrent Oculus | | |
| Abhorrent Oculus (Borderless) | | |
| Unearth | | |
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.
Enduring Tenacity has been identified by the MTGStocks Premium Penny Stocks feature as a card that has reached its bottom and is starting a consistent uptrend.
| Enduring Tenacity | | |
| Ugin, the Spirit Dragon | | |
| Wurmcoil Engine | | |
