Weekly Winners 2021 - 49

A rather slow week finance-wise. We do see some movement because of Commander and even a little bit of Modern, but these spikes are not that spectacular and also because of reasons already known. Yesterday the Alchemy format released on Magic Arena, which I think will have some focus at the moment. However, this format will not have any influence on paper Magic prices.

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.

 

#1 Blinkmoth Infusion $10.25 (+158%)

 

When I first saw this card appear on the Interests and noticed the mana cost, my initial reaction was "what Commander combo is popular this time?". I mean, 14 mana seems already pretty farfetched in Commander, let alone constructed formats (not looking at you, Tron). But when we read the card there is this "Affinity for Artifacts" line. Now it starts to make a bit more sense. You are most likely not going to pay that much mana for it, and especially in decks that care about artifacts. So we indeed see this card occasionally show up in Commander decks around Urza, Lord High Artificer or Galazeth Prismari, but not as much as you'd think.

But Commander isn't the driving factor behind this spike this week, it is Modern. The card has been showing up in Calibrated Blast decks! So... This deck must play a bunch of artifacts, right? Nope! Just 4: Scion of Draco; another high costed card. When we look at the deck's namesake card Calibrated Blast we see why. You get to flip your library until you find a nonland card, then it does damage to any target equal to the card's mana value. And not only that, it has Flashback, meaning you can do it again! You obviously hope to find any of the high costed cards and kill your opponent with that.

 

 

#2 Hunted Phantasm $6.50 (+117%)

 

In last week's Weekly Winners we discussed the spike of Hunted Horror. This week we see the blue version of the "Hunted" cycle go up for somewhat of the same reason. Where Hunted Horror seems to have mainly spiked due to the appearance of the card in Modern decks during the CFB Las Vegas, it also went up because it works well with Toxrill, the Corrosive.

Now since Toxrill, the Corrosive has both the black and blue color identity, you can also include Hunted Phantasm in the same decks. Meaning that if you have Toxrill, the Corrosive into play and play either of the Hunted cards, all tokens that a target opponent receives will be dead by the end of the turn due to Toxrill's ability and even netting you that many 1/1 slugs.

Toxrill, the Corrosive	CardKingdom $14.99	TCGPlayer $15.35
Hunted Phantasm	CardKingdom $4.99	TCGPlayer $6.50
Hunted Horror	CardKingdom $13.99	TCGPlayer $16.79

 

#3 Spawning Kraken $4.54 (+51%)

 

New commander Runo Stromkirk keeps stirring the Kraken-pot and this week it is Spawning Kraken's turn to spike. In previous iterations of Weekly Winners we have already discussed Serpent of Yawning Depths and Quest for Ula's Temple. And more recently we talked about Wrexial, the Risen Deep which we also see appear in this week's interests going up to $11.90 (+36%).

Runo cares about high costed creatures to flip. When flipped and attacking you get to create a copy of another target attacking creature, and even make two copies if that creature is a Kraken, Leviathan, Octopus or Serpent. Sufficient synergy to choose Runo in a deck with these cerature types.

Serpent of Yawning Depths	CardKingdom $10.99	TCGPlayer $17.59
Spawning Kraken	CardKingdom $2.99	TCGPlayer $4.54
Quest for Ula's Temple	CardKingdom $13.99	TCGPlayer $15.00
Runo Stromkirk	CardKingdom $0.69	TCGPlayer $0.63

 

#4 Earl of Squirrel $2.79 (FOIL spike: $83)

 

Because our number 2 and 3 winners this week are somewhat concise because they are basically repetitions of previous spikes, I figured I'd include a somewhat special fourth one. The foil version of Earl of Squirrel is going up hard. It first spiked to about $83, and saw average price points of almost $300. I deliberately did not include that price point in the header of this card for this article, because I feel that's definitely a bogus-number.

When we look at the market price of this foil card we see it went up from about $2 to slightly above $4, but it seems most foil cards have disappeared from TCGplayer and CardKingdom.

 

 

Also when we look at the price trajectory of the promo version of Earl of Squirrel we see it has been steadily climbing since May and recently the market price also making a small jump from $1.40 to slightly over $2. That being said, in this version there are still a bunch available over at Card Kingdom and TCGplayer.

So why would this card be more popular now? It has to do with the announcement of Unfinity, the upcoming set in the "unset"-series. However, things are a little bit different this time. All cards in Unfinity will be black-bordered. Whether the card is eternal legal now depends on the holo-sticker at the bottom of a card. If the sticker is an "acorn", then it is not legal, but if it is a regular holo-sticker then it is eternal legal. Meaning that this is the first unset where not all cards, by default, are not legal (barring basic lands).

This has led to speculation about silver-bordered cards that may be updated to "black border" and thus becoming legal. Earl of Squirrel is a popular target for this speculation, since Squirrels are always a popular archetype.

Earl of Squirrel
Unstable	CardKingdom $1.79	TCGPlayer $2.79
Launch Party & Release Event Promos	CardKingdom $1.99	TCGPlayer $2.18

 

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.

 

Iymrith, Desert Doom $5.82 - Slowly trending down

 

Teferi, Who Slows the Sunset $5.22 - Slowly trending down

 

Gauntlet of Power $6.93 - Stable

 

Teferi, Who Slows the Sunset	CardKingdom $4.49	TCGPlayer $5.22
Iymrith, Desert Doom	CardKingdom $6.99	TCGPlayer $5.82
Gauntlet of Power		TCGPlayer $6.93