Over the last two weeks, I've illustrated the incredible disappointment that is the mythics in Dragons of Tarkir.

While the set does have a couple of big mythics drawing a lot of water, I still feel that the prices attached to them are unjustifiable at best. I could be entirely mistaken in my read of Narset Transcendent, but I feel strongly that this card is closer to Chandra, the Firebrand than Jace, the Mind Sculptor or even Jace, Architect of Thought.

Supply

Dragons of Tarkir does have one interesting thing going for it: the set blows. There, I said it.

Wizards has traditionally relied on extremely heavy sales of their fall set to carry the year over year sales growth while the rest of the year brings in significantly less. Even mega-hits like Rise of the Eldrazi fail to reach the sales numbers of their fall counterparts. This is part of why Wizards is rolling out the new block structure of big/small with two sets leaving every six months. The problem is that Dragons is not part of a two set block and is paired up with the last iteration of another yearly failure - the Core Set.

Dragons is really a throw-away set in a sense. While I'm sure Dragons will be a financial success for Wizards, as dragon-filled packs are sure to fly off the shelves at the big-box retailers, it is not a hit for the local game stores that the Magic empire is built upon. With the aggregate price of the set being so low, we're likely to see retailers opening much less of it to sell as singles... much like we've seen with Core Sets over the past few years.

What's that mean? If a card like Narset has a breakout weekend, it's price is likely to stay high for a much longer time before creeping down, as stores will be relying on players to sell them inventory rather than just opening product. The other factor in this is the recently increased wholesale price of booster boxes, which makes that threshold for opening boxes to fill inventory even higher than in the past.

Historically, three great examples stand out as what we could see with Narset: Chandra, the Firebrand, Chandra, Pyromaster, and Nissa, Worldwaker.

Nissa held a substantial premium for a card that appeared in decks as much in the sideboard as the main deck. Simply being mythic in a set that wasn't widely opened meant that it took substantially longer for her price to cool down. But once it did, things held a fairly steady downward course.

We don't have a lot of historical data for Firebrand, but I remember the card being $35 at GenCon a few weeks after release because I distinctly remember Medina tried telling me that the Korean Time Warp I offered for it was down to $10. After starting high, it slowly and surely inched downward at a steady clip. I like Chandra as a comparison because they both have a do-nothing +1 ability, a -2 copy a spell ability, and a arbitrarily large win-the-game ability that you're unlikely to ever use.

So with supply likely going to be lower than we've seen in a set this size for a while, we can expect some cards to behave weirdly like Narset has the potential too. Any rares that are long-term playable will likely inch upwards over time and experience some drastic spikes due to the inelasticity of supply. So what rares should we be looking at going forward?

The Rares

The obvious place to start is with the commands, and their #value is going to be tied very closely to how flexible they are.

One of the things that made Cryptic Command stand out above its peers was the "always on" ability to just draw a card. Countering a spell and tapping creatures is awesome when both are relevant, but for a command to be successful, there has to be an "always on" ability to attach to whatever relevant ability we're using.

Atarka's Command barely passes the test with the add-on of just throwing three at your opponent's face. The first and fourth abilities are going to be useful much less frequently, and the third ability is still fairly iffy. I just don't see this card being a staple, despite its low mana cost, because it does none of what we're seeing in the current R/G decks.

Dromoka's Command appears to be in a very similar boat, but this card is probably playable in green/white decks simple off the +1/+1 counter and fight clauses. I'm doubtful that this becomes an eternal staple, but I can see it showing up in decks for the next 18 months. If these dip down below $2, I would have no problems picking up a grip of them.

Kolaghan's Command offers us something we've never really had before--draw phase discard.

The ability to completely negate an opponent's draw step is something Wizards has been avoiding for a long time, coupling that with the "always on" of dealing two damage to something is solid enough to warrant  play for this card. Raise Dead and A-Shattered Seraph are definitely the less enticing aspects, but you can't pile too much #value onto INSTANT SPEED DISCARD.

I'll gladly pick up a play set of these once they dip below $2 with the hope that a good red/black shell presents itself (sorry Mardu).

I am not very bullish on Ojutai's Command, as four mana for gain some life and draw a card is not very exciting. The first ability is pretty irrelevant without Wall of Omens in the format, and four mana to counter only creature spells is not very enticing.

This card might be playable as a 2-of in a control deck, but that doesn't justify the $6 preorder price SCG is asking. Gaining four life and drawing cards are both "always on" abilities, but the price tag on casting this spell feels like too much buck for the bang.

Silumgar's Command reads: flexible five mana two-for-one. I don't particularly like the casting cost on this one, especially because it's so much more expensive than the rest of the cycle and I honestly don't really like blue/black control going forward. A deck that relies heavily on a five mana board wipe that forces a choice between dragon/non-dragon seems a lot less powerful in a world where the dragon half might actually be relevant again.

None of these even seem like they'll be relevant outside of their 18 month stint in Standard, so I wouldn't bother investing in foil copies.

So let's get down to brass tacks: is there anything that has the potential to see Modern play?

Collected Company is probably going to be cheaper than it is today. This is a card that doesn't have a clear home or use yet.

To me, this card is in the same vein as cards like Ranger of Eos or Stoneforge Mystic--cards that allow you to search or dig for things and/or play them for a reduced cost are almost certain to break over time.

There is not much exciting to do with this card in Standard right now, but there's another set coming in just a couple of months, and a couple months after that, and a couple months after that... you get the idea.

As this card dips down to $2-3, since there's no immediate home for it, grab as many copies as you can and throw them in the closet--especially foil.

While I doubt this is showing up in Modern any time soon, it's pretty much essential for Commander dragon decks and will be be a casual staple for years and years to come. I really like this card in foil and will have no problem picking up extra copies to throw into my compost box. This is the Sliver Hive for dragons, except it's significantly better because dragons are way cooler than insectoid spear-creatures.

Thunderbreak Regent seems to be priced pretty appropriately at $5. This card could easily jump to $10 as people clamor for copies if a mono-red deck puts up good results the first couple of weekends, but it "feels right" at $5-6.

Not Obvious Garbage

And to close, here are the cards that are not pure garbage. I don't have a whole lot to say about any of them because most require specific conditions to exist for them to be useful going forward. These are essentially the bulk rares that I wouldn't bulk out quite yet and the rares that have inflated preorder prices that are almost sure to go down. Wait and see.