Weekly Winners: Dominaria Edition

Now Dominaria is finally here, I present you a special kind (you might even say Legendary) edition of Weekly Winners: a Dominaria edition. All three spikes are either from the set, or have spiked because of Dominaria.

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

 

#1 Power Conduit $4.95 (+638.81%) ALL TIME HIGH

 

A spike like this doesn't happen that often. Power Conduit had a 600%+ spike this week and turned this obscure Mirrodin-block related card into a Casual chase card (at least as long as the hype lasts).

And since this Weekly Winners is the Dominaria Edition it probably won't surprise you that its spike has everything to with the newest set. Power Conduit is very good with the new enchantment type saga that is introduced in Dominaria. As a saga comes into play and during your draw step you may put a lore counter on it. For each step (or story) in the saga you get a trigger and get something sweet. The last 'story' gives you something extra and after that the saga ends and you sacrifice it.

Sagas are a new, nice and flavorful card type that enriches the gameplay of Magic. The downside of sagas is however that you have to sacrifice them pretty quickly. And that is where Power Conduit comes in. By activating it, you may remove any counter from a permanent you control. And since sagas are permanents and use counters you can use Power Conduit to prevent your saga from going ultimate and reaping the rewards for as long as you deem necessary.

This trick is too weak against removal and not powerful enough for formats like Modern and Legacy. But Power Conduit can be a powerhouse in casual decks and might even slip its way into EDH builds. For a card in the "casual only" category, a $5 price tag is pretty decent. I expect it to fall in price a bit after people start digging trough their collections do find their Power Conduits.

 

#2 History of Benalia $17.74 (+97.99%)

 

History of Benalia is one of the best, maybe even the best card in Dominaria. It has beautiful art, fantastic flavor and is one of those new, neat sagas. It might even grow to be an iconic Magic card, just because of those unique characteristics.

Many players were puzzled by its sudden spike this week. If you are unfamiliar with card pricing, please know that pre-release prices are notoriously inaccurate and 90% of the cards are overhyped and therefore overpriced. Especially cards that look cool and are flavorful tend to be severely overpriced and fall in price sharply after the release of a set. History of Benalia's spike is the exact opposite of this and therefore quite puzzling.

Luckily the explanation of this price correction is fairly straightforward. As you might know, Dominaria was not as much spoiled as it was leaked. In that initial leak, History of Benalia was considered to be a rare. Now the complete set is officially revealed we have learned that it is actually a mythic. That means a lot for the supply of the card and considering that the demand will be the same, the price will rise. Simple supply and demand economics.

And demand might be higher than expected, since History of Benalia is being considered in token-based Standard decks. Reid Duke wrote an excellent piece on the card and the return of Mono-White Aggro in Standard.

Although it won't impact the price, History of Benalia has great synergy with the #1 winner this week: Power Conduit. You can keep putting 2/2 knights into play and you can even put +1/+1 counters on the existing ones. Once you have enough Knights, let History of Benalia ultimate and kill your opponent(s).

 

#3 Day of Destiny $7.19 (+79.75%) ALL TIME HIGH

 

This spike is a no-brainer (or so it seems). But also one of cards that I least expected to ever reach the Weekly Winners. Day of Destiny gives all those Legends from Dominara (and other sets) +2/+2. And since there are also many cheap costed Legends in the set, Day of Destiny makes them not only good for their abilities, but gives them more body as well.

But beware of this spike. Its market price is lagging very far behind the MID price and the cards was most probably bought out. A higher price tag doesn't mean that card is proven to be good. Its spike is logical considering Dominaria, but I wonder if there is really a demand behind it.