The problem with speccing in cheap cards is also that even if it goes up, you profit a lot %-wise but little $-wise. $1 increase isn't really worth your time to order and ship stuff.
Well not always, when I was playing competitively Bloodmoon was literally .50-$1, Glimpse of Nature was .35, Kiki-Jiki was $1 and Wastelands were $7-$10 granted this was almost a decade ago but price increases typically takes time.
The problem with speccing in cheap cards is also that even if it goes up, you profit a lot %-wise but little $-wise. $1 increase isn't really worth your time to order and ship stuff.
Well not always, when I was playing competitively Bloodmoon was literally .50-$1, Glimpse of Nature was .35, Kiki-Jiki was $1 and Wastelands were $7-$10 granted this was almost a decade ago but price increases typically takes time.
I would invest in Captain's Claws. It's actually pretty scary, especially with the newly spoiled Topplegeist, not to mention other potential evasive creatures in SoI, which there were a lot in the original Innistrad. In a slightly more expensive speculative pick Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet is going to be really, really good with vampire and zombie support in Innistrad. Pick up your copies now.
Lot of people are on the Captain's Claw train, but I fail to see the allure. 1/1 non-evasive tokens are pretty borderline, when the first costs 3 mana even in the ideal situation. Also the +1/+0 bonus is not relevant enough for the cost unless x/2 is the new basic stat for toughness.
Just consider that to get your manas worth you have to get in three times before the card starts to be enough above the curve to be really interesting. But if you know you will get three hits in, shouldn't you be playing something that has the opponet halfway dead by then?
The ideal normal scenario is to play a guy on turn two, Claws and equip on turn three getting the first token. SO far 3 mana and a card for 1/1 and one damage.
Turn three you have three mana and a card for 2 damage and two tokens. Decent card by this point.
Turn four you have three tokens and three damage from the equipment. Now you are at Spectral Procession level but which can be played at any color altouh you need some creatures to equip.
The fail state is that you play and equip a creature which gets blocked or even worse removed before you attack. In this case your best outcome is to give another creature +1/0 and maybe get one token when you attack. This is not worth 3 to 4 mana and a card.
Naturally if you are playing an ally-deck all these go out of the window, as triggering all your allies when you attack is a real deal and easily worth three mana. The real issue is that it competes with Retreat to Emeria which is bit more versatile. Unfortunately I doubt that we will get more allies in the next few sets, so unless allies breaks modern and Claws is part of the deck, I doubt that this will cause any significant increase on the cards value.
As for other standard related trends Kalitas is the overall best selling mythic on MCM and nearly twice the price of Kozilek. Kozilek's Return has lost over half of it's price in the last three weeks and is selling less copies than the most popular planeswalker of the set, Chandra, Flamecaller. Nissa has lost over half of her value and is getting closer to Chandra in price, altough it seems that the price at least plateaud on Monday. Today the cheapest Nissa is only 1.8 euros above the cheapest Chandra. The last interesting fact is that one can buy three foil Wastes or two foil Mirrorpools at the same price. Both purchases have similar merits.
Part of the problem with using past examples is that the supply is a lot smaller for those cards than current cards. That does not mean newer cards cannot be expensive, as look at Jace, Vryn's Prodigy, but for a Standard card to reach any high value, it has to at least see play in one eternal or Modern format.
Captain's claw could see a small spike if the tokens deck gets any support or popularity, but it is never going to be more than a three dollar rare, unless Ally becomes a dominate deck.
Ok so I ordered some cards x30 Outfitters, x24 bearer/Infiltrator, x19 Obligator (4 foil), x3 Knots, & x12 crossroads. rather than invest in 1 card I decided to spread it throughout several cards hoping something spikes.
I don't speculate much, but I picked up several Avaricious Dragons recently. As a mythic dragon and madness enabler below $1, I felt like it was a pretty good and cheap bet.
I don't speculate much, but I picked up several Avaricious Dragons recently. As a mythic dragon and madness enabler below $1, I felt like it was a pretty good and cheap bet.
I have already tried building a Madness deck w/ cards that have you exile your hand (Sire of Insanity for me). It didn't work out well because of the used mana during the turn. With the Avaricious Dragon, one would need at least 6 or 7 mana for that turn to get out at least 1 Madness spell, w/ the other Madness spells forced to be discarded.
Avaricious Dragon is a fun, janky dragon, but I do not think it will be popular for players of Madness. Cards w/ free forced discard triggers or have a cost 1 are good spec targets.
Not really speculation discussion, but I was curious about people's opinions on three cards I've been looking to pick up but holding out on. Those would be Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, Atarka's Command and Den Protector.
Gideon seems like an amazing planeswalker. He sat on a very high throne until recently. I already picked up one copy and would like to have a playset. I'm banking on getting another good planeswalker in Innistrad, preferably in the 3-5 mana cost, B/W range, to try to build some terrible Planeswalker-focused deck for standard. Gideons are down to about $17 now, still seem to be slipping, but I fear they could respike instantly. Do you think I should wait it out and see how low he goes or should I go ahead and try to pick up the rest of my playset now?
Atarka's Command sees big play in Modern burn. Is it seeing any Standard play? Werewolf tribal is my favorite, so I'm probably going to attempt to build that when Innistrad comes out, assuming it's possible. Atarka's Command seems like a decent addition to a RG aggroish deck thanks to the mass pump and Skullcrack aspect. $13 isn't that cheap for someone like me though. Do you think it'll hold much of it's price post-rotation?
Den Protector also seems like a no-brainer when we're going to a graveyard-themed set with an obvious focus on self milling. He's coming down so I feel like now's the time to get them. Does he see any play outside of Standard? I would assume not since Modern has Eternal Witness. This one feels like one of those cards that will be expensive for it's entire standard run then be worth a buck post-rotation.
Not really speculation discussion, but I was curious about people's opinions on three cards I've been looking to pick up but holding out on. Those would be Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, Atarka's Command and Den Protector.
Gideon seems like an amazing planeswalker. He sat on a very high throne until recently. I already picked up one copy and would like to have a playset. I'm banking on getting another good planeswalker in Innistrad, preferably in the 3-5 mana cost, B/W range, to try to build some terrible Planeswalker-focused deck for standard. Gideons are down to about $17 now, still seem to be slipping, but I fear they could respike instantly. Do you think I should wait it out and see how low he goes or should I go ahead and try to pick up the rest of my playset now?
Atarka's Command sees big play in Modern burn. Is it seeing any Standard play? Werewolf tribal is my favorite, so I'm probably going to attempt to build that when Innistrad comes out, assuming it's possible. Atarka's Command seems like a decent addition to a RG aggroish deck thanks to the mass pump and Skullcrack aspect. $13 isn't that cheap for someone like me though. Do you think it'll hold much of it's price post-rotation?
Den Protector also seems like a no-brainer when we're going to a graveyard-themed set with an obvious focus on self milling. He's coming down so I feel like now's the time to get them. Does he see any play outside of Standard? I would assume not since Modern has Eternal Witness. This one feels like one of those cards that will be expensive for it's entire standard run then be worth a buck post-rotation.
1) The closest thing I can think to compare Gideon to is Elspeth, Knight-errant. Four mana with protection while making dudes and creature pump. Elspeth is still $13 or so even with four printings. I think Gideon can maintain a $15 price pretty easy unless something better comes around or he's reprinted. I think he should be a safe bet and you won't be out to much long term and I can definitely see him jumping potentially. The risk is probably worth it.
2) I can't comment on Atarka. I don't follow burn enough in Modern to get or understand the splashes. Legacy will never splash green in Burn. And I don't believe Jund or anything else wants it bc Kolahgans Command offers so much more utility. I can't really comment more than that.
3) I agree with what your saying on Den Protector. And I can see it plummeting after rotation. He may fill some role since morph can't be responded to but I don't know what role that is. I'd rather run Eternal Witness like you said and have less hoops to go through. Or even Noxious Revival. Or Regrowth. I'm not sold on it.
I just decided to sell my foil Den Protector playset and keep non-foils to play with, as I also think that the card will drop. I see the card as 1-2 dollar card which will see occasional modern play in random decks.
Gideon is really good in multiple formats. Having 7 power worth of attackers on turn 5 (Token and Gideon) is a three turn clock, and when the metagame starts leaning towards control (if it ever does) Gideon surely has a sweet spot on several decks. The ultimate is also pretty good in token decks, which have been playing the card in modern already, so while the card will see a slight dip in value, it propably will not fall too much and can go way up.
Atarka's Command is also the real deal in modern burn. This means that the card will most likely loose some value on rotation, but most likely just drop to 8-10$. All the modes are relevant and having up to 8 Skullcrack effects makes burn pretty scary. Command is also really awesome whenever you get creature heavy draws as it's 6+ damage (Even with just one Swiftspear it's 5...)
So if you need these for standard, buy them, but unless you really need the Den Protectors, I would not buy them just to have them, but if you play with the card, then it's OK.
Gideon is slipping right now because the kind of slow value he provides just gets overshadowed by the instant return ramp decks can have these days or the aggro decks who just punch straight through him. In other words, the decks gideon is good in are not at their best right now. I think he will drop a bit further until shadows is released. Pick them up between now and then if you think that shadows will bring the tools for midrange decks to be good again.
Den Protector only has merit in standard as far as I know. Just to echo the rest of the posters: don't get them unless you want to play them now.
Atarka's Command has a bright future in modern burn but is inflated due to Atarka Red still being a thing in Standard... not a good spec target at the moment.
With the advent of shadows I am speculating on the return of blink effects and thus Linvala, the Preserver and Greenwarden of Murasa might be very decent targets since their current value is pretty low.
Avaricious Dragon may not be a great spec with the reveal of madness, but Chandra, Flamecaller could be viable within such a strategy. However, as a 6 cost planeswalker with a limited ability to protect herself it might be a bit much to ask.
Anyone have any particularly strong feelings towards Oath of Nissa? I notice it's been steadily declining since the set's release. I would like to trade into some before rotation. I think it's simply too strong of an effect that green rarely sees, and that it will be a 4-of in basically any G/x deck once the fetches leave Standard and we return to somewhat normal manabases. Does anyone think it will drop much more in price before rotation, or is now about as good as it's going to get?
I think that Oath of Nissa will keep dropping still, and will settle towards 1$ low. They already bottomed on MCM at 0.8 euros before starting upwards. Now they are availlable at 0.99 euros each, which feels like a fair price until they start seeing more play. Now the main role is in ramp helping to find Wastes to turn Ruin in their Wake on. If we see a multicolored Superfriends deck in standard, the card will quickly hit 3 bucks again.
And to give some anecdotal evidence that I believe what I said here, I traded my first Oath of Nissa away for an Eldrazi Displacer on release day and added a random Oath of Chandra as a trade sweetener, being certain that I was getting the better side of our trade. For couple of weeks it looked like I might have been wrong, but turned out I was just well ahead of the market. Not a huge deal, but it feels good to be right on valuation of cards.
I noticed that earlier as well. It's purely standard driven as she's shown up in Both Jeskai and G/R Ramp decks anywhere from a 1 to 3-of. I've always been a fan, 6 damage on her +1 and replace your hand +1 card for free seems like a solid card for both strategies.
I noticed that earlier as well. It's purely standard driven as she's shown up in Both Jeskai and G/R Ramp decks anywhere from a 1 to 3-of. I've always been a fan, 6 damage on her +1 and replace your hand +1 card for free seems like a solid card for both strategies.
Also, if Madness is a thing in SOI block, her [0] ability just gets better and better.
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I noticed that earlier as well. It's purely standard driven as she's shown up in Both Jeskai and G/R Ramp decks anywhere from a 1 to 3-of. I've always been a fan, 6 damage on her +1 and replace your hand +1 card for free seems like a solid card for both strategies.
Also, if Madness is a thing in SOI block, her [0] ability just gets better and better.
haha about damn time. It was just too cheap @ $1 for a Zombie lord and then the new Mythic zombie has everyone hoping Zombie tribal may be viable in standard. It's also from a non-expedition, not very opened set. Interesting to see where this goes, if it goes anywhere. It may just sputter and die like See the Unwritten during BFZ spoilers.
I tried getting a play set of hissing quagmire off of pucatrade for 195 points each. Hours later there were no bites. Are folks waiting for a standard price increase, or is < $2 just too little to justify folks trading? (I took about 6+ months off from using pucatrade, and it seems like the market behavior there has been adjusting/changing. Back when I was trading more frequently, standard cards used to just fly off the want list. Not sure if pucatraders are just behaving more conservatively these days....)
haha about damn time. It was just too cheap @ $1 for a Zombie lord and then the new Mythic zombie has everyone hoping Zombie tribal may be viable in standard. It's also from a non-expedition, not very opened set. Interesting to see where this goes, if it goes anywhere. It may just sputter and die like See the Unwritten during BFZ spoilers.
Risen executioner won't be standard legal when soi comes out....
haha about damn time. It was just too cheap @ $1 for a Zombie lord and then the new Mythic zombie has everyone hoping Zombie tribal may be viable in standard. It's also from a non-expedition, not very opened set. Interesting to see where this goes, if it goes anywhere. It may just sputter and die like See the Unwritten during BFZ spoilers.
Risen executioner won't be standard legal when soi comes out....
Yes it will. Fate and Khans rotates out. Dragons will not, and Dragons/Origins will be in when SoI is Standard legal.
It should be legal. The new block structure shift will make for a weird mix in standard during SOI. KTK and FRF will rotate out but DTK and origins will be legal. That way, when those two rotate out, we'll get the intended block structure that development was shooting for starting with BfZ and Oath
I would invest in Captain's Claws. It's actually pretty scary, especially with the newly spoiled Topplegeist, not to mention other potential evasive creatures in SoI, which there were a lot in the original Innistrad. In a slightly more expensive speculative pick Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet is going to be really, really good with vampire and zombie support in Innistrad. Pick up your copies now.
Just consider that to get your manas worth you have to get in three times before the card starts to be enough above the curve to be really interesting. But if you know you will get three hits in, shouldn't you be playing something that has the opponet halfway dead by then?
The ideal normal scenario is to play a guy on turn two, Claws and equip on turn three getting the first token. SO far 3 mana and a card for 1/1 and one damage.
Turn three you have three mana and a card for 2 damage and two tokens. Decent card by this point.
Turn four you have three tokens and three damage from the equipment. Now you are at Spectral Procession level but which can be played at any color altouh you need some creatures to equip.
The fail state is that you play and equip a creature which gets blocked or even worse removed before you attack. In this case your best outcome is to give another creature +1/0 and maybe get one token when you attack. This is not worth 3 to 4 mana and a card.
Naturally if you are playing an ally-deck all these go out of the window, as triggering all your allies when you attack is a real deal and easily worth three mana. The real issue is that it competes with Retreat to Emeria which is bit more versatile. Unfortunately I doubt that we will get more allies in the next few sets, so unless allies breaks modern and Claws is part of the deck, I doubt that this will cause any significant increase on the cards value.
As for other standard related trends Kalitas is the overall best selling mythic on MCM and nearly twice the price of Kozilek. Kozilek's Return has lost over half of it's price in the last three weeks and is selling less copies than the most popular planeswalker of the set, Chandra, Flamecaller. Nissa has lost over half of her value and is getting closer to Chandra in price, altough it seems that the price at least plateaud on Monday. Today the cheapest Nissa is only 1.8 euros above the cheapest Chandra. The last interesting fact is that one can buy three foil Wastes or two foil Mirrorpools at the same price. Both purchases have similar merits.
Set to default
Captain's claw could see a small spike if the tokens deck gets any support or popularity, but it is never going to be more than a three dollar rare, unless Ally becomes a dominate deck.
I have already tried building a Madness deck w/ cards that have you exile your hand (Sire of Insanity for me). It didn't work out well because of the used mana during the turn. With the Avaricious Dragon, one would need at least 6 or 7 mana for that turn to get out at least 1 Madness spell, w/ the other Madness spells forced to be discarded.
Avaricious Dragon is a fun, janky dragon, but I do not think it will be popular for players of Madness. Cards w/ free forced discard triggers or have a cost 1 are good spec targets.
Gideon seems like an amazing planeswalker. He sat on a very high throne until recently. I already picked up one copy and would like to have a playset. I'm banking on getting another good planeswalker in Innistrad, preferably in the 3-5 mana cost, B/W range, to try to build some terrible Planeswalker-focused deck for standard. Gideons are down to about $17 now, still seem to be slipping, but I fear they could respike instantly. Do you think I should wait it out and see how low he goes or should I go ahead and try to pick up the rest of my playset now?
Atarka's Command sees big play in Modern burn. Is it seeing any Standard play? Werewolf tribal is my favorite, so I'm probably going to attempt to build that when Innistrad comes out, assuming it's possible. Atarka's Command seems like a decent addition to a RG aggroish deck thanks to the mass pump and Skullcrack aspect. $13 isn't that cheap for someone like me though. Do you think it'll hold much of it's price post-rotation?
Den Protector also seems like a no-brainer when we're going to a graveyard-themed set with an obvious focus on self milling. He's coming down so I feel like now's the time to get them. Does he see any play outside of Standard? I would assume not since Modern has Eternal Witness. This one feels like one of those cards that will be expensive for it's entire standard run then be worth a buck post-rotation.
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1) The closest thing I can think to compare Gideon to is Elspeth, Knight-errant. Four mana with protection while making dudes and creature pump. Elspeth is still $13 or so even with four printings. I think Gideon can maintain a $15 price pretty easy unless something better comes around or he's reprinted. I think he should be a safe bet and you won't be out to much long term and I can definitely see him jumping potentially. The risk is probably worth it.
2) I can't comment on Atarka. I don't follow burn enough in Modern to get or understand the splashes. Legacy will never splash green in Burn. And I don't believe Jund or anything else wants it bc Kolahgans Command offers so much more utility. I can't really comment more than that.
3) I agree with what your saying on Den Protector. And I can see it plummeting after rotation. He may fill some role since morph can't be responded to but I don't know what role that is. I'd rather run Eternal Witness like you said and have less hoops to go through. Or even Noxious Revival. Or Regrowth. I'm not sold on it.
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Gideon is really good in multiple formats. Having 7 power worth of attackers on turn 5 (Token and Gideon) is a three turn clock, and when the metagame starts leaning towards control (if it ever does) Gideon surely has a sweet spot on several decks. The ultimate is also pretty good in token decks, which have been playing the card in modern already, so while the card will see a slight dip in value, it propably will not fall too much and can go way up.
Atarka's Command is also the real deal in modern burn. This means that the card will most likely loose some value on rotation, but most likely just drop to 8-10$. All the modes are relevant and having up to 8 Skullcrack effects makes burn pretty scary. Command is also really awesome whenever you get creature heavy draws as it's 6+ damage (Even with just one Swiftspear it's 5...)
So if you need these for standard, buy them, but unless you really need the Den Protectors, I would not buy them just to have them, but if you play with the card, then it's OK.
Set to default
Den Protector only has merit in standard as far as I know. Just to echo the rest of the posters: don't get them unless you want to play them now.
Atarka's Command has a bright future in modern burn but is inflated due to Atarka Red still being a thing in Standard... not a good spec target at the moment.
With the advent of shadows I am speculating on the return of blink effects and thus Linvala, the Preserver and Greenwarden of Murasa might be very decent targets since their current value is pretty low.
Avaricious Dragon may not be a great spec with the reveal of madness, but Chandra, Flamecaller could be viable within such a strategy. However, as a 6 cost planeswalker with a limited ability to protect herself it might be a bit much to ask.
And to give some anecdotal evidence that I believe what I said here, I traded my first Oath of Nissa away for an Eldrazi Displacer on release day and added a random Oath of Chandra as a trade sweetener, being certain that I was getting the better side of our trade. For couple of weeks it looked like I might have been wrong, but turned out I was just well ahead of the market. Not a huge deal, but it feels good to be right on valuation of cards.
Set to default
Also, if Madness is a thing in SOI block, her [0] ability just gets better and better.
Also a valid point that I failed to mention.
haha about damn time. It was just too cheap @ $1 for a Zombie lord and then the new Mythic zombie has everyone hoping Zombie tribal may be viable in standard. It's also from a non-expedition, not very opened set. Interesting to see where this goes, if it goes anywhere. It may just sputter and die like See the Unwritten during BFZ spoilers.
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Risen executioner won't be standard legal when soi comes out....
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?p=11439737#post11439737
Reality is only what man allows it to be. Few shape it so that many may accept it.
Yes it will. Fate and Khans rotates out. Dragons will not, and Dragons/Origins will be in when SoI is Standard legal.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?p=11439737#post11439737
Reality is only what man allows it to be. Few shape it so that many may accept it.