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Insider: MTG Stock Watch 3/8/15

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Welcome back fellow speculators! Before we begin today I would like to get people's thoughts and opinions on this series. Please post in the comments section what you do/don't like, what changes you would like to see, what else I should be covering or if something doesn't seem to have much relevance if I should simply add more to a different category.

As always we'll start with the Penny Stocks.

Penny Stocks

1. Mastery of the Unseen (+1022.2%) - Wow! This card sky rocketed. It had a strong showing at GP Miami and went from bulk to $4. This is one of those cards that should have been on people's radars as previous/similar iterations have usually found a home somewhere (looking at you Sacred Mesa).

The ability to psuedo draw cards for four mana isn't terrible and when you do flip creatures you can gain a considerable amount of life. The fact that you get uncounterable 2/2 creatures (and can sneak powerful threats onto the board under countermagic) makes it the perfect card for midrange decks to beat control, forcing them to use targeted removal on unknown targets or mass removal on what could potentially be a collection of 2/2's.

mastery of the unseen

2. Gutteral Response (+177.7%) - This is an interesting call. It is a powerful Modern sideboard option that's old enough that there aren't a lot of copies floating around. However, with MM2015 looming around the corner I wouldn't hold onto these expecting more, as a reprint would destroy this recently gained value.

guttaral response

3. Master of Waves (+139.1%) - Good ol' Master of Waves got a big jump this week with the spoiling of Shorecrasher Elemental and all the mono-blue devotion decks people started brewing because of it.

It's cute that Shorecrasher will get pumped by Master of Waves, but the mono-blue deck doesn't really have any good devotion enablers in the one- and two-drop slot like it did with RTR block. I would be happy to unload my extra copies at their current new price of around $7.

master of waves

4. Dragon Tempest (+110.2%) - This card isn't even out yet but it already jumped from the basic "bulk" category of pre-release cards (around $1) to over $2.50, based heavily on the interaction with Descent of the Dragons.

The problem is we already had a similar combo like this from Journey into Nyx with Hour of Need plus Battlefield Thaumaturge and that never panned out. Granted this combo is a bit stronger, but it's still a three-card combo (Dragon Tempest, Descent of the Dragons and cards that make creatures/are creatures). This will likely fall back down as the hype train moves on and people realize it's not the best strategy for the Standard environment.

Dragon Tempest

5. Thassa, God of the Sea (+59.6%) - This jump is following suit of the Master of Waves jump. People think that Mono-Blue Devotion will be a thing so the key components of the old deck (that are still Standard-legal) all see a bit of a jump. Again, unless we see some solid one- or two-drops for the deck I don't know if all it was really missing was a three-drop, but people will try to make it work again given how powerful turn four Master with 7 devotion really is.

thassa

Blue Chip Stocks

1. Scrubland (-2.98%) - We're seeing very few Esper style decks in Legacy recently, and even fewer non-blue W/B decks. Scrubland has finally fallen into the bottom three of the duals, but should we see a resurgence in Esper Stoneblade decks we'll see a bump in Scrubland again. If you need them, now seems like a good time to pick them up.

scrubland

2. Volcanic Island (+2.32%) - Yet again we see Volcanic moving upwards. It is now very close to being even with Underground Sea, which just goes to show you how powerful red has become in the eternal formats.

volcanic island

3. Dark Confidant (-2.08%) - Bob still seems to be falling despite the loss of Dig Through Time and Treasure Cruise in Modern and Cruise in Legacy. He is still the #2 card of Modern (behind Tarmogoyf) with Vendilion Clique in a very close third.

With the resurgence in burn strategies in the Modern format it makes sense that he's in decline, but should those decks get pushed out by all the Siege Rhinos then expect Bob to see a resurgence.

dark confidant

4. Tarmogoyf (+1.988%) - Despite the announcement of his imminent reprint in MM2015, Tarmogoyf still seems to be moving upward. The fact that the reprint is mythic might provide people with the feeling of security that his price won't move much (just like last time...or he could even move up). However, I think this is a false sense of security.

WoTC barely printed Modern Masters for fear of another Chronicles debacle. Its popularity and the growth of the Modern format likely means we'll see a much larger print run for MM2015. We will see a drop in Tarmogoyf's price come MM2015, but by how much is not something I feel I can guess at this time without more information from WoTC regarding the print run.

It is important to note that the Modern Masters Tarmogoyf dropped $10 at the announcement of his reprinting in MM2015 (so it appears that while the original artwork continues to move upward, the new artwork took a hit).

tarmogoyf

5. Sneak Attack (-1.87%) - Sneak and Show decks are still not performing like they used to and the jump in Sneak Attack's value occurred a while after the deck proved dominant. It hasn't recovered since the Treasure Cruise tempo decks pushed it out of the format a while back.

sneak attack

Opportunities

While it's only March we already hear talk of players looking at rotation and trying to move their Theros cards earlier and earlier. While I don't advocate starting to sell all your Theros block cards now, if you aren't using them it isn't the worst time to start trading them off.

What really hurts is the scrylands that many of us bought heavily in on and have yet to see any sort of return on. They should be close to their high point now if they had followed the typical trajectory (which they definitely did not).

But it's not all bad news in the Theros block world. A lot of solid casual cards from the block are at their all-time lows. Given that each block since Innistrad has sold better than the previous one, (though I honestly had a hard time believing Theros block did better than RTR) I am weary of casual non-mythics simply due to massive supply. So what we're going to look at opportunity-wise are the Theros block mythics (with a stronger focus on Journey given it was the third set) for low-priced casual all-stars.

1. Sage of Hours - This mythic is pretty close to bulk status, sitting at sub $2 for a third set mythic with a cool ability that never caught on in Standard. We've seen "take extra turn" cards become staples in EDH (look at Time Stretch) and this is the only one I'm aware of attached directly to a creature. EDH is also full of ways to add/move counters and being a single color means that it can fit into more decks than a multi-colored card.

2. Kruphix, God of Horizons - While he got no love in Standard, he is both of EDH's best colors (green for ramp and blue for card draw/counterspells). His abilities are powerful and he can come down early enough to allow people to gain an advantage from storing up mana.

Also given how often Reliquary Tower finds a home in EDH decks, his "no maximum hand size" ability is also a really nice one to have for a deck that ramps and draws tons of cards. Copies can be picked up for less than $3 currently and I honestly don't expect him to drop much as we get closer to rotation.

3. Champion of Stray Souls - This one definitely falls into the bulk mythic price, but his abilities are quite powerful and again being mono-colored means he can go into quite a lot of decks. Graveyard recursion is a pretty popular way to gain card advantage in EDH and he actually serves as a mini-engine if you build a deck around creatures with ETB abilities and tokens makers (Sengir Autocrat, Skeletal Vampire, et.al.). Given he is so close to bulk mythic status your risk is pretty limited and in a few years he could easily be a $4-5 card.

4. Karametra, God of Harvests - The power of this card is that it provides continual ramping by doing what green-whtie players already want to do (play creatures). The fact that the lands don't have to be basic (just forest or plains) means that she can actually be really useful in five-color decks as a great way to mana-fix consistently. Her biggest downside is that she costs five, which is usually when EDH players want to be casting bigger/more powerful spells...not continue ramping (except those of us who love playing Boundless Realms).

5. Xenagos, God of Revels - Giving a creature haste and berserking it in this format are still incredibly powerful abilities. What I like most about Xenagos is that he's the type of card you don't have to build around but instead plays a solid support role. I can easily see him fitting into any Mayael decks (as both a way to give Mayael haste if necessary and as a way to hit people really hard, really fast).

Honorable Mention: Phenax, God of Deception - This one I was on the fence about adding to the list...not because it's not an awesome casual card, but because its current price is basically already 100% due to the casual crowd. He makes for a really good general and matches with the mill colors, but ironically his ability requires mill players to play creatures...preferably walls, which they may or may not want to do.

I still like the card long term, but I am a bit concerned about future growth opportunity. Then again, people are still paying $24 for Glimpse the Unthinkable so there must be a lot of players who just like to mill.

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