Weekly Winners 2022 - 30

Plenty of cards moving. With Dominaria United on the horizon we already see the first cards being spoiled. Spoiler season hasn't started yet, since it will still take over a month before the set is released. Our winners this week all have to do with commander, and obviously The Command Zone has a big hand in this.

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.

 

MTGStocks Update

We did some maintenance work on the inventory system, making sure data stays more consistent across transactions and inventory items. With this change there has also been improvements to the MTGStocks Premium inventory import where sometimes items were added twice if a card already existed in your inventory.

In the interests, when you click the "Filters" button, we added a filter for you to be able to filter out cards that have not been released yet. This has been a popular requested feature, and hopefully it will add some additional use out of the interests.

 

#1 Cinderhaze Wretch $2.95 (+198%)

 

This is interesting, because a common went up with almost 200%. That makes it about $3 per piece. This common is from Shadowmoor, and came out in April 2008 when the world was in the early stages of "the great recession". Because budgets were tight for a lot of people fewer packs were opened than the sets before, meaning there are relatively little cards in circulation from this set. This leads to rares that are popular tend to be more volatile in value, and even tough this effect is less noticeable with commons, it does look like we see the effect here. Keep in mind that more copies can potentially flood the market when people search their common boxes. That being said, the card has not been reprinted (yet), and thus has a fairly limited supply.

Now let's get into the card itself and why it is popular. For you get a 3/2 Elemental Shaman with two activated abilities: : Target player discards a card. Activate this ability only during your turn, and Put a -1/-1 counter on Cinderhaze Wretch: Untap Cinderhaze Wretch. Now you may wonder what the big deal is with this card. You spend 5 mana to play it and can let a player discard a card twice on the following turn. Obviously there are combo's possible with cards like Vizier of Remedies where you can prevent these -1/-1 counters being placed on Cinderhaze Wretch to discard all cards from all opponent's hands.

But the reason for the spikes seems to be the printing of Myrkul, Lord of Bones where we can get a similar effect with. With both on the battlefield you can let a player discard to cards, then you can place another -1/-1 counter on Cinderhaze Wretch, meaning it dies and goes to the graveyard. Then Myrkul's second triggered ability will trigger, that says: Whenever another nontoken creature you control dies, you may exile it. If you do, create a token that's a copy of that card, except it's an enchantment and loses all other card types.. Meaning that a copy of Cinderhaze Wretch will return to the battlefield as an enchantment and you can keep activating its tap ability. You can then continue by placing -1/-1 counters on it, untapping it, and letting a player discard a card again and again and again. Since it is no longer a creature, but an enchantment, the -1/-1 counters will not have an effect on it.

Myrkul, Lord of Bones	CardKingdom $0.35	TCGPlayer $0.45
Cinderhaze Wretch	CardKingdom $0.59	TCGPlayer $2.95
Vizier of Remedies	CardKingdom $0.25	TCGPlayer $0.39

 

#2 Cursed Mirror $6.62 (+33%)

 

This is a relatively new card from Commander 2021 and is a quite popular card because... well.. it's a good card. For you get a mana rock that can also become a copy of any creature on the battlefield until end of turn, and it gains haste. Meaning it can work well in the early game to get you some mana, and can be devastating in the late game when you get to make it a copy of a huge creature. It only has a single print, but can obviously be reprinted at any time. It sees, for example, play in Miirym, Sentinel Wyrm decks where you play a bunch of big scary dragons, so copying one is always welcome.

It was played a few days ago in the Extra Turns #25 video on The Command Zone where it was played in a Svella, Ice Shaper deck. Meaning it appeared on The Command Zone could have focused some extra eyes on it and thus driving up the price.

We start to see more interest in these 3 mana rocks with an additional ability. For example we also see Patriar's Seal, from Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate, moving up quite a bit recently.

 

Cursed Mirror	CardKingdom $3.49	TCGPlayer $6.62
Miirym, Sentinel Wyrm	CardKingdom $1.79	TCGPlayer $2.22
Patriar's Seal	CardKingdom $0.59	TCGPlayer $2.48
Svella, Ice Shaper	CardKingdom $0.25	TCGPlayer $0.25

 

#3 Fury Storm $8.33 (+19%)

 

Another red rare from a commander set. Fury Storm is printed in Commander 2018, and gives you the ability to copy an instant or sorcery spell. But you get to copy this spell for each time you have cast your commander from the command zone this game. This card is popular in commander builds with partner commanders, because you get to have more commander-casts in a game. According to EDHRec a popular commander couple is Krark, the Thumbless with Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh. Both very cheap commanders, meaning you can get a whole lot of copies with Fury Storm. We also see that Extus, Oriq Overlord is a popular commander who cares about spells being copied.

You can imagine this could end the game pretty quickly when an opponent casts a powerful instant or sorcery spell and you get to copy it multiple times. For example, when your opponent casts Exsanguinate, you can copy it multiple times and win on the spot, but it is just a very flexible card. Now this Exsanguinate example did not come out of nowhere. This is the third week in a row I get to mentioned the Command Zone Most Obscure & Underrated Cards video where this card is being discussed. We are not done with mentioning The Command Zone in this article, or even this particular Weekly Winner. Fury Storm was also played in the Extra Turns #25 video last week in the Omnath, Locus of Creation deck.

But there may also be an additional reason why people are getting into this card. In the upcoming Dominaria United set we see Jaya, Fiery Negotiator being printed which may work well with Fury Storm. Jaya also cares in her ultimate about copying spells.

Fury Storm	CardKingdom $6.49	TCGPlayer $8.33
Jaya, Fiery Negotiator		TCGPlayer $23.81

 

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.

 

Strionic Resonator $4.34 - Moving up!

 

Strionic Resonator has been identified by the MTGStocks Premium Penny Stocks feature as a card that has reached its bottom and is starting a consistent uptrend.

 

Acererak the Archlich $6.00 - Trending down

 

Batterskull $6.87 - Trending down

 

Strionic Resonator	CardKingdom $3.49	TCGPlayer $4.34
Batterskull	CardKingdom $7.49	TCGPlayer $6.87
Acererak the Archlich	CardKingdom $9.49	TCGPlayer $6.00