‘Ello ladles and jellyspoons! I wanted to crank this out ASAP with the M20 release upon us and before some key cards shoot up in price because of the London Mulligan rule. With that being said here is my quick list of specs to keep an eye on in the coming weeks:
[scryimg] Force of Negation [/scryimg]
#1. Force of Negation. Why this is my #1 pick is because of the potential problem the Modern format might be facing with the London Mulligan rule and combo decks. Yes, I know, the London Mulligan has been live on MTGO for a few weeks now but there is still a portion of the player base that hasn’t been brewing with the cards in paper yet. To be fair, I’m also aware that most development and evolution occurs on MTGO (due to access and frequency of events) but there are still advancements to be made that paper players have to contribute. Currently, Force of Negation ranks the 15th most played spell on MTGGoldfish but with the recent banning of Bridge from Below, I would not be surprised to see a huge surge of combo decks jockeying to take Hogaak Bridgevine’s place. The big bad boogie man in the room is NeoBrand and it’s potential to combo off turn 1 even before their opponent has a permanent on the battlefield. *For the record: I’m not running in circles flailing my hands in the air screaming the end is near.* NeoBrand doesn’t combo turn 1 consistently, it’s magical Christmas land when it does but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be prepared. As is, Force of Negation hovers around 39$ each currently which is a respectable and fair price and I don’t expect to see it decreasing any time soon based on how much it sees play already. If, keyword: if the combo apocalypse occurs Force of Negation will be in high demand and be worth at least 50$ or more.
In no particular order:
[scryimg] Dreadhorde Arcanist [/scryimg]
Dreadhorde Arcanist. Kind of an odd pick after it already semi-spiked but look at the decks it’s being played in. Out of the 78 decks playing it, only 4 of them are Standard decks. This means there is little Standard demand for the card and the price that it recently reached is due to eternal format demand. I feel it’s safe to say that this card will command 10$+ even after rotation because again, Standard is not what’s driving up the price currently. As far as what price tag this card will garnish in the future? I’m not sure honestly but for it to have already reached 9.65$ this early in its infancy is a promising sign.
[scryimg] Eternal Scourge [/scryimg] [scryimg] Serum Powder [/scryimg] [scryimg] Misthollow Griffin [/scryimg]
Eternal Scourge, Serum Powder, and Misthollow Griffin. Why I lumped these all together is for the same reason: the London Mulligan rule. In weeks since past, we have seen the rise and fall of all these card’s prices whenever the London Mulligan is mentioned. First when it was being discussed and tested and again when Wizards officially decided they were going to implement it. I’m looking at the graph on all three of them and they have been flatlining for the past couple days strangely enough. Maybe that’s what happens when you shock the player base with a defibrillator too many times. We have become desensitized to repetitive hype?… Or maybe there will be a third wave of price spikes and we are just waiting on the delayed effects? P.S. on Serum Powder; check out Legacy Leylines if you haven’t heard of the deck before it’s hilarious! P.S.S. Wizards if you’re listening, reprint Crop Rotation already the price on those foils are reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeediculous! 🙁
[scryimg] Red Elemental Blast [/scryimg]
Red Elemental Blast. This is a small spec because I can already predict the ceiling based on examples we already have. Pyroblast from Eternal Masters is currently 3.11$ and A25 copies of Red Elemental Blast sit at .39¢ each. With REB now being Pauper legal, I could see it either matching the price of Pyroblast or the prices reaching an equilibrium of 1.75$ for either of the two.
[scryimg] Aetherflux Reservoir [/scryimg]
Aetherflux Reservoir. This card has been in demand since WotS currently garnishing a 7$ price tag (in the words of Ricky from Trailer Park Boys, “atodaso” should have bought it a few months back while it was 2.99$…). Recently, I came across an article by Matt Nass (the crazy evil mastermind genius behinds decks like Eggs and KCI) and well he is on some new deck using Bolas’s Citadel and Weather the Storm to draw a butt load of cards and kills you off with Aetherflux Res. If we are looking at the birth of Eggs 3.0 (or KCI 2.0) then you will see this card, in particular, spike hardest because of its pre-existing strain on supply due to Commander demand.
[scryimg] Dissenters Deliverance [/scryimg]
Dissenter’s Deliverance. Odd pick but hear me out. The card can be played mainboard as a 2-of with little to no downside basically because it only costs one G to cycle when you don’t need it. The card comes in clutch game 1 against decks where it’s imperative to kill key artifacts as we saw recently with Altar of Dementia in Hogaak decks for example. Think of how some games are decided by who is able to find their sideboard cards games 2 and 3. Well with a couple of low opportunity cost hate cards floating around in your mainboard you can easily steal game 1 out of nowhere. It’s not like you’re running two copies of Naturalize in the mainboard that could get stuck in your hand… I’m just saying when the meta-conditions are right I could easily see midrange decks adopting a couple of copies in the mainboard. I don’t think they will be worth a crazy amount but I could see them being an “uncommon” common like Thought Scour and costing somewhere between .50¢ and 1.25$. Aaaaaaand foils are cheap right now too!
[scryimg] Shenanigans [/scryimg]
Speaking of smashing artifacts: SHENANIGANS! I love this card. It only costs .25¢ right now but I know this card is going to be worth more than that in the future. Investing in foils right now would be a solid investment. Just look at foil Ancient Stirrings! Sure, it’s not played as a 4-of in the mainboard the same way that Stirrings is but I could still see them being worth 10-15$ at some point with non-foils settling in at 2-3$ each.
[scryimg] Lupine Prototype [/scryimg]
Lupine Prototype. Honestly, this is just a crazy unwarranted spec based off of a love affair I have with this card. If there is ever a day where Rotting Regisaur and the bio-engineered mecha werewolf come together in one deck, you bet your biscuits I will be there to pilot it! I just have this gut feeling, call it a hunch, that Lupine might be another Death’s Shadow some day. Another cheap low-cost beat stick that requires a little building around to unlock it’s power. A colorless two mana 5/5 is nothing to scoff at. Maybe there will come a day where Wizards prints a new card that breaks Lupine or maybe they don’t and you’re only out a whopping .96¢… I’ve spent more money on cheeseburgers that have given me food poisoning before…
[scryimg] Sundial of the Infinite [/scryimg]
And lastly, Sundial of the Infinite. We saw just the other day that Polyraptor spiked because of the new Marauding Raptor. The combo ends in a draw unless you’re able to stop it via Sundial (but even then it doesn’t just win the game on the spot…). Even if this raptor combo isn’t the combo that causes Sundial to sextuple in price there will come a day that some new combo causes Sundial to hit 30$. The card just has too unique of an effect for it to only be 5$. This could be the next Mycosynth Lattice or Thrumming Stone. Until then Sundial sits lurking in the shadows.
Welp, that’s all for today folks! Thanks for putting on your tinfoil hats and entertaining my rambling 😛
And as always, if you’re in the market for some snazzy new sleeves be sure to cruise on over to the shop and use my discount code MADMAGIC for 15% off on your next purchase.
