Our number one winner is because of Premodern, but all-in-all it's been a relatively slow week. But even then there's enough to talk about!
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.
Hidden Gems for Hearthhull, the Worldseed by Adam Berg
Cards To Watch From Marvel's Spider-Man by Matt Grzechnik
Let's Talk About Command Tower by Bill Bingham
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Onto the Weekly Winners!
This two-mana enchantment from Odyssey has gone up as Premodern continues to gain popularity. What looked like an old-school token generator has found new life in this format. The card lets you convert extra cards in hand into a steady stream of 2/2 bodies, which might not sound impressive until you see it in action with the right support pieces.
The below deck seems to be doing well currently in the Premodern format.
The spike comes from the "Uzi" deck in Premodern, which actually has its roots in the original Odyssey Standard and Block Constructed formats. Back then, "UZI" stood for blUe Zombie Infestation, a combo deck that used these cards alongside Psychatog for multiple win conditions. While the Psychatog versions ended up being more popular and successful, the Zombie Infestation strategy left enough of an impression that Premodern players have revived and refined it. The modern version combines Zombie Infestation with Squee, Goblin Nabob to create a repeatable token engine, since Squee returns to your hand during upkeep.
Put Wonder in the graveyard and suddenly those Zombie tokens are flying over for damage. Some versions run Intuition to set up these synergies, creating piles that give opponents no good choices while maintaining the control elements that made the original strategy viable.
While the Odyssey has gone up, you can still pick up plenty of versions for just $0.25. As with many Premodern players, they like to have their cards from the original era and in the old card frame. And I can absolutely get behind that! But if you're on a budget, you can always play newer prints.
| Zombie Infestation | | |
| Psychatog | | |
| Zombie Infestation | | |
| Squee, Goblin Nabob | | |
This three-mana sorcery from Commander: Streets of New Capenna has been steadily climbing and shows no signs of slowing down. What started as an affordable card around release has more than doubled in price in the past few weeks, and it's not hard to see why. Seize the Spotlight does a pretty convincing impression of a much more expensive and powerful card, giving red decks access to an effect they don't get to play with a lot.
The card is essentially a mini-Expropriate, the nine-mana blue sorcery that's become a Commander staple for its ability to end games and has been put on the "Game Changer" list. While Seize the Spotlight operates on a smaller scale, it creates the same type of dilemma that makes Expropriate so effective. Each opponent has to choose between letting you borrow their best creature for a turn or giving you card draw and a Treasure token. In a typical four-player game, there really aren't any bad outcomes for you. If everyone chooses fortune, you've basically cast a free Ancestral Recall with bonus mana. If they choose fame, you get to borrow their threats and use those against them.
This past week we've mainly seen the extended art version of the card spike, but the regular print has also been gaining value steadily.
| Seize the Spotlight | | |
| Seize the Spotlight (Extended Art) | | |
| Expropriate | | |
This Turtle from Wilds of Eldraine has been making waves recently, and it's not just because of the usual landfall hype that's been driving prices lately. While it does fit into existing landfall strategies, the real reason behind the spike appears to be the synergy with relatively new commanders that turn artifacts into lands. When you can reduce the cost of activated abilities across multiple permanent types, some pretty strong interactions start become more viable.
The main driver seems to be Toph, the First Metalbender, which turns your nontoken artifacts into lands. This means Blossoming Tortoise's cost reduction applies to those artifact abilities too, creating infinite mana combos with cards like Basalt Monolith. When you can untap Monolith for two mana while generating three, suddenly you're generating infinite colorless mana. Similar interactions work with Staff of Domination that can now untap itself for free. But there are obviously more combo-enabling artifacts which Blossoming Tortoise can turn into infinite loops. Even outside of combo potential, the card works well in traditional landfall strategies where milling cards and recurring lands fit the gameplan.
The extended art variant of Blossoming Tortoise saw significant movement this week, though the traditional printing has remained more stable with plenty of supply available. While the card appears to be finding its new price point after the initial surge, upcoming spoiler seasons could easily create another wave of demand if more land-creature or artifact synergies get revealed.
| Blossoming Tortoise | | |
| Blossoming Tortoise (Extended Art) | | |
| Toph, the First Metalbender | | |
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.
Gandalf the White has been identified by the MTGStocks Premium Penny Stocks feature as a card that has reached its bottom and is starting a consistent uptrend.
| Gandalf the White | | |
| Necroduality | | |
| Shroofus Sproutsire | | |
