This week has proven to be an extremely interesting week! We now have the full Ravnica Allegiance spoiler and a new B&R announcement is coming Monday. Those two factors make this week full of changes!
Up until this week Mana Severance was only interesting for Casual and EDH players. But Ravnica Allegiance has brought us a new toy to play with and that's making Mana Severance spike. That new toy is Persistent Petitioners. Don't worry if you don't get why those two are good together, because you are missing a piece in the puzzle: Thrumming Stone.
You can deck your opponent with Persistent Petitioners, but it will take a long time. Thrumming Stone will help you get those Advisors into play quickly, but when you have it, every card that's not Persistent Petitioners is a dead card. Mana Severance filters your lands out, increasing the likelihood that you keep drawing into Persistent Petitioners.
As a consequence, Thrumming Stone saw as spike as well:
So if you are a long time player, its time to dig out your old bulk cards to find yourself some Mana Severances.
Always buy a playset of cards with an alternative mana cost, that's a rule of thumb if you want to buy cards as cheap as possible. I already mentioned and explained this in the Weekly Winners two weeks ago.. Sometime, somewhere down the line a card will be printed that breaks an alternative-cost keyword. For suspend that time has come!
Suspend was an interesting mechanic in Time Spiral one of the most flavorful sets in Magic history. The set brought back golden oldies. But Wizards had to conquer a design problem: how to reprint old cards from Alpha/Beta/Unlimited without destroying Modern and Standard metagames. They could not just reprint Ancestral Recall or Wheel of Fortune. Both because they are on the reserved list and because they are too powerful to print, had they not been reserved. Suspend was the way to bypass both problems. Lo and behold cards like Ancestral Vision and Wheel of Fate.
Soon we will have Electrodominance and with that card you'll be able to instantly cast spells with suspend without the need to suspend them. That means that for you can deal 2 damage to any target, discard your hand and draw 7 new cards (and your opponents too).
But we will have to wait and see if Electrodominance is strong enough for Modern and it sure looks like its worth a try! And don't be surprised when you see the card popping up in new Legacy brews as well. Time will tell if the card is strong enough for eternal.
Stoneforge Mystic jumped from $25 to $41.97 this week. Why? Well easy: people speculate that it might be unbanned monday when the new B&R announcement will be made by Wizards. Same thing happened last summer and it might keep happening. Stoneforge Mystic lost almost all value after its last spike and the current spike is less intense.
People buy into it because it is a safe bet to buy Stoneforge Mystic for $25 since it sees a lot of play in all formats that allow the card. It even sees fringe play in Vintage! If the card is not unbanned and you want to buy a playset for your collection, note the date for the next B&R announcement on your calendar; and also note the week before that. At that time Stoneforge Mystic will probably be at its lowest price.
Jeepers Creepers
Instead of Cheap Pickups, I will introduce a new segment called Jeepers Creepers! It features cards that have been creeping up in price and might have gone unnoticed. Until now!
Hydroblast $1.19 (pauper staple)