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Insider: MTG Stock Watch for 4/12/15

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Welcome back to our bi-weekly column on what's trending in the MTG "stock" market. This week I'm going to try a slightly different approach. I'm still going to do a breakdown of "penny stocks" and the "blue-chip stocks", but that's it. That being said, I'll be doing more penny stocks and showing the full breakdown of the "blue chip stock" change.

Penny Stocks

1. Icefall Regent (+226%) - This guy was only in a few of the major teams' PT decks and despite none of them making the Top 8 with him, it's a very strong card (as I've found playtesting a Grixis Control deck my friend and I have come up with). It's not surprising to see him jump dramatically. For those who may not have played during the time the titans were first released, Frost Titan was quickly dismissed as the weakest of them all and forgotten...up until the format became all about dropping a few very large/powerful creatures (mostly titans) and then ol' Frosty trumped them all by locking them down.

Icefall is a pseudo-reprint. For one less mana you get 2 less power and 3 less toughness, but you get evasion. Frost Titan's ability could target any permanent (which could sometimes be lands if it kept your opponent off the 6th mana they needed to drop their own titan), but his ability required you to attack with him to keep the permanent tapped. Icefall can only target creatures, but he keeps them tapped down until he leaves the battlefield and doesn't have to attack.

With a dragon-centric Standard looming in front of us, it's not surprising to see players valuing the creature type a lot higher than usual (especially thanks to DtK's special "dragon-clause" spells. That being said, it would be wise to look at all the Standard legal dragons at this time and give them a second review.

icefall regent

2. Den Protector (+163.2%) - One of the few cards I was actively picking up before the PT, it seems there are a lot of new players who didn't get to play with Eternal Witness in a Standard environment. However, given how prevalent she is in commander the power level is obvious...all it takes it there to be some spells you want to cast over and over. Her evasion is actually quite a bit more relevant as well, since when megamorphed she can go around Courser (which would be her biggest roadblock typically).

den protector

3. Maga, Traitor to Mortals (+104.6%) - This one is likely a carryover from some Tiny Leader speccing. It's important to remember that thanks to Cabal Coffers/Urborg, mono-black has the second best "mass mana" engine for Tiny Leaders (outside of Green). As anyone who has played Tiny Leaders will tell you, X spells are even more powerful in that format thanks to their ability to "break" the three-mana-or-less rule. I imagine this new price will stick, especially given the age of Saviors of Kamigawa and his "uniqueness" as a general.

maga

4. Haven of the Spirit Dragon (+27.3%) - Another DtK card with a strong showing at the Pro Tour, this is the land that Crucible of the Spirit Dragon was supposed to be...it provides mana fixing (though limited to casting dragon spells) and can be an uncounterable way to recur a dragon or Ugin that's found its way into the graveyard. This card reminds me a lot of Buried Ruin in that it's not likely to ever reach super expensive heights, but it will always have value and will find its way into Commander with relative ease.

haven

5. Distortion Strike (+22.2%) - This Rise of the Eldrazi common is finding quite a home in the Modern infect decks that have been cropping up a lot lately. It's not surprising given that with the renewal of Junk decks in Modern packing 3-4 Lingering Souls, having a card that helps your infect creature sneak through is critical to the game plan.

distortion strike

6. Hyena Umbra (+21.6%) - While it seems the regular Rise version isn't seeing the same uptick, this implies that the supply of Planechase versions is low enough that even a small number of purchases of the cheapest copies caused the whole price average to shift upwards. We can confirm this by looking at the TCG player selling page and seeing that there are only a small handful of stores that have these in stock (7 to be specific) compared to 205 stores with the regular Rise copy.

hyena umbra

7. Urza's Power Plant (Columns-Antiquities) (+18.1%) - This one is likely similar to the Hyena Umbra situation above (there are only 40 sellers with this card, but only 8 list it at LP-NM condition).

urza

8. Adarkar Wastes (+14.9%) - Yet another example of small supply (only 25 sellers of the 6th Edition version) where a single purchase or two likely causes the price to move up, especially when 14.9% is only around 30 cents.

adarkar wastes

9. Raksha Golden Cub (+12.6%) - Here we have an older rare that happens to fit into a more casual tribal theme deck. Its ability is quite powerful (especially given the person running this is likely running White Sun's Zenith as well). It currently has 62 sellers on TCG player, so I don't think that one or two purchases would have been enough to bump it up by almost 40 cents, especially since it's more likely to be a one-of (if it's for Commander).

raksha

10. Toshiro Umezawa (+11.7%) - There were people on the forums speccing on this card for Tiny Leaders, as he's actually a pretty good TL Commander (if you're playing against another deck which relies on a few creatures to go the distance) and he's from a smaller, older, less loved set. The bigger thing to take away was that he was basically a bulk rare until about March 17th. The sudden spike does imply a buyout, though our own Nick Becvar did point out that the TCG High on this card actually jumped about a week in advance to the mid so the buyout was actually signaled early.

toshiro

Blue Chip Stocks

1. Dark Confidant (-3.32%) - With a likely MM2015 reprint on the horizon and still no increase in play, Bob continues to drift downward. Without a significant shift in the metagame, I honestly don't see him being a good long-term bet anymore, though I wouldn't be surprised to see him paired with Courser of Kruphix in Modern at some point.

bob

2. Tarmogoyf (+2.411%) - After the recent drop, good ol' Goyf is bouncing right back. While a reprinting does add to the supply, his current price point already proves there's a lot of demand. Even with a much larger print run for MM2015, the recent rise of G/x decks in Modern to fill the Treasure Cruise/Birthing Pod void means that the most efficient green creature ever (many argue he's the most efficient blue creature) has jumped in popularity now that the archetype that wants him the most has become a major contender for best deck in Modern.

goyf

3. Wasteland (-1.76%) - This is a bit surprising given the recent rise of three-color decks back to prominence, including BUG decks which typically run 2-4 of these and also happen to be rather weak to opposing Wastelands. I wouldn't expect this dip to continue for too long though as the Wasteland/Stifle land denial plan of Legacy waxes and wanes every year.

wasteland

4. Plateau (+1.63%) - We finally start to see some gains on the non-blue duals, though to be fair the only place we typically see this particular dual played in is UWr Stoneblade and Delver variants.

plateau

5. Scrubland (+1.55%) - Another non-blue dual rises and again it's typically paired with Underground Sea or Tundra for the Esper Stoneblade decks which are rising in popularity again. This is probably the best color combination of the actual "blade" decks, as the hand disruption of black usually trumps the extra reach of burn (from red).

scrubland

6. Sneak Attack (-1.22%) - Once the most dominant deck in legacy, Sneak and Show continues its steady decline. Players are realizing that it's still very hard to resolve Show and Tell and/or Sneak Attack in a format full of Force of Will, Spell Pierce and Thoughtseize (which we're seeing out of both the Esper decks and the BUG decks).

sneak

7. Bayou (+1.10%) - I said it a while ago, but the duals were eventually going to bottom out and then would likely start to see a minor rebound; this is the third one with some positive signs. The recent resurgence in BUG style decks is likely the leading factor in the increase in Bayou's demand.

bayou

8. Jace, the Mind Sculptor (+1.06%) - The best planeswalker ever printed proves that when you're the best you don't go down for long. As mentioned previously, the increase in both BUG and Esper decks in Legacy means that the once "too expensive" planeswalker (mana-wise...not money-wise) is finding his time back in the sun as games start to go longer and combo gets pushed down thanks to all the Spell Pierces and Thoughtseizes running about.

jace

9. Underground Sea (+1.04%) - The other dual shared by both Esper and BUG, it's not surprising to see it rise with Bayou.

sea

10. Show and Tell (-0.588%) - The partner in crime to Sneak Attack, it's not surprising that as one falls so does the other. Show and Tell at least fits in some other decks (often in Reanimator's sideboard and Know and Tell) so its drop will usually be less than Sneak Attack's.

show

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