This week we see some spikes in both casual demand and competitive demand, which is always a nice mix to see. Let's see what happened this past few days to make sure you know what cards to talk about at FNM
To be honest, I was very surprised when I saw that a card like Throne of Geth spiked. Sure, it's still only $4, but it's almost a 700% increase and it already came down a bit from $6. Foils are about $20! So why did this card spike?
The foils already became more popular when Atraxa, Praetors' Voice was spoiled, but it barely had any impact on the regular card prices. But it seems that Throne of Geth has found a home in Modern Modular Affinity mainboards and also in Legacy Death's Shadow sideboards. It is mostly tech against Chalice of the Void, where a Chalice on 1 could really cripple the deck. If you use Throne of Geth's ability, you can put another counter on Chalice to 2.
A lot of decks that try to crank out a Chalice on 1 as soon as possible, usually have a lot of 2-drops. So putting that Chalice on 2, you stop a lot of spells in those decks AND making it impossible for your opponent to play another Chalice on 1. You can also of course use the Throne's ability to put more counters on your other permanents while you're at it.
Sacrificing artifacts to Proliferate and adding +1/+1 counters on each creature with one is similar to Hardened Scales. But since you can do this every turn, it gives the deck the ability to grind out your opponent.
A card with more casual appeal spiked as well. Oppression is a nice way to quickly empty your opponent's hands. Want to play a spell? Sure! But pay the extra cost! It feels like the spike is due to Commander 2018. Xantcha, Sleeper Agent was printed, who is referenced on the Urza's Saga version of Oppression, so flavor wise people might be enticed to also play Oppression with her. But also when people have no cards in hand, it forces them to use Xantcha's ability, which of course is pretty funny.
It also plays nicely with Lord Windgrace. When you're constantly returning lands and drawing extra cards, you can somewhat break the symmetrical Oppression to be more in your favor. This is especially more backbreaking for blue decks that want to play multiple spells.
I honestly never thought I would be writing about Groundbreaker in the Weekly Winners, but here we are! It's time to go into your rare-bulk boxes again and fish these ones out! Apparently it sees play in Ball Breaker or CoCo 8ball decks in Modern.
When you play Collected Company and find Groundbreaker, you can put it into play and attack. This together with Ball Lightning could do some serious damage. Since Groundbreaker was only printed in Planar Chaos, it has a really low supply compared to its red cousin.
I found it hard to find decks that put up good results utilising this, so I'm a bit shady on whether it's very worthwhile.
Cheap pickups
In my opinion, Battlebond was a set that gave us some amazingly fun cards. One of these definitely is Arena Rector. It has already come down from about $35 (in presale) to the $16 it is at now. I don't see this card going much lower, since it's unique in what it does and the amount of packs getting opened is decreasing. It seems like an easy include in casual decks that can use it to find a planeswalker.
Gideon of the Trials has reached its all time low this week, at only $9. Seeing that it sees play in Modern decks, it feels like a really fair price for a planeswalker with these abilities. When it rotates out of Standard in 2 months, it might go slightly lower, but I'm not really that's going to happen. From stores, it can be picked up as low as $6.49.
