Weekly Winners 2018 - 44

The magic markets have not been this slow for over a year! The reserved list buyouts seem to be really behind us and even the spoiling of UMA has little effect on the markets. This week we have 2 'real' winners and an extra piece on those gold bordered cards!

 

#1 Copperline Gorge $20 (+58.98%)

 

Dredge has been up-and-up in Modern and that has an influcence on the price of Copperline Gorge. Altough the card sees play in other decks as well (like Jund and Hollowine) not as abundantly as in Dredge.

On the one hand Copperline Gorge's spike is demand driven. But speculators have jumped on this bandwagon as the card started increasing in price this week.

Since Copperline Gorge was only printed in Scars of Mirrodin it can rise even higher when Dredge keeps being as popular as it is right now. Do note that the market price (the actual price the card is selling for) is $7 lower. This could mean two things: you can still buy decently priced copies when you are fast enough. But it can also mean that the card is overpriced right now, due to speculation. My guess is that it is a little bit of both, the price might drop down a little; but on the other hand, is $20 too expensive for an important card in a popular Modern deck?

Flayed Nim
Mirrodin	Buy on CardKingdom $0.25

 

#2 Queen Marchesa $14.95 (+51%)

 

To understand this weekly winner, you need to know a little bit about Legacy, and about being the monarch. To start with the latter: you become monarch in a two player game when a card you play says so, or when you deal combat damage to someone that currently holds the title.

Queen Marchesa makes you the monarch when you play it. But when you lose your title, her ability triggers and giving you a 1/1 token with haste and deathtouch.

For the 4c-loam deck that plays Queen Marchesa, this means that whenever an opponent has enough of a board position to deal you damage, you are rewarded with a 1/1 deathtouch. And with that you can block and kill any large threat your opponent has. As you can see in the decklist below, that is far from the only removal the deck plays.

The second thing you need to know is that when a deck does well in the Legacy meta, the cards in it will trend up in price. The big advantage of playing Legacy is that once you have a deck, the changes to the meta are usually subtle and slow. That means that you can sit back a bit and take your deck to a tournament, even when you haven't played for a while. Big changes rarely happen and when they do, they have to do with bannings most of the time.

This also means that when a card becomes a regular played card in a Legacy deck, it has a good prognosis of becoming a valuable and sought after card. When Queen Marchesa continues to prove worthwile in 4c-loam, its price might go up even more.

Queen Marchesa
Conspiracy: Take the Crown	Buy on CardKingdom $13.99

 

#3 Gold-Bordered Cards

 

We at MTGStocks.com are a bit torn on this subject. But this week seems to be a good week to discuss the matter at hand. If you look at the weekly interests, you will notice that the real #1 winner is actually a gold bordered forest from a World Championship deck.

And our #1 winner from our daily interests is even weirder, I mean, look at it.

When you frequent our site, you must have seen them as well. You might have missed it if you use your personal filters in the interest lists. It will be worth your while to turn them off to see how many gold bordered cards are 'winners'.

I am having a hard time accepting that the gold bordered cards are racking up value. If you started playing in the past 10 years you might have never heard of these cards. Back in the day, they sold World Championship Decks: complete reprints of the best decks around. But with the big downside that the cards were gold bordered and therefore not tournament legal. They were considered trash and buying the decks was a bad move.

Fast forward to 2018. Card prices are so high, especially when you look at the older cards, that the gold border becomes interesting anyway. Many casual and EDH-players allow eachother to use the gold bordered cards as proxies. "Technically they are not proxies", goes the argument. "They're just not tournament legal. And since we are not playing a tournament: go ahead and play them."

Gold bordered cards have become a cheap alternative to buying the 'real' card for kitchen table magic. And they actually hold some value. Look at this:

There is another reason that I am a bit torn on this. Some of the gold bordered cards don't have a price, or are so overpriced compared to their regular counterparts, that you cannot argue that the Gold Border is more valuable. The only logical reason can be that considering today's print runs, the gold bordered decks are very, very rare. And therefore they can be a treasure for some.

Back in 2001 I was ridiculed by my friends for buying the Tom van der Logt 2001 World Championship deck. I was so proud of my fellow Dutchman winning the Worlds that I wanted to have his deck in gold. It seems I have the last laugh and that I've been sitting on a gold mine for the past 17 years.

 

Cheap Pickups

Thunder Dragon

Thunder Dragon
From the Vault: Dragons	Buy on CardKingdom $5.49
Duel Decks: Knights vs. Dragons	Buy on CardKingdom $2.49
Starter 1999	Buy on CardKingdom $6.49

 

Glimpse the Unthinkable

Glimpse the Unthinkable
Ravnica	Buy on CardKingdom $8.49
Iconic Masters	Buy on CardKingdom $6.49
Guilds of Ravnica: Guild Kits	Buy on CardKingdom $4.49

 

Imperial Recruiter

*Please note: this card was once $499, so this is cheap considering.

Imperial Recruiter
Portal Three Kingdoms	Buy on CardKingdom $179.99
Judge Promos	Buy on CardKingdom $79.99
Masters 25	Buy on CardKingdom $29.99