Weekly Winners (9)

We've seen some big movers this week. Huge spikes and some metagame changes! For the biggest part thanks to Pro Tour BOTG. 

Want to help me out? Pitch me a tweet when you see something interesting @MTGPeter

 

#1 Porphyry Nodes +850% ($5.70) 

 

Porphyry Nodes is this week's biggest Pro Tour Hype Buy. And before I get into the reasons why, I would like to answer two big questions first:

1. How do you even spell/ pronounce the name of this card?

It's quite easy when you just divide the word into syllables: Por-phy-ry. 
But still, how do you pronounce the name. Well, the 'phy' syllable is pronounced as 'F'. To be exact: this is the phonetic: 'por-fi-ri.

2. What does Porphyry mean anyway?

The word Porphyry has several meanings. It's based on the Greek word porphyrios what means purple clad. And that actually sounds a lot like a good name for a Legendary Creature Enchantment - God from the Theros block.

In this case Porphyry is a reference to a type of rock with the same name, which is in itself a color reference. To quote wikipedia:

Porphyry is a variety of igneous rock consisting of large-grained crystals, such as feldspar or quartz, dispersed in a fine-grained feldspathic matrixor groundmass. The larger crystals are called phenocrysts. In its non-geologic, traditional use, the term "porphyry" refers to the purple-red form of this stone, valued for its appearance.

Alright, but what about the card?!

Having cleared that up, let's continue on the reasons why Porphyry Nodes spiked this week. Shaun McLaren played the card in the Pro Tour final in the sideboard of his UWR Control deck. This is a reaction to the (expected) revival of Zoo in Modern and the bigger role that aggressive/ midrange decks will play in the Modern metagame. 

In UWR/UWx control you can keep your opponent from getting the edge by removing his creatures, countering his spells and tapping his creatures. With Porphyry Nodes you have a good early edge against those decks that play a lot of small creatures. This advantage buys you time to get your own wincondition set up ( f.i. Celestial Colonnade in McLaurens deck).

After it's initial spike, the card is losing some value, this is what we regularly see with these kind of hype spikes. The price is driven through the roof and falls down in the days after as stores buy up copies from people who want to sell their copies. At the same time people might not want to put down $10 right away, but choose to wait until buying up their playsets. The increase in supply and decrease in demand drops the price. Until yesterday. My guess is that Porphyry Nodes will start to slowly rise from this point on. 

 

#2 Pyromancer Ascension +278.7% ($8.90) 

Pyromancer Ascension also spiked up this week because of Pro Tour BOTG. Chris Fennell piloted his Modern storm combo deck to 7th place last weekend and got worldwide attention for it. His deck runs Pyromancer Ascension since it's a lot easier to get going when you have it in play. And since it's a two mana enchantment, you can drop it early in the game.

Sadly, a lot of people think (Storm) combo decks are unfun to play and not interactive enough. But I beg to differ. The way combo decks interact with each other are interesting and complicated. A lightning bolt or a well placed discard spell practically turn into a Time Walk (get extra turn), buying you the time to get ahead in the match. To prove my point, and to show you guys how Chris Fennell's PiF-combo deck works check out this video:

 

#3 Bitter Ordeal +215% ($9)  

Bitter Ordeal is a spec. It has casual and EDH appeal, and with the right cards next to it a powerful trick. Maybe the price will be higher than the $1.50 it was before, but this is not a bandwagon I'm going to jump on.

Check out the reddit thread for discussion on the card.

 

'Cheap' Pickups

This week I have some more 'cheap' pickups for you. 

Special thanks and a shoutout to pi (@cerietke) for helping me out!

Maze of Ith ($23.43)

 

Rhox Faithmender  ($1.70):

 

Xenagos, God of Revels  (15.56)

 

Undiscovered Paradise ($6.50)

 

Want to help me out? Pitch me a tweet when you see something interesting @MTGPeter