Modern Times - Ragavan, Yawgmoth, Aether Vial

Hello everyone! Welcome back for this week’s edition of Modern Times! Modern has been idling at a nice, cool pace for the past couple months and has been slowly absorbing both Phyrexia: All Will Be One and March of the Machine into its meta.

While the ebb-and-flow has been minimal, there are a couple standout movements that are worth discussion: two very relevant Modern staples, and one older format staple that is hitting lows once thought impossible. Let’s dive in!

 

Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer

I knew it would be only a matter of time until I would write an article with Ragavan front and center. Given its reprint in March of the Machine: Multiverse Legends, now seems as good a time as ever to discuss this goofy little monkey whose presence in Modern cannot be understated. Originally released in Modern Horizons 2, Ragavan has been the poster child for Modern as a format since it was spoiled. As a format defined by the power level of its creature base, Ragavan is a perfect testament to what separates deckbuilding and gameplay in Modern from other eternal formats.

Being a mainstay in almost every deck that plays blue or red in the format, it’s unlikely that anything short of a banning will ever diminish the pervasiveness of Ragavan’s presence in the game. Simultaneously, it’s impossible to imagine a more pushed one-mana creature ever being printed in the format–although, WOTC never is short of surprises.

 

 

For over a year, Ragavan was valued in a tight range of around $75-$80, which at times made it the most valuable single card in the format. However, the recent printing on the “bonus” print sheet, Multiverse Legends, incorporated directly into the MOM print run made accessibility to the card unexpectedly higher than originally thought. Coupled with the fact that MH2 packs are still plentiful and cheaper on the secondary market than most Collector’s Boosters, Ragavan’s supply in the MTG economy is ever-increasing. This surge in supply and increase in the share of decks like Temur Rhinos in the Modern Meta (which is one of the few decks not to use Ragavan) has pushed the market value of the card to around $55. Given the freshness of MOM, it’s likely the supply of this little guy will continue to climb, subsequently pushing down the market price further.

 

Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer
Modern Horizons 2	CardKingdom $64.99	TCGPlayer $63.94
March of the Machine: Multiverse Legends		TCGPlayer $89.59
March of the Machine: Multiverse Legends		TCGPlayer $59.16

 

Yawgmoth, Thran Physician

 

Yawgmoth was the quintessential “big bad” in the original Magic: The Gathering storyline back in the 1990s, all the way through the early 2000s. It wasn’t until Modern Horizons that this larger-than-life character was given life in card form. Ironically, it was in a direct-to-Modern set, rather than a direct-to-Legacy or Commander set–again, WOTC never fails to surprise.

 

Backstory notwithstanding, Yawgmoth is a fun and interesting card that people spent years on trying to build around. It wasn’t until recently that Yawgmoth found a home in Modern in a toolbox-style deck that feels like a marriage between aristocrats-style and pod-style decks. Most recently, at the Grand Open Qualifier in Prague, Golgari Yawgmoth landed 10th place overall in the event–an event where Izzet Murktide had one of its weakest showings and didn’t even place a top 10 finish.

 

 

It was only last October when we saw Yawgmoth top out at around $40, but with recent reprintings in Dominaria Remastered, Yawgmoth has fallen to a very affordable rate of between $17 and $20. In the aggregate, Yawgmoth only encompasses roughly 3% of the meta compared to Temur Rhinos and Izzet Murktide, which are over 10% each. These stats aside, the upward potential of Yawgmoth-style decks in Modern is enormous.

Go to any Modern Reddit or Discord community, and you’d find many dedicated Yawgmoth optimizers and fans. The deck takes chops to play and has a steep learning curve, but is incredibly rewarding, resilient, and consistent. For these qualities, I would expect its share in the meta to continue to grow, making Yawgmoth a really attractive pickup right now while the price is at an all-time low.

 

Yawgmoth, Thran Physician
Time Spiral: Remastered	CardKingdom $22.99	TCGPlayer $19.88
Dominaria Remastered: Extras	CardKingdom $22.99	TCGPlayer $17.92
Dominaria Remastered: Extras	CardKingdom $22.99	TCGPlayer $18.02
Modern Horizons	CardKingdom $21.99	TCGPlayer $19.99

 

Aether Vial

 

Maybe it’s because I started playing Modern during the reign of Splinter Twin, but in my heart, there’s always a special place for the cards I remembered as being ridiculously expensive back in the day that have since fallen on hard times or out of favor in the current meta. In my first article on MTGStocks, I talked about Dark Confidant, Snapcaster Mage, and Tarmogoyf. In reality, there are a myriad of interesting staples that have hit all-time lows with no one batting an eye. Another old gem that I felt like discussing today is Aether Vial.

 

 

For years, Aether Vial was a $40 card that was a staple in many Modern and Legacy decks, most notably Elves, Merfolk, and Death and Taxes. Today, with the elementals cycle from MH2, along with non-tribal powerhouses like Ragavan and Ledger Shredder, tribal decks in Modern have been pushed to the margins. Coupled with waning Legacy participation in MTG, cards like Aether Vial have largely fallen off the radar and to the wayside. As of the writing of this article, Aether Vial has hit an all-time low of $10. If you asked me whether this was possible years ago even after its reprinting in Double Masters 2022, I would have said that you were crazy.

 

In a way, I am both happy and sad to be wrong. Being able to pick up a playset of Aether Vials for $40 is amazing and terrific, especially since a single Aether Vial once cost that much. At the same time, it signals a hard shift in Modern favoring more recent innovations in MTG coming from direct-to-Modern sets like MH1 and MH2 as well as power-crept standard sets like Throne of Eldraine and Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths.

Aether Vial is definitely worth grabbing at its current price for those that play tribal Modern decks, which still see some play. However, it’s important to highlight that price movements and strong declines in cards like Aether Vial signal a different future for speculation and investment in the Modern format. Whether you take Aether Vial’s recent decline as a good deal or a cautionary tale is for you to decide.

 

Aether Vial
Darksteel	CardKingdom $11.99	TCGPlayer $10.45
Modern Masters	CardKingdom $10.99	TCGPlayer $9.49
Masterpiece Series: Kaladesh Inventions	CardKingdom $199.99	TCGPlayer $170.00
Double Masters 2022	CardKingdom $9.99	TCGPlayer $8.99
Double Masters 2022: Extras		TCGPlayer $13.12
Double Masters 2022: Extras	CardKingdom $12.99	TCGPlayer $11.08

 

Looking Ahead

One of the most appealing features of Modern is that it’s an eternal format with a strong player base, large card pool, and no cards on the Reserved List. Being able to pull from the original Mirrodin block to build decks in 2023 is awesome, but as the format has grown in popularity, so have the power level and pushed mechanics reflected in recent sets alongside growing SKUs that are geared toward Modern specifically.

One could title this article “Out With the Old, In With the New,” which is somewhat of an underlying theme in most Modern finance articles across the MTG finance community. However, this title seems to be cliché, and implies that speculating on these older staples are futile with most price variation in Modern staples manifesting themselves in the most powerful, and newer cards in the format.

 

One interesting caveat to this is that the price movements aren’t coming directly from the fact that cards are overtly powerful, rather they are coming from the power level of the decks themselves. Modern has one of the most fluid and open metas across MTG formats, so the value in these older staples are one-in-the same with the value in the powerhouses of the format in that they are directly tied to the share of a given deck that plays that card in the meta itself.

Looking ahead, it is almost advisable to speculate on what decks you believe will make up a larger share of the format itself, and invest in the staples of that deck. For example, given Yawgmoth’s growing potential in the meta, investing in pieces that support that deck such as Dryad Arbor and Ignoble Hierarch are almost as good in investing as Yawgmoth himself! On the flipside, should decks like Merfolk also continue to gain traction in Modern’s meta, I would expect cards like Aether Vial to also climb with it.

Check out these other articles:  

History, Restapled: A Mother’s Love and a Land Reborn by Steve Heisler  

Hidden Gems #3 - Something Colorless This Way Comes by Adam Berg  

Where Are They Now? - April 2023 by Ryan Cole