Weekly Winners 2022 - 41

We did it! We managed to have a week where we found three winners that aren't (necessarily) going up because of Commander. The past few weeks we have seen some Banned and Restricted announcements relating to Pauper, Modern, and Standard and because of this prices are moving. But we also have a card spiking because of the 30th Anniversary Edition reprint set coming up. We also have a somewhat more extended update about MTGStocks.

MTGStocks update

I returned from my holiday last week, and gosh, was it amazing! Thanks to everyone reaching out and offering me advise or inviting me to their games of Magic. I wish I could have joined any, but our schedule was so freakishly packed. However, I did return with a more clear mind and some renewed inspiration to get stuff done. So this week some improvements have been made. We are also working on some new features for users, and for Premium users as well!

E-mail on new article

Users can now opt-in to receive an e-mail when a new article is posted on MTGStocks. I have opted existing users out of this, because I did not want to start spamming people where they have not asked for it. If you have an account and you want these notifications in your mailbox, you can go to your e-mail preferences and enable it. If you create a new MTGStocks account, it is enabled for you by default.

New Interests filter

People have been asking for a filter that filters out card that have not been released yet, so a while back I added it. But people have also been asking for a way to filter out promos for example. I decided to take it a little step further and be more future-proof. You can now filter you interest based on set types, meaning you can choose if you want to see "Promos" or "Core set" cards. Or maybe you are not interested in the "Masterpieces". Hopefully this makes life a little bit more easy for all of you.

New Sealed Products filter

The Sealed Products has been a bit cluttered and no good way to quickly find something we introduce a quick filter where you can type the name of a set or the name of a product. For example, you could type "Booster Box" and you would only see products that match that name.

Bugfixes

You guys always find ways to break the website, and we are happy to track them down and fix them. Don't be afraid to report them by e-mailing us or using the "Feedback" button in the top right.

 

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.

 

#1 Earthbind $5.22 (+904%)

 

Well, here is a card that is quite unplayable and hasn't been reprinted since Revised Edition. The demand for this card does not come from new interactions or because it is a reserved list buyout, because this card isn't on the reserved list to begin with. It has to do with the announcement of the 30th Anniversary Edition, which is a reprinting of Beta Edition. The Beta set contains a whole lot of valuable cards, of which the most valuable ones are on the reserved list. The upcoming 30th Anniversary Edition gets around the reserved list restrictions by making these reprints non-tournament legal.

Beta Edition was released in October 1993 and a lot has changed in the world, in Magic, and the community. Because of this some artworks are no longer considered socially accepted. Because of this Wizards decided to leave several cards out of the 30th Anniversary Edition set. These cards are, in alphabetical order:

• Contract from Below
• Darkpact
• Demonic Attorney
• Earthbind
• Weakness
• Crusade

While Wizards has not given an official reason for the absence of these cards from 30th Anniversary Edition it does seem to relate to that they feel these artworks don't meet current standards, and thus they decided to not reprint them. Maybe you recognise the last card of the list above since it has already been banned in every format by Wizards in their announcement of June 10th 2020 where they banned several cards for their depictions of racism in either the art, the text, or a combination thereof. In that light it does make sense for them to not reprint it. That being said, there also has been some controversy around Wizards no longer having the rights to reprint certain artworks. Most controversy around this exist around the art by the late Quinton Hoover.

So much for the intro. Let's talk about prices. This card used to sell for below a dollar in Revised, but now costs over $5. It becomes even more extreme when we look at the graphs of Alpha, Beta, International Edition, and the Collectors Edition. Beta went from $50 to $500. Because Wizards seems unwilling to print this card again with its current art, people feel this may be an "alternate version" of the reserved list and try to purchase this card with this particular art.

Earthbind	CardKingdom $3.99	TCGPlayer $5.22
Contract from Below	CardKingdom $649.99	TCGPlayer $964.27
Darkpact	CardKingdom $249.99	TCGPlayer $503.80
Demonic Attorney	CardKingdom $399.99	TCGPlayer $499.99
Weakness	CardKingdom $15.99	TCGPlayer $11.47

 

#2 Thermokarst $9.98 (+491%)

 

This is an uncommon from Ice Age that has never been reprinted since. For you get to destroy a land. If that land happened to be snow-covered, then you gain 1 life as well. Land destruction cards are always somewhat popular with certain crowds and I am not surprised if this card was a little underrated before the spike.

On September 19th Wizards banned four cards in Pauper: Aarokocra Sneak, Stirring Bard, Underdark Explorer, and Vicious Battlerager. This shook up the Pauper metagame and now Ponza decks seem to be performing well. Ponza decks are basically land destruction decks, so you see where Thermokarst may fit in. This deck now plays 4 copies of it. The goal of this deck is to, well, destroy your opponent's lands obviously, but it does so by playing some early ramp, try to play land destruction spells or try to cascade into them with cards that are also big beaters like Boarding Party. Hard to destroy a creature without lands, isn't it?!

But... How can an uncommon be legal in Pauper? This has to do with it being moved to Common in the MTGO Masters Edition II set.

 

#3 Indomitable Creativity $38.68 (+116%)

 

Indomitable Creativity is a good card! Who knew?! For the people not too familar with the card, it is a red mythic from Aether Revolt, is a sorcery and costs . It reads Destroy X target artifacts and/or creatures. For each permanent destroyed this way, its controller reveals cards from the top of his or her library until an artifact or creature card is revealed and exiles that card. Those players put the exiled cards onto the battlefield, then shuffle their libraries.

Often when cards like this are printed, and you have to flip your library until you find a card that matches whatever it is looking for (in this case an artifact or creature), people will build their decks around this and make sure that the only card worth hitting matches these limitations. In this case players will only put creatures or artifacts in the deck worth hitting to make sure that whenever they resolve Indomitable Creativity, they will always have the (hopefully) game-winning outcome. In Pioneer this decks has been performing really well in both the Temur and Izzet variants where they, for example, try to hit Xenagos, God of Revels or Worldspine Wurm and finish the game.

But on October 10th Wizards came with a banned and restricted announcement. They banned The Meathook Massacre in Standard, but they also banned Yorion, Sky Nomad in Modern. And this last one may also be a factor in the price increase here. Indomitable Creativity decks have already been performing well in Modern, but with Yorion out of the way, some people expect this deck to become a bigger part of the metagame.

Indomitable Creativity	CardKingdom $29.99	TCGPlayer $38.68
Yorion, Sky Nomad	CardKingdom $2.29	TCGPlayer $2.82

 

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.

 

Sevinne's Reclamation $3.55 - Moving up!

 

Sevinne's Reclamation has been identified by the MTGStocks Premium Penny Stocks feature as a card that has reached its bottom and is starting a consistent uptrend.

 

Bramble Sovereign $4.28 - Slowly moving down

 

Privileged Position $2.99 - Stable

 

Bramble Sovereign	CardKingdom $5.99	TCGPlayer $5.85
Sevinne's Reclamation	CardKingdom $3.99	TCGPlayer $4.89
Bramble Sovereign	CardKingdom $4.99	TCGPlayer $4.28
Sevinne's Reclamation	CardKingdom $2.99	TCGPlayer $3.55
Privileged Position	CardKingdom $3.49	TCGPlayer $2.99