Friday, July 24, 2020

Save the Whales

We're about nipple deep into "spoiler season" for Double Masters, the much maligned yet highly anticipated new reprint product from Wizards of the Coast for Magic: The Gathering, as I write this. And as more and more cards are shown each day it's becoming more and more official; yup, this is a Masters set. But, of course, what was it going to be? The entire design of Masters set, a product now going on seven years of being in existence, is simply "highly priced cards reprinted in a highly priced sealed product" and here we are again, a set with expensive cards getting much-needed reprints in expensive packs. This time things are just a smidge bit different though; as the name "Double Masters" alludes to, mostly everything about this product is doubled. The amount of rares per pack is doubled, as are the amount of foils you can pull, and the amount of cards mythics you can pull in a box. Heck, the mythic total in this set is actually more than double what you would normally see, up to forty slots in the set list from around the fifteen or so a set would normally see. 

What is also doubled, from the original Masters set all those years ago, Modern Masters, is the price of the packs in this set, as the original product back in 2013 was priced at seven bucks per pack and this latest rendition is now a WHOPPING fifteen a pop if you buy on an individual basis. Now, that price has incrementally gotten to its present day number over the course of the seven-year history of this product so it's not like this is a giant, jarring leap, but even back when the original Masters product hit at only seven dollars per pack that price was faced with a lot of scrutiny, until the set list was released and everyone saw just how insane the dollar values therein were and the hubbabalo died down a little. That changed later when vendors started breaking with the Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) of the product and charging upwards of ten, hell I saw fifteen dollars a pack back then the product was so loaded and supply was just gobbled up instantly. People were wary about the product at first and then upset at it, but that ire stemmed from it being such a good value proposition it sold unbelievably and people wish they could get more, even at that eyebrow-raising buy-in price.


Double Masters - Card Kingdom Blog
And so the price of the packs went up over the years because, well, Wizards saw the demand and they wanted a bigger cut and everyone started realizing just how much money was really flowing through the game of Magic during that time. Double Masters is the eighth time one of these products is hitting the shelf, it marks the eighth time people have raised their hackles over the price, and it marks the eighth time some really expensive cards are going to see significant price drops despite the controversy of the price point. That really is just the fact of the matter; Masters products succeed in what they set out to do every single time and that's to reduce the price of cards but doing so in a controlled way (so as to not bottom out the value of cards) at a premium price point that involves high-rollers who can afford that buy-in point churning the product out and the cards disseminating down to more affordable price points for everyone else. It is, quite simply, Magic: the Gathering version of trickle-down economics, except with a "children's" card game - not real life people's goddamn livelihoods - and that unlike its macroeconomic equivalent, it actually works, though with still terrible optics around it and not to the liking of people who think the game needs to be DRASTICALLY cheaper than it is at all times. But, like that oh-so-@#$%ing-wonderful Ronnie "Raygun" Reagan leftover that has shattered the American middle class, I don't think it needs to exist anymore and is kind of gross for similar and differing reasons alike. 

I wrote a piece a few weeks ago about how Magic players are absolutely frothing at the mouth for a reduction in the expense of playing the game. And this year, this horrific, "anxiety attack taken physical form and going door-to-door to kick us all in the genitals" year, at the least marks one good thing; Magic the Gathering is seeing a tsunami of reprints and Double Masters is at the crest of that wave. The thing is, as spoilers for the set roll onward, we're seeing that the set is full of a lot of familiar players in the "Masters rolodex" of set lists, as Double Masters includes the likes of cards such as Karn, Liberated, Mana Crypt, Dark Confidant, Doubling Season, and other big hitters that have seen Masters reprints before and no longer feel "exciting." And the reason for that is because simply because Masters sets have become the Ouroboros of Magic, they're just a cycle of the snake eating its own tail. A card like, say, Sword of Fire and Ice was a modestly expensive card already back in 2013 priced around the mid-thirty dollar range (according to MTG Goldfish's price chart tracker), then it showed up in the original Modern Masters, was gobbled up immediately and saw a decent ten dollar drop, just to claw its way back up to a near eighty dollar price tag today because the only meaningful reprint for it the past several years was as a Kaladesh Masterpiece. Now, of course, with it's new printing it'll see another precipitous decline in price and people will have the a chance to buy the card at a price probably somewhere around it's 2014 price status after it started to rebound than it's near one hundred dollar price. Yes, this particular card I'm using as an example and those of its ilk will have have had two or three better buy in points to buy in over the past several years due to these Masters printings, but these Masters printings are also only a speed bump on the price of these cards. And I fully believe it's because of that business model that seeks to capitalize on the titular "Whales" of the Magic world that are willing to break the bank on an MTG product if they see a particularly intriguing potential Return on Investment in the contents therein or, especially now, there's a drool-worthy "chase"to be had. 

Force of WillCyclonic Rift (Variant)


Again, I do think Masters sets have most definitely been a force for good within the game, even with the plentiful wailing and gnashing of teeth that always surround them when they are announced. Magic is a special little nerd commodity in how its playability leads to collectibility which keeps the playability going because its fanbase can rest assured that when they spend some money on the game they can probably get a good chunk of that money back out of it if they ever quit or need to divest themselves of some of their collection for whatever reason; an emergency, a vacation, etc. That is why I am all about a reprint model that makes a substantial cut into the price of a card but that doesn't completely decimate it. Look, I'm as liberal a human as they come, I've spent my quarantine teaching myself my own shop lessons on guillotine making and everything, but even I don't think it does the game any good to plummet the value of every card that's like forty bucks to four and make it so Rares are never worth more than a couple ones and your local sales tax. But, that said, I don't think it also does any good to keep some of the most highly sought after cards in Magic locked into a pattern where they never potentially go from that forty dollar price point to anything less than twenty-five each and are stuck there because we perpetually are relying on more "flush" players to keep buying three hundred dollar boxes as Wizards of the Coast keeps dreaming up new equivalents to placing all your casino chips on 00 at the Roulette table and jamming them into packs that create a feeding frenzy for those who get off on the thrill of opening them or are sociopaths whose idea of a good time over a weekend is drowning in pack wrappings and hard sleeves as they flip as much as Simone Biles with a Tony Montana's worth of cocaine in her. 

If this year has shown us anything, y'know, beyond what "creeping authoritarianism" is all about, it's that there are ways to reprint cards in a way that make cards way more affordable, that do so in ways that don't dramatically plummet those values so that people feel like they are out significant amounts of money with that reprint, and that don't rely on people to buy thousand dollar cases and race to the bottom to set a price bottom that maybe lasts a year. Mystery Boosters and Jumpstart were exemplary products that, if not hampered by production issues because of both the pandemic and Wizards of the Coast in general not seeming to understand that folks like products like that with cheaper buy-ins and juicy reprints, would have really hit the spot both from an in-store presence and driving down prices. Sets like Conspiracy and Battlebond in the past showed how well prices can be significantly diminished to good buy-in points by being reprinted in sets like those at prices around the normal four dollars a pack (or seven-ish for something like Mystery Booster) and that those prices will rebound, albeit on a longer timeline given the greater baseline supply of sets like those compared to a Masters set. 

Magic the Gathering Battlebond Booster Box | DA Card World

It really is quite simple, the game is better off when a card goes from forty to fifteen and then back to thirty than when it goes from forty to twenty-five and then back to forty again before the process repeats in both scenarios. People who move cards either for a living through their LGS or as a side hustle through maintaining a rotating inventory on Ebay or what have you will churn through cards just as well as always or have the opportunity to sit on them for a double up, players will have a lower buy-in point on staples, and, most importantly, packs will goddamn sell still. Yes, I'm not naive, I know why Masters sets are still the default, because it costs Wizards just as much to produce a set they will sell at fifteen a pack as it does four dollars a pack. That will always be the primary motivator of decisions Wizards makes and that's how business works. But with so many avenues for revenue when it comes to Magic, leaving the primary means of cheaper cards in the hands of people one person who can buy a three hundred dollar box instead of three people who can buy hundred dollar boxes. I'm a firm believer in "not every product is for everyone" when it comes to MTG, but locking people out of one of the more fun aspects of the game in "cracking packs," especially packs that can be used to balance the secondary market out with valuable reprints, seems like shooting yourself in the foot. 

"Whales" should not be the first line of offense in attacking rising card prices. If you want to "exploit" the more well-to-do players and grab their dollars for pieces of cardboard, there are so many better outlets that Wizards has already developed and will definitely continue to find avenues for exploiting. Secret Lairs, for example, and even Collector's Boosters are probably a fine product to continue with, though even the latter needs a serious revamping because you're trying to entice people to buy two hundred dollar priced, twelve pack boxes for essentially twenty cards in them worth a damn since the foil commons and uncommons mean nothing now and neither do the Showcase C's and U's that bloat the packs. Regardless, Wizards, if you think you need to tout expensive box toppers on top of forty mythics in a set that gives you two rares or mythics per pack to sell the product, then you're really just selling box toppers to people so just mainline that shit. Save the Whales for that kind of product; box toppers, alt art, limited edition box sets, etc etc etc. There's so many ways to get their dollars and give them an item with a unique place in the market to fuel their desire to both feel "special" for owning it and wring their hands in capitalistic glee over the potential returns on their "high rollers club" exotic pieces of official MTG cardboard. 

While Masters sets had their time and place, to the point that Wizards was even going to do away with them for a significant length of time before, well, someone got fidgety about a hole in their printing/revenue schedule, Double Masters should genuinely be one of the few times we ever see this variation of the product, if not the last. We are simply beyond this type of product in the year 2020, between the kinds of set designs Wizards has cooked up in the meantime that both create new cards balanced out with reprints to sell the sets, and just the avenues for reprints in general. Players have been so absolutely ravenous for reprints the past couple years and Wizards is finally getting there, even if Mother Nature said "haha, screw your production schedule" with a killer virus, and while I'm not naive and know the player base is going to bitch, kicking down a price barrier here when you have the chance knowing you can still have your high rollers by their affluent cahones is a PR win at the least and probably healthier for the longevity of the game by taking a hit margin-wise on a set a year but inflating the good will of your player base and keeping them around for a longer run. I know all that sounds like "Marxist hogwash" or whatever the hell you want to label it as, but I can't imagine what short term numbers are lost from the lack of a premium product like a Masters set a year isn't offset by someone staying the in game for an extra three or four because it becomes a bit more affordable and they're buying some Battlebond 2 (please, Wizards, make a goddamn Battlebond 2) with a spare hundred bucks they find instead of just not buying anything Masters because they were priced out. Wizards can have it all and benefit the players as well as long as they plan accordingly and Save the Whales for when they need them the most. 

Thursday, July 16, 2020

Core 2021 Set Analysis: Artifacts and Colorless

Last time! Possibly forever because I think I may have sucked at this! Maybe not but more "will I have time to do this all the time when the world returns to normal???" type thing! Exclamation points!!

Chromatic Orrery

Chromatic Orrery

So, when this card was spoiled I watched Commander-centric forums and content creators go nuts over the thing. "Auto-include in five-color decks!" "What a ramp bomb!!" And I just went... "Huh?" I didn't get it then and I still don't buy it not, figuratively for the card's potential and literally for the price tag of nine buckaroos it currently holds. From the outside this does look like a hell of a card. Mana fixes, could mean huge card advantage if it sticks around a turn or more, almost pays for itself when dropped on the board. And that's what I don't like about it. This is a seven mana card that's all about "could." Yeah, it gets you five back after you pay seven mana for it, but you're still playing five mana spells when everyone is playing their true haymakers in your usual game of Commander. Yeah, it fixes your mana for all your five-color bombs, but Chromatic Lantern does that for four mana less and there's plenty of mana filtering effects out there. And, yes, if you get to actually pay five mana into this and tap it, you could be drawing five cards a turn with your, I dunno, Horde of Notions on the board. Or your board could be extinct and you get nothing. Or this becomes the prime target to become a 3/3 Beast from a Beast Within.  When you're tapping for seven mana you need to be resetting the board in your favor with a Ruinous Ultimatum or a Cyclonic Rift, or dropping something that is designed to get you instant (or near instant) card advantage like a Sepulchral Primordial  Chromatic Orrery is a big, complex wish machine for seven mana; a wish that the five you get back on the spot is good enough to hold your position while everyone else is playing bombs or multiple effects and that it isn't a casualty of any of those shenanigans to MAYBE have a permanent in play that makes the card draw effect of this worthwhile. And, yeah, that's just too much for me to buy into. Not at seven mana, not at eight dollars, probably not even at a cash amount that is anything but less than half that amount. I honestly think this may be the biggest dud in the set and it's not even close, but I could be and have been wrong before. 


Mazemind Tome

Mazemind Tome


Now this card, this I think is low-key real good and could become a sly investment for Standard, if we ever, y'know, see paper tournaments again. This card reminds me a lot of Treasure Map with it's cheap mana investment and incremental card advantage. Now, it doesn't ramp you at the end of the line like Treasure Map did after getting you three Scry's, but Mazemind also doesn't cost a mana a pop to get those Scry's. I can see control shells loving this card, even if all you do with it is Scry four times to make sure you hit land drops or get to a much needed Wrath-effect and then the life game at the end isn't insignificant either. And even late game sinking two excess mana a turn into extra cards to pull ahead can easily be the difference in a game. I dunno, I just feel that this card is so rock bottom right now - basically fifty cents a pop - and Treasure Map in its prime was legitimately pulling nine dollars a copy. I don't think Tome here reaches that kind of heights, but if it gets to even half that you're talking something like $2.50 profit per copy after fees and shipping. I like this as a "penny stock" buy in if you're willing to take the chance that ten bucks gets your forty in a few months when standard rotates and you can get some deck upgrades or what have you with your "flip."


Solemn Simulacrum

Solemn Simulacrum

"Sad Robot" (now turned into "Pointy Robot" here with the new card art) has been such a perennial Commander staple that every year it has seen a reprint in a Commander pre-con deck and every year it has rebounded back to the price it was the year before. But a Core Set reprinting is WAAAAAY different than a forty dollar pre-con deck and it's going to be a curious exercise where this card can get back to, but I'm damn willing to try it. Like I said with Scavenging Ooze when I talked about that in the Green cards section, I like the alternate art version of this card as a sort of "differentiating" hedge on the value of the card, banking that a vastly different art presentation than all the other somber bot versions out there will mean more if/when this card rebounds. In general, though, this is an unbelievable, rock-bottom price at currently a dollar that at the least it should be taken advantage of just to have a plentiful supply in case it gets back to the roughly five(ish) bucks this card usually commands, but even failing that because of such a big supply influx this time around, I feel like it hits three dollars or so and you still save yourself some money. And if you bought in like I did on release weekend when the Alt Art variants were a whole buck-and-a-quarter each, that one will be a huge pile of "fun" to watch, as well as an experiment if alternate and extended art cards do indeed have extra growth potential because of their uniqueness.


Sparkhunter Masticore

Sparkhunter Masticore

The obvious observation from this card is that it's an acknowledgement by Wizards and their design team that "we done @#$%ed up!" when it comes to the power level of Planeswalkers and answering them. And it's, yes, an appreciative nod because they have screwed up and PWs do dominate slower formats like Standard. But old Sparky here I don't think is the answer to the problem, not really at all, even though it does have many much printed text and does a lot of things. The biggest problems with this design, in my humble opinion, is that the discard effect and the cost of the indestructible activation are too expensive. The card has to at least take a Planeswalker and a creature or two of one of those with it in order to make up for the card disadvantage of putting it into play, and because it only pings for one damage at a time or requires you to keep a bunch of mana up to make sure it survives combat and I just don't think you're going to get there, or you're going to cost yourself a lot of tempo in the process. And, hell, it doesn't even do anything about the most burdensome Planeswalkers out there. Like, sure, great, you can drop him after a Teferi, Time Raveler hits and finish him off if you were on the play and they down-ticked him for the tempo advantage. But what does this guy do about Nissa, Who Shakes the World, who throws blockers in front of him for days and requires a minimum six activations once she hits the table and that will probably take two turns to achieve? You're setting yourself behind so much on mana on top of the discard effect to play this guy that, yeah, I just don't buy this as an answer to anything. Maybe it shows up in a SB slot or two here and there but I think it'll see such little play that even at its like, forty cents right now I'm not really buying. 

LAND TIME!!

Animal Sanctuary

Animal Sanctuary


This card is adorable and you should buy every damn copy possible and it has kitties and everything and it'll only go up! Maybe. Probably not. But, hey, cats and dogs are a thing, and even though I think this is a pretty heavy investment resource-wise - the two mana and a tapped land investment that is - just to put a counter on a kitty or doggo, it probably just ends up going in those decks simply because it says "dat" and "dog" on them (and snakes aren't a tribe to sleep on either, honestly). So, sure, considering it's a forty cent card right now, feel free to have at it if you want to, I've spent Magic money on weirder, but I do think there are better penny stocks in this set and would target them first since they'll probably grow quicker than this one.


Fabled Passage

Fabled Passage

One of the most shocking reprints in a set full of a good bit of them, Fabled Passage showing up again so soon after its debut in Thrones of Eldraine just the Fall of last year was a pretty good jolt of surprise. It's also, I believe, a statement that this is the level of Fetchland that Wizards is happy with being in Standard as a color fixer in the format. And that's why, from an investment standpoint, I'm not really in on this little number here. Sure enough, if you need them for decks and want to play with them, buy buy buy, this is the lowest they've been ever and the lowest they will be until they hit reprint again, which I would actually put money down on being this time next year in the next Core Set. But you can now buy a playset of these for the amount of money a single copy would have cost you around last November, so buy the crap out of them if the main reason is to play with them. Speculation-wise, though, I'd put my money any number of other places with this set. 


Enemy Temple Cycle

Temple of Epiphany
























Speaking of places to put your money!!! Yeah, not here. These lands will be a buck fifty forever from now on. The reprints are just that heavy and I also think that Temples, like Fabled Passage above, are probably just the supplement to whatever new hotness dual land Wizards has selling sets in Standard from now until the sun expands and envelopes us all. 


Ugin, the Spirit Dragon

Ugin, the Spirit Dragon

And, lastly, big Ugs is back again, and he's here to probably be infinitely more relevant than he was the first time he showed his big, horned head in Standard. Back in that version of the format, ramp was nowhere near as plentiful as it was, meaning that Ugin was explicitly a top end "game ender" for control decks and that was about it. In today's standard, though, dominated currently by Growth Spiral and Uro currently, and with Cultivate and Solemn Simulacrum coming to make up the difference for the rotating Spiral, it's not going to be uncommon to see this guy hit the table as quick as turn five. In fact, if my experience with Standard on Arena the past week has been any indication, turn six Ugin is what like half the decks in the damn format are aiming for and they will damn well hit it most of the time that ramp is so plentiful. And not just plentiful, but plentiful and with cantrips usually attached to it meaning you'll draw big Ugs just in time to drop it then, interaction from you opponent pending. 

Now, what does that mean for pricing? Well, what it means is that whatever drop you would have expected to see something like this decrease by because of the volume of this reprint I think will be stifled by that play. Before this cards' value was based totally on being a two-of in Modern Tron and EDH demand. Now it's actually going to see play in Standard and I think that'll buoy the drop a bit. Also, as I've said a ton by now, there's the pandemic factor and the concept that we're not going to see this opened much more than it has been by now. I've been watching the prices on this card, and in particular the Alternative art editions since I have a thing of those, and I've seen that the normal version of the cards has slowed its downward trajectory a good bit, the "Showcase" version (which is the art with a translucent border so you see the full art) just finally dropped below thirty dollars and I don't think it's going much more below that, and the Borderless version has basically hit its bottom already at thirty-five. We really are at bottom or getting there for pretty much all copies of this card and I do think this is a case where the alternative arts are going to be crowd pleasers and see a little bit of a quicker rise when this card starts a true rebound due to the niche that they fill. If you are a fan of those art variants, your buy in time is pretty much now as a bottom and you can probably save a couple dollars one normal versions of this card if you want to wait a little longer and get closer to a world where Covid isn't inhibiting LGS play and you can jam them in you little, oh so creative, "Spiral, Uro, Ugin, go" deck, you Simic bully you. 


AND THAT'S IT!! I FINISHED A SET!! AND ONLY HALF THIS WAS PROBABLY ALREADY OUT OF DATE TOWARD HOW THE PRICES FLUXED THE PAST TWO WEEKS!!! LOUD NOISES!!!

Thank you for reading, I may do this again with Jumpstart, except that I don't actually think there's really a lot of financial analysis to be gained with that set because so much will be riding on just when and how much supplemental waves of it will be hitting shelves after the initial shipping and yeah. Magic is just a mess right now, you all. Do with it what you can to enjoy it, lord knows the world is chaotic enough as is out there. Be safe and thanks for reading!




Saturday, July 11, 2020

Core 2021 Set Analysis: Green

LAST COLOR! THANK YOU THE LITERAL TENS OF YOU THAT HAVE READ THIS STUFF SO FAR!! WHY AM I STILL YELLING?!?

Azusa, Lost but Seeking

Azusa, Lost but Seeking


Everyone's favorite legendary creature to dump a hand with and then pray you actually bothered to have a card draw effect to put more ham on the table. This reprint, financially, is a bit of a mess because now Azusa has a good bit of printings going for her and her land slamming, but they are from the following: A set fifteen years old, a Masters set, and a Judge promo. So while she's no longer the forty dollar uber rare she used to be, I still am not quite sure we'll see a bottom on this newest printing sub-five bucks or anything, which would be a real sexy price point. In fact, as I've reiterated a lot doing these pieces, I don't think it's going to be very long before we're at the bottom of this set between Covid shutdowns and the lack of in-store/convention center play and Jumpstart just around the corner to take the hype off this set. Seven dollars may be as cheap we ever see Azusa (until the next reprint, natch) so we're probably already pretty close to "buy her if you want to play" her when it comes to purchasing the card. The extra fifty cents to a buck you could maybe save in like a month if you wait to buy probably isn't worth just not having the card. It'll take a while for this to rebound to anywhere near the, say, mid-teens, but if WotC leaves it alone for a few years after doing three reprints in four years, she will get there. Commander players love slamming lands and she has enough fringe Modern play in Primeval Titan variants to fuel demand on a long enough timeline. 


Elder Gargaroth

Elder Gargaroth

When I saw this card spoiled, the sixteen year old in me that cowered in fear from conversing with girls and just wanted to get home and play Final Fantasy 7 leaped for virginal, ache covered joy. And then he remembered that this is 2020, there's a pandemic about, I have a mortgage now, and a 6/6 creature with SIX FUCKING ABILITIES FOR FIVE MANA!!! isn't particularly great anymore in the game of Magic: The Gathering. Upside to this card, Commander is such a thing now and there's always so many threats on a board there actually is a chance you may get to do something when you drop him on the table. As big a cost-effective body as this guy is he still needs to attack or block before you really get any value out of him and somebody is always pooping big dumb nonsense on the table around turn five, so you have a chance Gargaroth here becomes a low priority and you get a chance to swing with him. So, yeah, this guy is five mana's worth of awesome and I have a newly built "Monster Island" deck I can't wait to get him into, but I don't see the card having any dollar value worth anything outside of Commander play and even then he's too expensive now as any sort of investment at eight bucks. If the bottom completely falls out on this card- and I think it kind of has to given the lack of overall playability - then I love him for a "little kid" rebound at some point, but what remaining Timmy hype is out there will probably keep him at several bucks for a while. I'm basically staying away from this card completely for a long time, outside of the Extended Art copy I got for Monster Island, of course. 


Feline Sovereign

Feline Sovereign


Big ups to whoever designed this latest addition to Magic's best tribe, from the proper amount of feline eminence depicted on the card, to the "fuck yo stuff!" nod to the cat's ability to destroy your artifacts shown on the art. This card is on point and a welcome addition to cat tribal. It's also already fifty cents, so that's a default "just buy a bunch and throw them in a box somewhere" signal there. Cats are popular enough that even Prowling Serpopard is a freaking five dollar card these days, and as cool as uncountable kitties are, Sovereign here does so much more in a cat tribal deck. You could say it's the Purrf.... y'know what. Not doing that. Moving on.


Garruk, Unleashed

Garruk, Unleashed


Not only do I not think highly of any of the new Planeswalkers in Core 2021 that aren't Teferi, Master of Time, but I think this particular version of Garruk is one of the most boring versions of him ever. Not even just talking for Commander purposes, where as I've said many times by now, PW's are already somewhere iffy plays, but even for constructed play a four-mana Planeswalker that giant growths and makes a beast or two before getting put down is just not where I want to be in the slightest. Sure, the ultimate is game breaking so the old disclaimer of "this plus Doubling Season means I win!!!" holds true since Garruk, Unleashed can ultimate on the spot in that scenario, but that's about the only deck-type I see anyone playing M21 Garruk on a Commander board. 


Heroic Intervention

Heroic Intervention


This card is like Garruk, Unleashed in that he's "no-fuss-no-muss" analysis, but in the complete opposite direction. Heroic Intervention is a Commander stud and this reprint is both much needed and also just a speed bump in its growth. All that needs to be said about this is the standard: "Wait until it bottoms out and then buy the unholy hell out of it." I'm not sure where that bottom will be, it's already pushing toward five bucks so I feel like four(ish) is the mark, so when that curve hits around there, buy the hell out of this. I'll probably be in for a couple playsets myself, just to have all my deck building bases covered because I'm a sad, lonely man with more decks than sense. 


Jolrael, Mwonvuli Recluse

Jolrael, Mwonvuli Recluse

From what I have seen between streamers playing Arena standard and pro players commentary on social media, Jolrael here is the breakout card of Core 2021. Not necessarily value wise because she's only about a dollar fifty in value (though, to be fair, that's about triple her initial price last weekend) but as far as love of her for constructed she was pretty much the talk of the town this past week, despite little fanfare around her during spoiler season. Hindsight being what it it is, I don't know how the power of this card couldn't have been more obvious. You think about what players are doing in any constructed format and it's what players are always trying to do in any format, draw cards, which is Jolrael's jam. Standard is absolutely flooded with value cards tied into card draw right now with Growth Spiral, Hydroid Krasis, Uro, etc etc still dominating the field, at least until September rotation. But even without those Ravnica staples going away, something will fill the void and it's not like formats below Standard will be without stuff that can easily trigger Jolrael for huge value for a low cost. Given the print run of something like a Core Set it's not like this, as a rare, is going to get astronomical, but if Jolrael is indeed a multi-format all-star there could be some value here financially. Even as a legend you want this affect down as soon as possible so she's probably going to be a three-of, maybe even the full boat given her fragile power/toughness combo, so if "Jolrael plus Serum Visions or Brainstorm" becomes a hot commodity in those Eternal formats, I could see this getting there. It's a sketchy proposition now given she's up a buck to $1.50 than she was a week ago at a whole fifty cents a pop, but five dollars isn't unreasonable for something that has legs all the way down to potentially Legacy. 


Llanowar Visionary

Llanowar Visionary

Elvish Visionary and a Llanowar Elf got all "white girl wasted" on elven wine and made a baby that they'll have to live with for centuries because of their ageless nature and lack of access to contraceptives out there in the forest and I love it. There's no value to be had here, but even as simple a design as this card is, I find it amusing and am glad it exists. 


Scavenging Ooze

Scavenging Ooze

Like Heroic Intervention and Azusa above, this is yet another stud Commander reprint that both bottoms out the price and makes the future rebound nebulous. Heroic Intervention at least is an easy call on its potential upswing because it's got half the printings that Ooze and Azusa now do, but ScOoze is that damn good and will definitely recover some; plus being Pioneer playable now should help as a key graveyard hoser in the format. I personally am buying the alternate art because, well, I love it, but also if there's any gain to be had on a card like this it's in something that differentiates it, as this art style does. It's not much but any little edge helps.


Aaaaaand that's the colors of for this Core Set in the bag. I'll do Artifacts, lands, etc sometime over the weekend and, yeah, this has been a thing. Much obliged to anyone who checked this out and hopefully there was some useful info therein. Cheers!

Wednesday, July 8, 2020

Core Set 2021 Analysis: Black & Red

LET'S DO THIS AGAIN AND KEEP WORKING ON SUCKING LESS AT IT!!! TWO COLORS TODAY BECAUSE BOTH WERE KIND OF "EH"AND DIDN'T HAVE A LOT I THOUGHT WERE WORTH WRITING ABOUT!! WHY AM I YELLING?!?!?!?


Archfiend's Vessel

Archfiend's Vessel

Honestly, I just think this card is fun. It almost makes me want to play Eternal Constructed formats just so I could go something like, T1 Stitcher's Supplies, T2 Unearth this, die to a Fatal Push anyway, but regardless, that just seems neat. That kind of play line makes me feel like this sees some play in formats like Legacy and Modern, but obviously it's Commander play is going to be nil. Again though, neat card is neat, it could end up being a thing, maybe foils aren't a terrible idea if like penny stocking things in case that kind of deck build goes off somewhere. 


Grim Tutor

Grim Tutor


Alright alright alright. This is a spicy meatball. Down a whopping 90% from it's price tag of $200ish dollars before this reprint was even announced, Grim Tutor was an exercise in just what two decades of scarcity could do to a card. And now that it's here the main questions about it are how much do people even want this card and where does it go from here? The answer to that, I think, relies a bunch on just what people want this for and how much they want it to that end. Obviously, that's how, y'know, every goddamn card works and I just spouted Econ 101 gibberish there. 

But here's what I actually mean by that line of "well, duh,": When I see people talk about this card they seem to always be calling it the "cheap alternative to Demonic Tutor,' a card that, even after several reprints in the past couple years usually runs you about thirty dollars for a copy and is one of the most played cards in all of Commander because of how simplistically powerful it is. Pay 1B and go get anything you need. Simple and one of the most effective things you can be doing. And now Grim Tutor is here and does the same thing, albeit for one more mana and a three life investment, which means nothing in a format where you start the game at forty life instead of twenty. And financially it's half the price of Demonic Tutor and so fresh on the market in a big set as a reprint it should only go down from here so, yes, it is definitely more budget friendly alternative to its Demonic big brother. The thing of it is, though, and this is how I think of this card now that it's fresh with a reprint and greater level of affordability, I don't consider it a "bargain Demonic Tutor," which goes in every single Commander deck I own that has Black in it, I think of it as a "super bargain Vampiric Tutor," which also would go in every single Commander deck I own with black in it because I like to have redundancy in my decks, except Vampiric Tutor now pushes a hundred dollars each. 

I think that's the real future rub of this card here. For sure there will be a good bit of demand for it because it is a worse Demonic Tutor but for currently half the price, and I think that demand will stop it from going below a price range somewhere in the teens. But, the future of the card I think lays in the hands of people who want their deck to have a little more power and flexibility to it and want this card because it's eight-five dollars cheaper than Vampiric Tutor and they don't mind paying twenty bucks more than a copy of Diabolic Tutor for the upgrade. I know those people exist, they flat out do because I'm one of them and have a lot of common consensus to this line of deck building logic in my playgroup, but are there enough of us out there that Grim Tutor here hits, say, thirteen dollars and then goes back up to thirty and matches Demonic Tutor in price? No bloody clue there, mate, sorry. I feel like this card gets you back something like ten dollars a copy if you buy at the bottom and I really don't know where that bottom is but I think I'm close with saying low teens. In the COVID-19 era of MTG, "peak supply" is like barely a month from release if Ikoria's curve is any indicator and especially with Jumpstart nipping at the heels of Core 2021 here to quickly absorb any remaining hype for this set. So, yeah, long way around, I think "buy at $12ish and watch it double up" is the most likely line for this card, and I also think that the Alternate art foils are going to age fantastically no matter what, but they're already fifty-six and I don't see them dropping too much more either. 


Massacre Wurm

Massacre Wurm

Whew, okay. That last one was a train of thought with probably a car too many, so I'll keep this one simply: Massacre Wurm is a Commander stud, it's already sub-five dollars, just buy them all. Obviously, it's probably got a little more to drop since it's so fresh, but like I said in that last heaping bowl of word soup, peak supply in the pandemic and "let's put out a set every other goddamn month" eras of Magic is, like, three weeks from now, so don't wait too long. I also really like the Alt Arts of this card, they look fantastic and aren't too far behind the pack art in price, and foils should be sub-ten dollars soon. I don't think you could go wrong with any version of this card but I just happen to like Alternative versions of cards a little more now that reprints are a little more plentiful in Magic; I personally think it helps cards stick out as special going forward. But that's just me, buy what you will and I don't think you lose in the next couple years. 


Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose

Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose

The first vampire in Magic's history hailing from Jersey, this blood-and-marinara loving vamp will be an instant-hit for that tribe given that he's one of the most popular Commander cards in the color black, Sanguine Bond, on a body. He's an instant include in vampire tribal decks and anything that does have a life gain them and packs a solid amount of creatures to benefit from his lifelink-gaining ability. That said, that's what he is, a rare that will be a a welcome addition to a tribal deck - but not always a showpiece, since Edgar Markov builds still mostly win by overwhelming the board - and a Oloro-like decks and I don't know if that will be enough universality to get him to where Sanguine Bond was in its heyday, which was about ten bucks before it got hit with something like three reprints in the past four years. He's three dollars already and I'm sure the players of decks I mentioned above are already rushing to get him now, maybe he drops another dollar and then starts to rise again. If he doesn't see a reprint in four years like it took Sanguine Bond, I could see him getting back up to something like triple the bottom, so like five or six dollars. 


RED CARDS!!

Brash Taunter

Brash Taunter


So, this guy. This guy is adorable. I mean he's hideous, like myself he's got a face only a mother could love, but I think the idea of a Stuffy Doll that forces a fight with another creature is great. Sir Stuffs-a-lot is expensive but I think he warrants a slot in both decks that would want another Stuffy Doll - since this is an effect we don't see often and redundancy is king in Commander - and Goblin decks will find a place for him. That fight ability could easily end games that are starting to stalemate a bit, making the biggest threat on the board fight this guy and sending five or six or more damage back at its owner and then letting your goblin swarm dismantle the rest of their life total (or vice versa with Taunter dealing the finishing blow). Now, I don't know if that means this guy will be worth month; Stuffy Doll has only two printings and is worth a whole five bucks, but the Goblin type could mean something. Regardless, I just think this guy is fun and he's bargain basement right now on pricing; maybe he gets up to a couple dollars at some point. 


Chandra, Heart of Fire

Chandra, Heart of Fire


Moarrrrrr Chandras! Again, four colors in, I'll reiterate that outside of Teferi, Master of Time, I just don't really see the Planeswalkers of Core 2021 doing much of anything. Chandra here is nice, she does what a Chandra does and gives you some of red's patented "exile off the top" based card draw and the "ultimate" may be game ending - at the least you're grabbing an Insurrection, maybe there's a combo of cards I'm not thinking of that just blows the table apart - but the middle ability is pretty much useless in Commander outside of picking off stray utility critters like Oracle of Mul Daya so, yeah, she exists basically. I don't really think she does anywhere in constructed formats either; five mana is too expensive to then not really get to take advantage of that first plus-1 and I don't think a Shock as the other really gets you there or manages the board at all. This will probably just languish around as a four dollar Planeswalker like pretty much all Chandra's not Torch of Defiance have over the years. 


Chandra's Incinerator

Chandra's Incinerator


Now this, this is a card with Chandra's name on it that I can see doing thing. Obviously, the hype factor for this card is for Eternal constructed formats where this damned beast of a card could easily hit the table for half (or less!) it's printed cost thanks to some direct damage to the dome. But this could easily have an place in Commander too, as the bottom ability that spreads the love around could really mess up a board. Play Incinerator here, do some Earthquaking for five and wipe most of the board, then you get a good lump of damage to spread around to anything that survived. Commander definitely isn't the primary format it'll slot in for sure, this cards is definitely bent toward being pushed in Constructed, but a little nudge from that format could go a long way. As is, the card is a buck right now, I can think of way worse things to be buying than something that could wreck up Modern and Pioneer once the apocalypse is over and people are huddling in convention centers across 'Murica to shuffle up. 


Conspicuous Snoop

Conspicuous Snoop

Just a quickie because obviously there's hype around this for Modern; I think the card is neat, I'm not sure that deck goes anywhere in even Modern honestly. I think the question is how resilient the deck is if Snoop here dies because he's as fragile as pretty much anything can be in that format between Path, Push, and Bolt. I mean, it's a great little combo for sure - and if you don't know, basically the combo is Boggart Harbinger puts Kiki-jiki on the top of your library, Snoop copies Kiki's ability, and then you just make a bunch of tokens and pop them at your opponent in some way, like with Sling-gang Lieutenant - and you can win on turn three. But, like I said, that combo seems like a hell of a glass cannon in a format like Modern packing the kind of removal it does, but if Snoop can fit a goblin shell that can win on Aggro alone and the combo is a bonus, then more power to it. As is, I just want to thank it for making me an extra hundred bucks flipping Harbinger's while hype for this deck type is maxed. 


Double Vision

Double Vision

One thing that Commander players love to do is double crap. Double mana, double counters, double tokens, and especially doubling spells. Double Vision is a bit of an investment, though, because you are essentially taking a turn off at the point where the average game is getting pretty fierce and you're hoping to untap and take the game over an extra spell a turn from then on. If you do you just might too. Untap, double up a Time Warp, use those two turns to set up another extra turn spell; maybe you get something to put Temporal Mastery on top and really go wild. That's kind of the chain you need to run with this because it's not like a Thousand-Year Storm where you untap with it and more or less win the game, but it's a tried and true line in spell-slinger Commander for sure. Copies of these are already basically seventy cents each if you buy enough of them and there's plenty of them out there. It'll take while but this should be worth a mass pick up for sure. 


Fiery Emancipation 

Fiery Emancipation

So you think doubling stuff is erotic as hell in Commander, have you ever tried tripling? You may as well break out the wet wipes, this is basically an orgasm on a card. It is also, IMO, just cheap and easy design by WotC as they continue to try to cash in and pander to Commander popularity and makes me worry about the future of the format if they have to keep resorting to this gimmick, as this card and Nyxbloom Ancient would lead me to believe they will continue to do in the future. But here we are and this effect is probably as powerful as we all expect it to be. Tripling mana is one thing, if you drop your Nyxbloom as soon as you can at least there's a turn for it to die before it just gives you all the tools you need to win the game. Fiery Emancipation means that if you already have a well setup board state going, you probably just kill a player on the spot. Now, of course, that puts a HUGE target on your back so when you take aim with this doozy you best not miss, but you're packing a howitzer with this card, so yeah. That power comes with a price though, and right now this is sitting at eight bucks each if you buy them bulky enough to get a good shipping discount. I honestly don't know how much lower it'll go even if things are just getting opened. Nyxbloom Ancient went to about half it's release price (from twenty down to ten) within a month of release and has done nothing but go back up to that original mark of twenty bones in the past six months. I think that's what happens here too. This was about twelve dollars going into the weekend, so I think you have three more weeks to wait it down to six dollars, buy all that you can handle, and it'll be back over ten by the time 2021 actually rolls around, provided we aren't all dead by then. Maybe if we're lucky it's just, y'know, work camps run by Amazon or whatever as we become a fascist failed state and we're lucky to have guards that benevolently let us sneak in cardboard game pieces. 

Well, on that bright and cheery note, I'll call this one done and come back in a day or two with Green and yeah. Stay safe out there everyone!

Monday, July 6, 2020

Core Set 2021 Set Analysis: Blue

Alrighty then, let's continue this exercise in "what the hell am I doing" and talk about some Blue cards from Magic: the Gathering's newest set, Core Set 2021. Like last time, I'm just going to talk about stuff that I think could/should affect Commander (because it's the only format I play besides Arena limited drafts) and ones I think could mean something value wise (most likely because they could mean something to Commander, the #MTGFinance gift that keeps on giving). And on to the (probably excessively verbose) show!


Discontinuity

Discontinuity

Never in all of my games of Commander have I ever wished I had a Time Stop, but a couple times I've lamented not drawing my Sundial of the Infinite because I'm playing something that temporarily steals a creature/permanent on my turn and don't want to give it back, or I'm trying to avoid some other sort of "End of Turn" trigger. That is very much a fun and interesting deck-build and more effects like the Sundial are always welcome. But, is another one of them enough to make it fully a thing people want to do more often? It kind of has to be because Time Stop on its own isn't exactly an effect people are gagging for more of if you look at both its price and EDHRec registry. So, nah, I'm not buying this in Commander, at least not anytime soon because I think we need to see this effect on 2-3 more cards before players start buying into it as an actual archetype you can play and loop, but I do wonder if the's world where this essentially becomes Nexus of Fate in a world where people are both playing physical Magic again and Pioneer as a format actually bothers to have the (much needed) bans it has to have to get out of the rut it occupies. This is already down to $3ish, if you're feeling frisky to either of those scenarios I think you'll be able to buy these for, like, $1.50 a pop in no time, but I think you'll have to wait quite a bit for either of those realities to come to fruition, if they ever do. 


Shacklegeist

Shacklegeist

I only want to talk about this card because Spirits was the only Modern deck I ever owned back when it was actually somewhat viable as a "50/50" against most decks in the format with good Sideboard options and there's a solid shell for them in Pioneer as well. But also to note that even if that deck finds viability in both formats again once constructed Magic is back to being a thing again, that key pieces of it were always dirt cheap. Rattlechains was like a buck before its announced Jumpstart reprint and it's clutch for the deck in both formats. So, yeah, there's probably no future for this card money wise but I do hope it helps revitalize that tribe in competitive formats; the tapping ability it adds to the mix of a deck that was very much "kill you out of nowhere" with its tempo plays should give it some mojo working again I would hope.


Stormwing Entity

Stormwing Entity


Holy crap, a second card in a row I want to talk about not for Commander purposes because Stormwing Entity's chances for that format are about as good as getting the 'Rona in a Florida restaurant (sorry if the truth hurts) but I do think this card is a hoss. But this 3/3 Flyer for almost always 1U seems like a damn behemoth in multiple Eternal formats. I've been messing around with it in an Izzet shell in Arena Standard to get daily wins when I need them and it's already a wrecking ball there - even if the deck overall is just a pretty okay "blitzkrieg" thing that gets me a win 60% of the time in Best-of-1's - and as pushed as Standard has been in recent years it still has nothing on the level of cards like Lightning Bolt, Brainstorm, Manamorphose, et al like Legacy and Modern have. Storming Entity is already a fifty-cent card as everyone races to the bottom with this set release; I feel like it's a very nice "penny stock" if you want to put $10 into a half dozen playsets that could easily become three-to-four times that if we get back to a world where really good tempo beaters can rip through a constructed format. 


Sublime Epiphany

Sublime Epiphany


Modular spells are great. A lot of the hands down best cards printed in Magic the past several years have earned a high play rate because of their multi-functionality. The "Commands" from Dragons of Tarkir, Collective Brutality, Abrade, etc etc. If you slap a lot of quality options on a card at a cheap to at least modest cost, chances are it's going to see play in a format somewhere. Six-mana for Sublime Epiphany here is neither of those. There are a lot of great options here on Sublime Ephiphany, don't get me wrong, but six mana for them even in a "long game format" like Commander is a big time investment. I have a few decks with several counter spells in them and, to start, the cheaper the better has always proven itself to be true so that you have options open besides just holding mana up for a counter spell and, next up, the first tier of counters you absolutely want to be playing - Counterspell, Mana Drain, Fierce Guardianship, etc - all seem pretty locked in for being what they are, and its rare I ever find myself playing more than, say, eightish counter spells in a deck so that I have room for the real meat of the build. I'm just not sure I'm buying into the playability of this card, I think you're still better off with your counter spells topping off at two modes from Cryptic Command for 2 mana less or getting three of Mystic Confluence's abilities for one less, especially because I doubt you're ever pulling off the pentfecta (is that a word?) with all of Sublime Ephiphany's modes because I don't think it's going to come up that many times you're able to both counter a spell and a trigger at the same time while racking up the other three modes, which are pretty well locked in as definite hits. Obviously, I'm staying away from this investment wise as well, unless it sinks sub a buck at peak supply and I'm feeling frisky. 


Teferi, Master of Time

Teferi, Master of Time


The face of Core 2021 and, honestly, the face of Magic pretty much since he phased back into our hearts and minds with his standard dominating 3UW version in Dominaria, Teferi has his third, non-Planeswalker deck card since his return. And it's a damn doozy, because of course it is, all Teferi knows how to do is make waves (hah! Get it?? Card art pun!). Obviously the big hype around Mr. T this time is his being the first Planeswalker ever to be able to active his loyalty abilities on EACH turn, meaning that he scales with the amount of players at the table and, therefore, is pretty much the first Planeswalker not one of the ten previously printed Planeswalkers you can play as your General in Commander to be more or less designed to be better in Commander than in Constructed. Especially when you really look at the card, because his +1 and -3 abilities are really just kind of okay. The card draw only breaks you even since it's a "looting" effect and Teferi using phasing to remove a threat, while deliciously on brand for Magic's Idris Elba stand-in, also doesn't really net you any advantage on the board beyond saving you some damage or saving Teferi himself from an attack. But, being able to grind through all of those several times as the board passes can net you such incremental advantages that before you know it, if left untouched, someone is using that -10 to do the real broken stuff at the heart of the deck.

Now, that said, money wise I don't think there's any good news about this guy outside of selling him absolutely now if you opened one this past weekend with set release. The card is good but I don't think he'll do anywhere near the dominating his Hero of Dominaria and Time Raveler versions did on Standard the past few years and, as I said before, him not really gaining you an advantage like those two variants did probably removes him from any serious Eternal play. So, all his value hinges on his Commander playability, which is high!, but since he's just a part of the 99 and you can't really build around landing him every game like you would his Temporal Archmage version from several years ago. Between that and the goddamn twenty thousand art versions this card has via the Collector Boosters for Core 2021, I think the future of this card is an absolute nebulous mess outside of "you can probably buy it for a good ten bucks cheaper than it is now if you have the patience" because I don't think it'll have anywhere near the legs of his more powerful predecessors. Long run, maybe, I dunno; like I said it's kind of hard to gauge because Planeswalkers in general are so much more fragile in Commander than anywhere else. If anything, I think I like Teferi's affect on other cards more than anything, as his plus one means a ton more when you're, say, doing it twice every single turn with his own Oath (which is sub a buck right now) and means you can hit is ultimate in just one pass of the table and the next and final card I'm about to talk about today, Teferi's Ageless Insight, which means that instead of looting with Teferi every turn you're netting a card each time. I like these cheap effects way more in the wake of Teferi and the potential that Teferi's "every turn" shenanigans could come out again on future Planeswalkers if WotC is feeling frisky about selling some packs.


Teferi's Ageless Insight
 
Teferi's Ageless Insight


Okay, so this card, this card I absolutely love. This ability seems so innocuous but it adds up so quickly. Yes, it's just one half of Alhammaret's Archive - a card in 10,000+ decks and that was $20 before a Mystery Booster reprint - for one less mana, but that ability is what people really play Archive for, even if life gain is a thing in some circles and generals. And it's not like being color locked is a huge downside either; Blue is the color you're trying to take advantage of this card in to begin with, making your Stroke of Geniuses or Pull From Tomorrows double up on the X, or gaining every bit of extra advantage with wedge generals containing Blue like Gavi, Nest Warden gain just that much more damn value. Yes, it's in a Standard set so a ton of these are going to be opened, but a ton of Guardian Projects were opened too and it's a $6 staple already in these pandemic times. Now, the actual buy in on this card will be a little wonky and you'll have to watch out. I bought a ton this past weekend as they were a whole sixty cents each in the initial feeding frenzy but they've doubled since then. As a rare though, you should have time to see it dip below a buck again but I think you'll have to pay close attention because once it's there it'll probably get pounced on and never be cheaper than $1.50 again and just keep moving upward and onward. You may have to settle at a buck a copy being the best deal you see on these even from now on, but even if that's the case I think you're looking at a solid triple or quadruple up even from that point if you missed the absolute basement. Everything is so damn weird right now in this Covid-era of Magic in general it's hard to tell but I think it's pretty clear this card will be a gainer. 


YEEHAW!! That's another color down. I may not suck at this (I totally do) but at least they're flowing pretty freely. Another color in a couple days. Thanks for reading. Cheers...

Saturday, July 4, 2020

Core Set 2021 Set Analysis: White

So, I want to start this off immediately with some pretty standard disclaimers and pieces of "common knowledge." One, I've never bloody well done anything like this but figured it was something that could be fun and it was time to try it out. What the hell, right? I've played the game for over two decades and have made it a side business to churn Magic cards on a TCG store so that the hobby (mostly) pays for itself to the extent that I play and collect it So, yeah, let's do a couple thousand words talking about this new set, Core Set 2021, to both those ends that I interact with them: from a Commander standpoint and from a bit of a financial standpoint. That makes one disclaimer being, "hey, I'm new at this, please be gentle" but the other is, of course, who the hell knows what is actually going on with Magic these days, right? Magic in general is already with whole kind of weird and unwieldy thing with how collectible it is and valuable cards have become, especially in the past couple years and even months. And now we're in a pandemic that has shut down major tournaments, leaving marketplaces erratic when it comes to supply and even the idea of PHYSICALLY PLAYING Magic an actual cringe inducing thought. On top of that, Wizards of the Coast is trying its damndest to milk as much as they can out of booster sales these days with specialty arts, frame variants, foil heavy "collector boosters," and even selling singles directly to consumers now with Secret Lairs. So that other disclaimer is, even if I were an experienced writer at this and with all these waves upon waves of... just, man, let's just say there's a lot of shenanigans going on with Magic these days so I'm just doing what I can here given my experience with the game an a pretty successful side hustle moving cards to keep my decks full of new hotness and my binders fully of staples that grow and feed the beast. 

Anyway, yeah, let's do this and have some "fun" shall we, he says, famous last wordsing it. 

I think what I'm going to do here is just kind of go down the line, color by color, and do every card that I figure people already have or should have an interest in for Commander and whether I agree with that summation or not and then a quick financial touch up if it deserves it, and then grab anything else that is out there that probably means something financially. So, at the top we have

White Cards!

Angelic Ascension

Angelic Ascension

Do you like exiling your opponents' creatures with Path to Exile but hate giving them a land in return? Want to get a general (or an annoying Planeswalker) off the board but get the liquid shits at the idea of them immediately getting back half the mana they'll need to "tax" it back into play? Well here comes's Angelic Ascension, here to say "screw that land, give your opponent a 4/4 flying body that will take ten attacks to kill you anyway." Here's the thing, I'm not exactly sure how I feel about all that myself, mainly because the trade-offs leave me indifferent to the idea of changing the Paths I already have in something like seven decks of mine to this thing. I do think a body is a lot more innocent than a land, but an extra mana in the cost also is a chore. Leaving up one more mana can be a big deal in a tight mana turn if you're trying to establish yourself around that crucial five, six, seven mana spot when spells get bigger and badder. Sure, Angelic Ascension gets Planeswalkers too, but they mean so much less in Commander and for another mana you get something like Generous Gift that hits EVERYTHING for added versatility, even if the target doesn't get exiled. So, long way around, I think this is a good card, I could easily see myself running it in some decks; I could also see my apathy toward making the change leaving it so I don't change anything at all. It exists and if you think you actively like it as a replacement for Path, or as an extra "fuck yo guys" addition to the Plow/Path combo, do it to it, I'm not your dad (maybe). I'll be buying sets of them, myself, as a cheap "just in case."

Financial advice wise, there is none, it's a goddamn uncommon. Generous Gift is in near twenty THOUSAND (!!!) deck lists on EDHRec and is still like $2.50. Foils of this are like seventy five cents currently. Grab a dozen for ten bucks (foils I say because the normal version of this will probably just be in every Commander Precon with white in it from here until the Earth catches fire and humans go extinct) and see what happens. That's where I am with this card.

Yeah baby! One card in and I'm already at a few hundred words! Let's light this candle!


Baneslayer Angel

Baneslayer Angel

Yeah, this thing. I have this Bant "Holy War" deck that is heavily Angels and taxation effects in which this lovely 5/5 behemoth takes a place in the ranks. She's okay. She's great to tilt the Kaalia player at the table but otherwise, eh. And that's just the place Magic is in right now. Everything she brings to the table for 3WW doesn't mean what it used to back when the Slayer of Banes (RIP Jeep Swenson) dominated standard for fifty bucks a pop. She's literally 1/20th that price these days and I don't think that's particularly wrong or will change anytime soon. The game has just accelerated that much in power level since then, as I'll talk about more when I get to green and Elder Gargaroth. But, hey, she's still a classic for anything Angel-based so grab her if you never wanted to pay a ten spot for her before and want to save a buck or two as she slooooooowly creeps back up. 


Basri Ket 

Basri Ket

Planewalkers, bleh, amiright? They're creeping annoyingly to "skew almost every goddamn game" in standard but yet barely mean anything in Commander. And I don't think this guy will mean anything in either format and then some. A counter for an uptick is pretty bleh in any format and the minus-2 especially means nothing in Commander, as I don't think I've ever seen anything outside of my Elf deck that I never play go wide with anything BUT creature tokens, meaning that minus-2 won't generate anything. And that ultimate is the weakest sauce I've tasted in ages. Basri is the fresh face on the block in the White Planeswalker void left behind from Gideon's passing, but I think he's rotten in pretty much every aspect from value to playability. 


Containment Priest

Containment Priest (Alternate Art), Magic, Core Set 2021

A great addition to every constructed format this card is now playable in, but also reprinted to the point that even with that uptick in usage as a "cheat into play" hoser in formats like Modern, I can't see this going anywhere money-wise with one possible exception. The Alt-arts (pictured above) are a fat dollar as I type this and that could be something down the road. At least it makes that version stand out and if there's any upward trend on the card I could see that meaning something, even if WotC keeps churning out reprints of the original and the usual, well-known art. 


Mangara, the Diplomat

Mangara, the Diplomat

This guy. The literal yet not "Great White Hope" when it comes to that color seeing any semblance of card draw in the game of Magic. And I really like the design, as a starter. I think white being the color that kind of keeps people in check and gets rewarded for it, buuuuuuut the downside to that is you're hoping people think your cards are better than what they're doing. In mono-white, that's simply laughable most of the time, and I've tried me some mono-white before. Unless the threat is that you're drawing an extra half dozen Wrath-effects with those cards, your opponents are just going to not attack you until they know they can lethal you with their swing and not give you anything anyway. And chances are, if someone has something just THAT good to be doing they want to give you a card for casting a second spell in a turn, then it probably is that good. Mangara is good starter, as I said, but as the commander in a deck... nah. White just doesn't have that much mojo working for it yet. Mangara will be a great accessory in many decks, especially those controlish in nature, living up to his Diplomat title, but white as a whole needs something a little more revolutionary to get caught up with the other colors and their own brands of card advantage. He's seven bucks as I type this and, eh, that seems fair if you absolutely want to get on the white hype train, but I think in a few weeks you can grab this card when it's  four dollars or so due to a little more flushness in supply and start adding him alongside stuff like Smothering Tithe as another turn around card for white as a color in Commander. He'll go up in price but I don't think he's going to the moon in either value or playability, despite the hype, unless the card goes just that long without seeing a reprint. 


Pack Leader

Pack Leader

Speaking of revolutions, the Magic community would have you believe there's some great uprising going on here in the realm of domesticated animals put to cardboard. That now that they are getting some attention as a creature type, people are saying doggies are going to come and take the throne as "best bois" from the true kings of all they survey, cats. And those people are wrong. Bloody goddamn wrong, in both cardboard doggos and cats and real life doggos and cats. And believe me, I have both doggos and cats living in my house right now and our doggo, Cameron, is seventy pounds of big dumb lovability and I would shank goddamn anyone for him. But my ten pounds of feline princess, Selina, I would end worlds for, and she would remain indifferent to the whole ordeal, which is why I love her so despite being so beneath her. Her quiet loyalty is infinitely more endearing in how much she tries to NOT exude it, but I see through her act. 

And in the aspect of Magic: the Gathering, dog cards are currently like the coiled poops they leave in the yard and not even worth comparing to where cats are as a tribe in the game. Hell, I made a cat deck several years ago to try and lure my wife into playing the game and cats as a creature type were absolute litter box filler back then, and they still were superior to what dogs as a type are currently packing, even with the mass errata of making all Hounds printed over the years into Dogs. Pack Leader here is a great start to the money-printing shift that is WotC realizing cats are popular AF and there's next to no dogs, so let's make some adorable mutts and get softies like myself buying them. But the tribe has a LOOOOONG way to go on the whole. Cats as a tribe just became playable-to-good in the past three years after a dedicated effort to it via the Commander 2017 precons and Amonkhet had some purrfect (sorry) additions as well; so it's going to take a while for these good bois to get to their level. 

This is a good start though, as a "Lord" for dogs with a very relevant ability as more dogs (and assumably more lords for dogs) start arriving and you start combining them with the usual suspects of cards like, say, Vanquisher's Banner that pump your team, give you card advantage, etc. Buy a boatload of these for forty cents each, pat them on their heads for being the good puppers they are, and then shove them in a box for like four years and you'll probably have a couple dollars profit per copy on your hands. It's not a giant windfall but it's an easy "set-it-and-forget-it" gain with minimal investment. Who's an easy gain with minimal investment?!? That's right, you are! Such a good boy, here's a treat!


So, alright, that wasn't too terrible, I think. I've written shorter articles before that took a larger time investment while writing about other subjects, so at least this came kind of easy. I'll get back in a couple days with Blue and then if I don't hate myself too much for how I'm pulling off this exercise, I'll keep going with a new color every couple of days after. Thanks for stopping by! Cheers...