Happy Innistrad: Midnight Hunt release day! The set already came out digitally last week, so the standard metagame is already taking shape. However, this week we see mainly movement because of Commander and Modern, and the unbanning of Worldfire last week in commander is having some effect on the prices of another card that people feel is similar.
Like every week, just in time for FNM, I'll now tell you about the cards that will be the talk of the town tonight!
Come discuss this week's price movements with us on Reddit.
Remember Worldfire that we discussed last week in Weekly Winners 37? Compare that card to Sway of the Stars and lets see if you catch the similarities. They are somewhat similar, but also entirely different. However, what they have (or rather had) in common is that they are (were) banned in commander. However, Worldfire came off of the commander banned list last week, while Sway of the Stars remained there.
The price of Sway of the Stars has always remained relatively low for a card with such a powerful effect, because it has been banned in commander. You can imagine that cards with such a high mana cost do not easily find homes in existing eternal formats, but in commander that usually isn't that big of an issue. The same effect was seen on Worldfire, that was unbanned because the commander Rules Committee felt that there should be room in commander for powerful big mana spells, especially when it requires quite some set up. Speculators and players feel that the same applies to Sway of the Stars and thus may be viable for an unban soon as well.
There is a small problem however: Sheldon Menery, one of the leading members of the commander Rules Committee, has stated the following recently in an article:
"The thing that Sway of the Stars does that Worldfire doesn’t is refill its caster’s hand. The mana float then becomes something that you have fuel for. Sway costs ten, so you need a pretty big pile of mana to make it worthwhile, but after it resolves you have options that the other players don’t and aren’t going to. Sway of the Stars is the card that might be closest to Worldfire , but the differences are significant enough to give one a chance and leave the other where it is."
Sheldon isn't saying that Sway of the Stars will not be unbanned, but is merely saying that Worldfire coming off the banned list does not reflect on the status of Sway of the Stars. This hasn't stopped people from quickly scooping up all copies they could find for under a buck, since it's a relatively low investment with a potential high upside. That being said, while the average price has shot up to over $12, the market price is still around $3. However, if you got in for $0.50 each, that's still quite a return.
| Sway of the Stars |
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| Worldfire |
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This week we see an uncommon from Scars of Mirrodin suddenly go up with over 800 percent. $3.59 still isn't breaking the bank, but it definitely is a noticeable jump. As you can see the card revolves around artifacts hitting your opponents' graveyards. I was kind of surprised about this card going up. Even though I understand that there are quite some (ramp) artifacts in commander, you need this on the battlefield and also a way to get rid of these artifacts.
But when we look at the recent sets there's a recurring theme in the new abilities we see show up in these sets. Clue Tokens, Food Tokens, Treasure Tokens... And these are all artifacts. Whenever an opponent cracks any of these, some people, and I think mostly newer players, assume that tokens just "disappear" when they leave the battlefield. Keep in mind that this is not entirely the case. Tokens that die or get sacrificed still trigger "put into a graveyard" effects. This means that if you have Viridian Revel on the battlefield, you get to draw a card every time an opponent sacrifices one of these tokens. With cards like Dockside Extortionist and Goldspan Dragon being very popular in commander, you can see why there may be merit for playing this.
| Dockside Extortionist |
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| Viridian Revel |
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| Goldspan Dragon |
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#3 Demilich $23.54 (+194%)
This Skeleton Wizard from Adventures in the Forgotten Realms is moving up because of Modern Jeskai Phoenix decks. It performed really well in an MTGO Modern Challenge. As the same of the archetype suggests, it is played along with Arclight Phoenix which we also move up this week with 129% to almost $19. The phoenix could actually have been our #4 winner if we chose to do one, but it makes more sense to discuss the entire deck and all cards involved in it here.
It's pretty cool to see to this new archetype starting because of a combination of new cards, rather than just one new card boosting an archetype. The deck plays full playsets Faithful Mending and Consider which are both printed in Innistrad: Midnight Hunt, and obviously Demilich itself which is also fairly new.
Cheap Pickups
Please note: for our 'record low' we consider the price of the card over the past 7 years. Many cards have been even cheaper (a) decade(s) ago. Also note: some cards are still going down, and might be even cheaper pickups next week.
| Chatterfang, Squirrel General |
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| Tinybones, Trinket Thief |
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| Gideon, Ally of Zendikar |
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