Celebrate good times, come on! Just in case you haven’t had access to the internet this week, Marvel got banned in Standard, we’re getting a 3rd UN set, we’re going back to Dominaria and core sets are returning! We’ve had a bit of a lull lately, but the Magic market is very excited now. I’d also like to take a moment to congratulate Todd Stevens on his Modern SCG Charlotte win! Let’s get into what happened this week.
We had some left overs from last week, but we got a new one in Crystalline Crawler. There was a ton of hype over this when it spoiled, but has drifted from the radar since. With the onset of 5 color dragon commanders, Crystalline Crawler is a choice card for anyone wanting to build a colorful concoction. I still think it’s a fair price to pay for a card as powerful as this, so maybe pick up your own asap.
The godfather himself, Juzám Djinn hit the charts harder than T-Swift. This is yet another reserved list market movement, but we can still take a moment to appreciate the power and the presence of Juzám Djinn. For a long time, this was a benchmark for how powerful a creature should be. Ironically, the 1 damage a turn was a real price back then, whereas today it’s really not that bad. This card is definitely in my top 10 cards of all time for power level, flavor and art.
Still one of the most powerful sweepers, All Is Dust has been getting more and more play thanks to Eldrazi Tron becoming more and more popular in Modern, as well as Eldrazi MUD decks in Legacy. The great thing about All Is Dust is that if you’re using it, chances are it’s a one sided sweeper that doesn’t care about Hexproof or Indestructible. Plus, this is usually cast much sooner than turn 7 thanks to ramp or lands like Eldrazi Temple, Ancient Tomb and City of Traitors.
We don’t usually see promos hit the charts, but Incinerate decided it was time to blaze a path for others to follow. I think some of this has to do with the change in the way the database tracks special cards, but this also brings me to what irks me about many of these full art NON foil promos: they aren’t foil! I love each and every card from the Magic Player Rewards, I just wish they were also offered or only offered in foil. If you visit the cards in Magic Player Rewards you’ll see that some of them command a pretty solid price, as they are unique and super sweet.
Living End made the list again this week as it continued to climb even higher than last week. I’m not really certain where this will land, but Ad Nauseam sees heavy play in Legacy along with a decent amount of play in Modern, and it’s a much cheaper 5 drop black combo card.
Foils of the week!
Foil Faerie Macabre went from basically free to $15+. Granted you can still find them cheaper than that, it's still an astonishing spike. The winner this week for most awkward at goes to foil Kyren Toy. Holy Hannah it's creepy! It also spiked over 300%. Foil Guardian Idol also spiked over 300% It doesn't really see any play, so this movement is a mystery to me. Shining Shoal hit the charts about 5 weeks ago, and now the foil version is catching up. The big one this week, to me, was foil Collective Brutality hitting close to $50. To be fair, it's a great card and I'm surprised it took this long to see movement. Finally, as if Street Wraith wasn't expensive enough, the foil printing has gone up around the $60 range. Insane!
Cheap pickups of the week!
We got a few spoilers for Hour of Devastation, and we don’t need any more thanks to Ramunap Excavator. I mean, Crucible on a stick seems good, right? This begs the question: will Crucible of Worlds go up or down? This is an expensive card to speculate on, but that being said I think if anything more players will pick up Crucible of Worlds. If you wanted to move on one, now might be the time. With Marvel banned, Standard is up for grabs. I played a few leagues online already and have gotten a feel for the meta. Suffice it to say, Glorybringer, Bristling Hydra, and Ishkanah, Grafwidow were seeing a TON of play. You might want to get yours before the 5-0 deck lists get posted and the hysteria begins.
MTGStocks mystery chart of the week!
Last week’s mystery card was Cryptic Command. (Convoluted Cadence = Cryptic Command, get it?) This week, a much lower profile card. What I mean to say is the platform for it is pretty low…
Conversation of the week!
With the banning of Marvel, Wizard’s set a new precedence: an unfun card can and WILL get banned. They gave us all the statistics for Temur Marvel decks, and it wasn’t as busted as everyone thought, but the fact of the matter is that it wasn’t a healthy deck for the format. With a string of bans in Standard, players have started to lose confidence in the format and the card prices show just how unhealthy Standard is. Still, I think with the reintroduction of core sets, we will get key hate cards like Flashfreeze, Combust and Autumn's Veil to help police the format. Hopefully that and large sets will help bring stability to Standard. I really like brewing rogue decks, and when Standard gets solved so quickly, it really makes it less interesting. Here’s to hoping for a new and improved Standard!
The best Commander card you’re not playing!
Quite possibly my favorite underrated card I had in my superfriends deck was Obzedat's Aid. This card is fairly flexible and can even be played in a regular W/B deck. Being able to bring back anything straight to the battlefield is very powerful, and the fact that this works on planeswalkers takes it a step above any other reanimation spell.
