The hour of devastation is upon us! Hopefully everyone else is as excited as I am. The SCG invitational was this past weekend and it was a blast to watch. Standard, Modern and Legacy are all as healthy as they have been in a long time, which leaves plenty of room for new cards to break the formats. Let’s see what kind of movement happened in the market this week.
Rampant Growth had a rather explosive growth. This card has been reprinted into oblivion, but that didn’t stop a buyout on the Magic Player Rewards version. Personally, I love all these and have talked about them before. I wouldn’t be surprised if we started seeing other Magic Player Rewards cards spiking in the near future.
Skirk Prospector’s chart has been all over the place, and it’s back on the rise. Skirk Prospector is an important piece to making tons of mana in Goblin tribal decks. The spike this week could be related to the incoming tribal Commander decks, but being that this has the ability to do gross things, it’s very susceptible to speculative buyouts. For the record, the flavor text here is one of the coolest, yet darkest I’ve seen!
Once upon a time, I played Kismet with Stasis and Storm Cauldron ensuring that I could pay the upkeep forever. It was a dark time in my life, but I regret nothing. Kismet isn’t on the reserved list, but it does have a Legends printing, which does mean it can randomly get expensive, even though it’s not on the reserved list. That’s the power of Legends. To sidetrack a little, it would be so awesome if WOTC did a “Return to Legends” kind of set.
If you can’t or won’t play blue in your Commander deck for Leyline of Anticipation then you play Vedalken Orrery instead. Vedalken Orrery is a great card for most any Commander deck, especially if you want your opponents to cast their spells during their own turn. There are only two printings, and this occupies a fairly unique spot in a deck. Back in week 6 I mentioned that Vedalken Orrery was a cheap pickup for Commander, and now look at it!
We’ve seen Black Sun's Zenith on the charts before, and apparently it reshuffled itself back into our charts. -1/-1 counter cards will be relevant for the next few weeks at a minimum, but we’ll have to wait and see if it’s a good long term investment. Either way, people who buy them for Commander decks will probably keep them out of circulation for some time.
Lastly, Urza's Power Plant (Columns) has spiked this week thanks to an uptick in Modern tron decks. There are several versions, printings and art choices for each of the tron lands. Picking up Antiquities versions of tron lands is getting more and more expensive, but they are still somewhat affordable. If you ever thing you’re going to play tron, you should probably pick up your copies before they get too expensive.
Foils of the Week!
Uhh, what?! Foil White Sun's Zenith has jumped over 450% this week, and I have no idea why. Pauper players know what they want, and what they want is foil Archaeomancer. $8 foil common? Sure. Cats have been spoiled for the new tribal Commander decks and foil Raksha Golden Cub went straight into the sun. We don’t talk about inventions or masterpieces often, but Aether Vial just experienced a buyout. Finally, we had another masterpiece spike in Steel Overseer. Both inventions see a ton of play in Modern, so it’s not surprising they are finally going up.
Cheap pickups of the Week!
I’m going to do something a bit different this week with the cheap pickups. Everyone knows the typical sweet basics that pros use on camera, but I thought I would mention some excellent foils most people might not know about and can still be acquired for far less. For plains, our selection is anything but. Plains (230) is a gorgeous plains and one of my favorite. Get it in foil! Islands are the most used basic and thus the most expensive. Still, don’t look passed Island (334). It’s hard to see how these look in foil, as foils are black bordered and non-foils are white. I assure you they are stunning! My favorite swamp is Swamp (340). One of my favorite mountains that looks stunning in foil is Mountain (172). Finally, forests are usually the most pleasing to the eye and I would be remiss if I didn’t pick a land from Lorwyn. Forest (301) is the forest of choice when you want to have some underappreciated, yet beautiful lands.
MTGStocks mystery chart of the Week!
Last week I deviated a bit from the normal, played constructed cards and went with Animar, Soul of Elements. This week we have an excellent choice. Hint: it sees play in more than one format.
Conversation of the Week!
Wizards updated the 1v1 Commander ban list and some people are unhappy with the changes, to include myself. Specifically because they banned my girl Vial Smasher the Fierce. I feel that if she didn't have partner we could probably still use her. They also banned a whole host of blue cards and it is beginning to feel like maybe Wizards doesn't quite understand Commander. Competitive diversity for 1v1 MTGO Commander isn't the same as any other format and I think we're in for a long road of bans if they don't want to keep seeing the same cards in the top decks.
The best Commander card you’re not playing!
We actually have five underplayed cards for you this week. Paragon of Eternal Wilds, Paragon of Fierce Defiance, Paragon of Gathering Mists, Paragon of New Dawns, and Paragon of Open Graves.They work very well in mono colored Commander decks, but can work in multi-color decks. Although red is my favorite color, I think the blue one is my favorite.
