Weekly Winners 2023 - 27

This week we have four Winners, and only one comes from a Lord of the Rings set! The others did however spike because of LOTR.

Like every week, just in time for FNM, I'll tell you about the Magic: the Gathering cards that'll be the talk of the town tonight! Come discuss this week's price movements with us on Discord.

Articles

The past few months we've been focusing on putting out more quality content, and I'd love to share the next few articles with you, since they're worth a read:

• Arabian Nights may be one of the most interesting sets. Harvey talks about speculating on these cards in his article from The Big Things.
• Jason tells you how you should combine MTGStocks data with EDHREC and get the best cards before others pick up on them in his article Too, Reverse In Works It.
• Matt continues his MTGxLOTR deep-dive, this time focusing on the Commander part, in New Horizons - LOTR Commander.

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Onto the Weekly Winners!

#1 Birth of the Imperium $7.97 (+431%)

I tried looking around for why this card all of the sudden jumped 480% and, frankly, the reason why it spiked kind of surprises me. The only real viable reason why I see this card moving up is because of a Lord of the Rings creature that was revealed to us pretty early on. Tom Bombadil is a very popular commander, and it doesn't take a Magic pro to figure out that Tom does really well in a deck with Sagas.

Birth of the Imperium is one of the Sagas that was, I guess, a little bit lesser known. It was never Standard, Modern, or Pioneer legal, and for it simply may not have done enough. It seems to have mainly found its way in Commander decks that care about tokens. The decks we found this card in most were Inquisitor Greyfax and Marneus Calgar, which isn't that surprising since they all came in the same precon. The next most popular commander was Soundwave, Sonic Spy, but it seems like it only was played in about 10% of the decks around this Transformer.

$3.80

So that leaves us with Tom Bombadil, the first commander that really cares about Sagas. And apparently this Saga was overlooked in the initial hype, because otherwise it would have moved up much earlier.

Birth of the Imperium	CardKingdom	TCGPlayer $3.80
Inquisitor Greyfax	CardKingdom	TCGPlayer $0.57
Marneus Calgar	CardKingdom	TCGPlayer $1.00
Birth of the Imperium	CardKingdom	TCGPlayer $3.80
Tom Bombadil	CardKingdom $2.49	TCGPlayer $2.36

#2 Canoptek Wraith $4.98 (+302%)

Not too long ago I got to talk about a card from Universes Beyond: Warhammer 40,000 like every week. There was always one of these cards spiking because of some reason, which was very interesting, to be honest. This set is considered to have a very high power level, meaning there are plenty of cards in there that people want. Canoptek Wraith started pre-selling around $4, but had dwindled down and could have been bought for $0.50.

Then last week this card shot up all of the sudden! Canoptek Wraith is a creature that can't be blocked, and thus has a high chance to connect to your opponent. If it does, you get to pay and use it to ramp up your lands. It's doubtful that all of the sudden people thought this would be an awesome ramp spell. It seems like the most important trait of this creature comes from its typeline: Wraith.

Last week we discussed Ringwraiths in the Weekly Winners, and Corey discussed the Nazgul cards in his Modern Times article. These cards are all Wraiths, and this seems to be exactly why Canoptek Wraith is moving up. People are building Wraith typal Commander decks.

$6.95$7.99

$0.43$0.49

Popular commanders for these decks are Lord of the Nazgul, Witch-king of Angmar, and Sauron, the Necromancer. Two of those are Wraiths themselves, and the last one can create Wraiths. Whenever you play against this typal deck, you can be sure that darkness goes with them, and they cry with the voices of death.

Canoptek Wraith	CardKingdom	TCGPlayer $2.49
Canoptek Wraith (Surge Foil)	CardKingdom	TCGPlayer $9.17
Lord of the Nazgul	CardKingdom $9.99	TCGPlayer $7.89
Witch-king of Angmar (Showcase)	CardKingdom $7.99	TCGPlayer $6.95
Sauron, the Necromancer	CardKingdom $0.49	TCGPlayer $0.43

#3 Cauldron Familiar $6.30 (+184%)

For this card I specifically chose the Throne of Eldraine print to mention in the numbers, while the Jumpstart print of this card jumped (get it?) a lot more. Who doesn't know the dreadful Cat-Oven combo? It revolves around Cauldron Familiar and Witch's Oven. By sacrificing the Cat to the oven, you get to make a food token, but with Cauldron Familiar's second ability you get to sacrifice a food token and return the Cat from your graveyard to the battlefield. By doing this, the cat's first ability triggers, draining your opponents for one. My personal experience with this combo mainly comes from Magic Arena, where it was (in my opinion) dreadful to sit through a match against this deck. It took quite some clicks every turn and passing priority to do.

Cauldron Familiar is moving up because of a new deck in Modern. The deck does often include a copy of Witch's Oven, but it's not a key piece anymore. The deck includes copies of Samwise Gamgee, where the first ability is important. Whenever a creature enters the battlefield under your control you create a food token. This means that whenever Cauldron Familiar enters the battlefield, you immediately have a food token available in case it dies for whatever reason. That whatever reason in the deck is Viscera Seer or Carrion Feeder. With one of these creatures on the battlefield, you have a cheap and repeatable sacrifice outlet. Now you get to sacrifice and bring back your Cauldron Familiar an unlimited amount of times, draining your opponent into oblivion.

Cauldron Familiar	CardKingdom $2.99	TCGPlayer $1.99
Cauldron Familiar	CardKingdom $2.99	TCGPlayer $3.09
Cauldron Familiar	CardKingdom $2.99	TCGPlayer $1.99
Witch's Oven	CardKingdom	TCGPlayer $2.97

#4 Lotho, Corrupt Shirriff $7.00 (+178%)

Let's do an extra one, because I'm in the zone anyway and I can't get enough of these Lord of the Rings cards. Lotho, Corrupt Shirriff is steadily moving up. It's a legendary creature for only two mana that can generate you a bunch of value in Commander. It can potentially generate two to four treasures (depending on your game) in a single turn cycle. You even get to trigger it yourself if you can play two spells. It seems like a Commander that has to be dealt with quickly, but the first few turns players generally want to ramp up, meaning they ramp you up.

And while this may sound good, the real reason for the spike seems to be that Aspiringspike has been playing it in a BW deck in Modern, along with Orcish Bowmasters, that's been making waves in a bunch of formats where it's legal. This wouldn't be the first time Aspiringspike gets a card to... well... spike.

It remains to be seen how well this deck will do in the Modern metagame, because Lotho, Corrupt Shirriff does die pretty easily against a Orcish Bowmasters itself. So until it puts up numbers, it may just be people buying the card because it may do well.

Lotho, Corrupt Shirriff	CardKingdom $1.99	TCGPlayer $2.88
Lotho, Corrupt Shirriff (Extended Art)	CardKingdom $2.49	TCGPlayer $3.30
Orcish Bowmasters	CardKingdom $54.99	TCGPlayer $45.00

Cheap Pickups

Please note: for our 'record low' we consider the price of the card over the past 7 years. Many cards were even cheaper (a) decade(s) ago. Also note: some cards are still going down, and might be even cheaper pickups next week.

Surrak and Goreclaw $4.39 - Moving up again!

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

Silverback Elder $6.31 - Slowly moving down

Goldspan Dragon $10.50 - Slowly moving down

Goldspan Dragon	CardKingdom $15.99	TCGPlayer $11.84
Surrak and Goreclaw	CardKingdom $4.49	TCGPlayer $4.07
Silverback Elder	CardKingdom $5.99	TCGPlayer $4.34

 

That's it for this week. Make sure to check back next week for more Weekly Winners!