Boros Energy Movements in Modern

Boros Energy continues to make a splash at the top of the Modern meta, and with that splash brings about some interesting financial movements, notably among two “Silence” creatures–one recent and one that’s been around a while. 

Outside these two notable singles picking up speed, we also take the time to revisit the financial state of the Surveil lands, which are commanding prices two to three times their initial market prices a little over two years ago. 

Let’s dig in!

Ranger-Captain of Eos

The first interest card in our discussion today is Ranger-Captain of Eos. A cEDH staple from Surgical Extraction that is finally breaking into Modern in Boros Energy shells. This creature is a Silence on a stick that can also fetch up some of the most impactful creatures in your deck, including Ocelot Pride, Guide of Souls, and Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer. 

At one point, a $50 single before facing a year-long decline in value, we can start to see Ranger-Captain crawl back up ever so slowly thanks to its recent inclusion in Boros Energy shells. What’s driving this uptick in play? 

In recent weeks, Ruby Storm has seen a quiet resurgence in play. Factor this in with the ever-popular Izzet Affinity shell that’s been running rampant and noncreature Silence effects start to seem pretty logical and very strong. 

Obviously, the strength of cards like Ranger-Captain are fairly meta dependent, but nevertheless represent a shockingly powerful effect and tutor wrapped up in one simple card. The ability to use Ranger-Captain as a tutor for the ever-growing list of impactful one-drops in the format certainly has its own appeal as well, especially in Boros Energy. 

If the current meta continues to persist, it wouldn’t be shocking to see Ranger-Captain continue to climb in price. However, if the meta starts to revert away from Storm-style decks sitting as highly as they are, it’s very likely we’ll see Ranger-Captain adjust downward. Having said that, at $20 a piece and rising, it wouldn’t be a bad speculation in the short-term. 

Ranger-Captain of Eos	CardKingdom $24.99	TCGPlayer $21.66
Knights of San d'Oria - Ranger-Captain of Eos (Showcase)	CardKingdom $27.99	TCGPlayer $23.59
Ranger-Captain of Eos (Retro Frame) (Foil Etched)	CardKingdom	TCGPlayer $29.89

Voice of Victory 

Thematically related to our first entry on today’s list, Voice of Victory is yet another Silence creature that I’ve talked about before as being a standout from Tarkir: Dragonstorm. While Voice’s play in Modern has been limited, it is seeing love in Boros Energy. Its “Silence” on your turn is nice, but its mobilize 2 triggered ability allows Voice to not only act as protection on your turn, but apply a fair degree of pressure (which is what Boros Energy does best). 

Turn-one Guide of Souls into a turn-two Voice sets up some pretty impactful combat steps. All mobilized Warrior tokens trigger Guide of Souls on top of applying two more points worth of damage each combat step. Simply put, Voice is yet another on-curve value creature that just happens to also grant Silence on your turn statically. 

The recent inclusion in Boros Energy shells highlights just how impactful the token generation Voice provides is alongside its ability to pressure three points of damage across three attackers at minimum each combat (this is in addition to all the other attackers that Boros Energy has in spades). 

Financially speaking, Voice is sitting just under $20 a piece and looks to be reflecting its cross-format utilization as both a potent Silence effect in cEDH and the pressure and token synergies it presents in Modern. I expect the upward trend Voice is experiencing to continue, so now might not be the worst time to pick up the few you need!

Voice of Victory	CardKingdom $24.99	TCGPlayer $19.69
Voice of Victory (Borderless)	CardKingdom $24.99	TCGPlayer $19.34

The Surveil Lands

Murders at Karlov Manor was lukewarmly received a couple years back. Leyline of the Guildpact looked to be the standout card amongst a pretty sordid pool. However, the set did release a cycle of new fetchable multicolored lands: the Surveil lands, which enter tapped, but enable the user to surveil 1 on entry. 

The design space of these dual lands was perfect: a simple, yet powerful effect attached to a fetchable land that can fix for colors on a future turn. “Turn-one fetchland, pass, fetch at the end of an opponent’s turn” is a nice tempo play that can filter a bad draw, potentially plant an impact creature in the graveyard, and so on. 

The Surveil lands have grown from being standouts in an otherwise mediocre set to being format staples across Modern, Commander, Standard, Legacy, and Vintage. What impact has this widespread format use had on the price of these lands?

Well, looking at Undercity Sewers – arguably the most in-demand of the bunch – which released at around $6 a piece, we can now see two years later Undercity sits at $21 a piece on the market. Similarly, Thundering Falls released at around $7 and sits at $13 two years later. This pattern of appreciation around two-to-threefold is more or less the standard for all Surveil lands in the market. Undercity in particular seems to only continue to climb in value in small part due to the prevalence of the Dimir part of the color pie across most constructed formats. 

So in terms of long-run financial potential, where does that leave us? Well, I’d argue the Surveil lands are prime reprint targets in the future, so unless you need a playset of these or a one-off for your Commander deck, it’s likely worth waiting a little bit before making a sizeable financial investment in playsets of these staples, which while being here to stay, are nearly overdue for a reprint. 

Going Forward

With no bannings in the Modern format from last week, it’s not too surprising that most financial movement in the market for Modern cards has been minimal. Having said that, the pieces mentioned above reflect the trend of the best decks in the meta continuing to get stronger, and explored further with this exploration leading to cards like Voice, and Ranger-Captain getting a fresh look that perhaps they have always deserved! Speculate safely! 

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