Weekly Winners 2018-12

Another interesting week in the world of finance, that I am happy to report about. And I wish all of you a happy easter, and a lot of fun on Grand Prix Seattle and (finally in my hometown again) Grand Prix Amsterdam.

Once again, right in time for FNM, I will now tell you what cards will be the talk of the town tonight!

 

#1 Earthcraft $75 (+87.55%) ALL TIME HIGH

 

Did you know that Earthcraft is banned in Legacy? And it doesn't see play in Vintage? That Earthcraft's price spiked this week is rather surprising, after the price was slowly but surely increasing over the past years. The increasing demand for EDH drove up the price over the past quarter. And that culminated in a buyout by one or more speculators this week.

You might wonder who on Earth would take a gamble with a card that has a $40+ price tag, since buying out a card with that price will really cost you a great deal of money. Earthcraft is an example of a very good speculation target for those speculators that have enough money to throw around. Let me explain.

Although Earthcraft is banned in Legacy, it does not seem that powerful anymore, since almost no Legacy decks (outside mono-colored tribal like Elves, Merfolk or Goblins) play that many basic lands. You might even wonder why Earthcraft is still banned in Legacy! An unbanning would surely have an effect on the metagame, since it would really profit Elves, Enchantress and combo decks that use both Earthcraft and Squirrel Nest. And for that last combo, you would only really need one basic land to enchant, which you could easily fetch and enchant. If Earthcraft would be unbanned, this could be a big, big payday for the speculator(s) that bought the card out.

And even when there is no unbanning, buying out Earthcraft is probably profitable because there is a organic demand for it, it has a unique ability and it is from an older set, meaning that there are not that many copies of the cards available. That last fact makes the card easier to buy out as well. When you just need to buy, say, 20 or 30 copies of a card to make it spike hard, this is very tempting to those who seek to make personal profit from artifically inflating the price of a card.

 

#2 Faithless Looting $2.17 (+119.19%) ALL TIME HIGH

 

A $2.17 price tag for a common that has been printed as a common in 5 different sets is absolutely insane. With this spike, Faithless Looting enters a very short list of recent commons that will even register in our interests (cards with low prices don't get reported). Please note that there are currently no NM copies available at TCG MID price anywhere. The card is sold out.

Faithless Looting's spike is interesting because the price on all copies was picking up since the start of february. No wonder since the card is seeing regular play for some time now in Modern and Legacy. But since Pauper is also officially supported during GP's, the paper price of this Pauper staple was driven up as well.

Don't expect the card to keep a very high price tag, since there are many copies of the card available already. And if you are planning to go to the GP Seattle (Legacy), or GP Amsterdam this weekend, be sure to bring your extra copies of Faithless Looting if you have them, you will probably be able to buylist or trade the card for some other goodies you want.

 

#3 Scrubland $108.49 (+8.49%)

Last week I created a new segment, called Yellow Alert, just to warn you about the increasing prices of Dual Lands. This is the third consecutive week that I feel the need to add one or more Duals to the Weekly Winners. For those of you who think that all duals increase in price all the time, and that reporting on them is like reporting the sun is rising and setting, I have news for you: something unusual is going on.

In last week's Weekly Winners, I totally forgot to report about both Scrubland and Tropical Island. To amend my article from last week: Since january 1, Tropical Island gained 7% in value and Scrubland gained 0% value. But in just one week Scrubland made up for this difference by gaining a whopping 8.49%. This normally takes at least 4 - 7 months.

It gets curiouser and curiouser with Scrubland. Its current TCG MID price is below that of the current market price. Which means that the TCG MID does not do justice to the actual value of the card. This is the case with 99.99% of the cards, but the other way around! Normally, the TCG mid price is higher than what people are actually willing to pay for the card. Well, not with Scrubland. So expect Scrubland to gain some more value quickly.