I hope you all had a chance to check in on Pro Tour Coverage this past weekend, the QS coverage team of Kelly and Doug did a great job of keeping us all up-to-date of the goings on of the weekend. There are a few key highlights I want to address and see where this knowledge can take us going forward.

Standard

Dungeon Geist vs. Huntmaster of the Fells

So, in every article since the spoiling I’ve talked about this card. Glad I got mine while I could, and my buddy cleaned our LGS out of them at $2 before the Pro Tour weekend.

Fast forward to the event and we see Jon Finkel and Tom Martell, One Hall of Famer and the other a notable pro in his own right, piloting an Esper Sprits deck. Although Finkel didn’t make it past the Semi-Finals (if you didn’t watch this match, go watch it, now!), the deck performed extremely well for both players in the Standard portion of the event.

Personally, my big winner here is Dungeon Geists. The list ran 2 and Finkel said himself that he’d like to bump it up to 3. I had a chance to ask Tom Martell a few questions on Twitter (@semisober). Keep in mind that Pro Tour Decks are tuned to deal with a very precise metagame, while when you sleeve up a version to play at your LGS it needs to be able to beat a much broader field of decks.

Specific hate cards like Revoke Existence and Divine Offering probably wouldn’t sit in the main deck, while you'd instead include additional good cards like Dungeon Geists and Mana Leaks. The more people play with this card, the quicker it will catch steam.

As you can see, it’s increased by 150% on StarCityGames.com since the Pro Tour: it was at $1.99. And it’s sold out. Yup. And people are likely still testing the version with 2 copies. I’m not ready to dump yet. I don’t think we’ll see it go too much higher, but I don’t see it dropping anytime soon, either.

Let’s compare this to a card like Huntmaster of the Fells // Ravager of the Fells. This is a card that also saw a big jump at about the same return. For quick grabs in response to the Email blasts that go out, this was a great move. But unless you’re the next Nostradamus, I’m still feeling fine about waiting on the guy.

Sure, he saw a whopping $20 price bump, but required a $12 investment and I feel he’ll likely return to a $15 range at most. This card is fairly narrow and only belongs in R/G decks. While a great pick up if you were able to snake some before the news got too big, it's reached a potential peak as a speculation target.

Dungeon Giests is the type of card I love speculating on because the initial investment is low and there is very little possibility of downward movement. Through my typical outlets I have an entire season to milk as much value as I can from my Dungeon Geists, but likely only have about a week before value starts oozing out of any Huntmasters I might have.

These are clearly two different schools of thought. Which is right? They both are. You need to be aware of both of them and be ready to take aim next time if you didn’t take advantage of these two huge winners. Use the articles leading up to Pro Tours to stash some low risk, long term specs, while during the weekend itself be in a place where you can take advantage of the breaking news--whether that's from your desktop at home, at your LGS, or even from your smartphone while running around town with the family.

Modern

With a blur, my twitter feed suddenly stopped talking about Standard this week and has shifted to Modern.

With a big batch of PTQ’s this weekend, we’re bound to see some decks emerge. The format is still pretty open and, with DKA releasing shortly on MTGO, you’ll have some opportunities to get in on Modern shifts just in time if MTGO is your game.

Twitter will be a great resource for this. PTQ’s typically have very little, if any, public coverage available. PTQ winners and other Top8 competitors will be tweeting their results and decklists throughout the weekend. Instead of waiting for Monday's articles, use this window and be ahead of the crowd and net some serious bucks.

I’ll be at the LA PTQ this weekend and scoping buylists and I'll be sure to tweet (@torerotutor) any hot tips I pick up on.