Weekly Winners 2023 - 34

A slow week. It seems people were mainly waiting for the previews from Wilds of Eldraine and holding off on buying cards. With the entire set now revealed, I expect next week to have more spikes.

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:

• Explore the impact of Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty on Modern, Rakdos Scam's dominance, and the return of Preordain in Corey's latest iteration of Modern Times.
• Dive with Harvey into the fluctuating values of The One Ring and the borderless printing of Kozilek, as the MTG market adjusts to recent releases and emerging trends in Over and Under - The Ring and the Titan.

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Onto the Weekly Winners!

#1 Dreadhorde Arcanist $7.66 (+164%)

We are cheating a bit here when it comes to the pricetag. While the price is indeed correct, this only goes for the Retro frame version from Time Spiral: Remastered. You can still get a War of the Spark version for less than $2, although that price is also on the rise.

The surge in price doesn't really come as a surprise. As you may recall, two weeks ago we discussed two cards that were unbanned. One of those two is Preordain, which is now legal in Modern. This is exactly why we see Dreadhorde Arcanist moving up.

You see, when Dreadhorde Arcanist attacks, you may cast an instant or sorcery with mana value less than its power from your graveyard. Since Preordain is only one mana, you can always cast it when the Arcanist attacks. What definitely helped with the price increase is content creator Aspiringspike giving the deck some love on his streams.

The decks seems to be trying to get Arcanist down early, and using it to keep casting cantrips, generating tokens, and casting Mutagenic Growth to churn out more damage. I don't think the deck has been putting up consistent numbers yet, so we just have to wait and see whether the card will find its place in Modern.

Dreadhorde Arcanist	CardKingdom $3.99	TCGPlayer $5.02
Dreadhorde Arcanist	CardKingdom $2.79	TCGPlayer $2.79

#2 Karlach, Fury of Avernus $8.24 (+60%)

Something somewhat unique seems to be happening. We're seeing the influence of Baldur's Gate 3, a Dungeons and Dragons video game that was released on August 4th, on the Magic market. The game seems to be well received, and fans of the Karlach character now want to build a Commander deck around her while the popularity of the game has surged.

Karlach, Fury of Avernus, a legendary 5/4 Tiefling Barbarian, costs five mana. Her abilities, including an extra combat phase each turn and a "Choose a Background" feature, make her a popular commander. She has a good potential as a Gruul stompy or Boros go-wide commander when pairing her with, for example, Raised by Giants or Flaming Fist, respectively. But another good Background for her would be Sword Coast Sailor, with which Karlach can become unblockable against certain opponents, ensuring those extra combat phases. Imagine the dominance when Karlach attacks without any concern for the opponent's board!

$0.19

While the recent spike is due to the newfound admiration for Karlach among Baldurs Gate 3 fans, there doesn't seem to be any new secret tech that makes her better. Because of the spike and the rise in popularity, multiple articles have been written about her and how to choose the best Background for her. It remains to be seen where the price will settle eventually.

Karlach, Fury of Avernus	CardKingdom	TCGPlayer $14.48
Karlach, Fury of Avernus (Showcase)	CardKingdom $11.99	TCGPlayer $7.90
Raised by Giants	CardKingdom $0.49	TCGPlayer $0.30
Sword Coast Sailor	CardKingdom	TCGPlayer $0.19
Flaming Fist	CardKingdom $0.35	TCGPlayer $0.13

#3 Sail into the West (Extended Art) $2.00 (+100%)

For this card we'll specifically talk about the Extended Art print. While the regular print can still be purchased for about $0.50, it's also showing some movement in the past week. In Commander product we occassionally see cards with Will of the Council, which means that all players are presented with a choice to vote one or the other. However, one of the two always happens when its vote is a tie. This is interesting in 1v1 constructed formats since you'll always have two players, which means that if the aimed effect is the one that will happen in case of a tie, then you're sure that will happen.

Sail into the West is exactly that. Each player will vote for return or embark. When embark gets more votes, or is tied, then each player may discard their hand and draw seven cards. We currently see the card being experimented with in Legacy Solidarity decks, where you sometimes just have to get a fresh batch of new cards to keep your combo going. You can see the deck being played in a video from The Epic Storm on YouTube.

Solidarity is a storm combo deck that wins by casting a large number of blue instant spells, fueled by the mana engine of High Tide and Reset, and then playing a lethal Brain Freeze on the opponent to deck them. The deck is usually entirely composed of basic Islands, fetch lands, and blue instants, but for Sail into the West (Extended Art) a green splash was added. By doing that, also Growth Spiral became an addition to the deck.

The thing is, that video is already over a month old, and it hasn't put up any notable results (yet), and so it isn't necessarily new tech. So maybe that's the reason that only the Extended Art version is seeing movement. People who try to get their copies might as well get the special art version

Sail into the West (Extended Art)	CardKingdom $1.99	TCGPlayer $2.65
Sail into the West	CardKingdom $0.49	TCGPlayer $0.75
High Tide	CardKingdom	TCGPlayer $0.90
Reset	CardKingdom $32.99	TCGPlayer $33.05

Cheap Pickups

Please note: for our 'record low' we consider the price of the card over the past seven 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.

Orthion, Hero of Lavabrink $3.07 - Moving up!

Orthion, Hero of Lavabrink has been identified by the MTGStocks Premium Penny Stocks feature as a card that has reached its bottom and is starting a consistent uptrend.

Garruk, Apex Predator $6.69 - Slowly moving down

Erayo, Soratami Ascendant $5.30 - Moving down

Orthion, Hero of Lavabrink	CardKingdom $1.99	TCGPlayer $2.41
Erayo, Soratami Ascendant	CardKingdom $4.99	TCGPlayer $4.99
Garruk, Apex Predator	CardKingdom $7.49	TCGPlayer $5.99

 

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