It’s no surprise that Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time have made a substantial impact on Modern and Legacy. When combined with fetch lands, endless cantrips and the like, dredging a few cards for a turn three or turn four Treasure Cruise has become the norm.

I cannot begin to comment on banning either or both of these cards in any format. I simply do not have the expertise and experience to make such a judgment call. For this reason my opinion must remain withheld.

But just because I plead the fifth on this matter does not mean I won’t divulge some speculative ideas that recently came to mind. The old saying “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” makes me wonder which path players are striving to adopt here? Are they dropping their current decks only to jam their own Treasure Cruises, or are they modifying their sideboards and strategies to combat the new card-drawing engine in eternal formats?

Data is murky, but perhaps we can still learn something. Let’s take a closer look.

A Couple Data Points

Not long ago I noticed the sudden resurgence of Chalice of the Void in Legacy. What’s more, the card also appeared in the GP Madrid Top 8, which was a Modern event. The card doesn’t stop Treasure Cruise itself, but it sure hinders decks from playing all their one mana cantrip spells.

No more than a week after these events, the price on Chalice exploded.

The ride on this artifact is over. If you missed that spike, don’t even think about buying now unless you absolutely need copies for an immediate event. These will drift back down to under $10 in time – especially since I haven’t seen much of this card since the spike.

I said it in the forums and I’ll say it again here: this card is a sell over $10, and the foils are far more likely to hold the “new”, higher price than are nonfoils.

Throughout the past week I noticed another interesting trend on mtgstocks.com. Has anyone else noticed that Leyline of the Void has been an “Interest” a number of times in a row now?

While not exactly spiking by any means, the recent jump on the black enchantment has me wondering… are we seeing this movement because of newly printed dredge cards? Of course, if cards cannot go into graveyards, then a card like Treasure Cruise becomes absolutely terrible. Why draw three cards paying eight mana when you can do so with just four mana (Concentrate)?

Is this a coincidence? Or is there truly merit to the idea that players are scooping up sideboard cards they may need to combat the new blue sorcery from Khans of Tarkir?

Other Interests From Last Week

Let’s take another look at the weekly interests on mtgstocks.com to see if there are any other Treasure Cruise hate cards on the move.

I see some Standard cards finally showing life. That’s refreshing.

Whip of Erebos, Sidisi, Brood Tyrant, and Jeskai Ascendancy are all newer cards with some positive price movement. This has everything to do with the new metagame in Standard alongside the recent success of Jeskai Ascendancy in eternal formats. Fatestitcher is also spiking because of this ascendancy combo deck.

Other than Leyline of the Void, however, I see no more hate cards for Treasure Cruise on the move. Interesting – perhaps the trend is inconsequential after all. Maybe it is just coincidence that two solid hate cards are both on the rise at the same time.

Or…

Or perhaps, although not a guarantee, we are in front of a trend.

A while ago, I noticed that Nekusar was driving some silly price movement on the likes of Teferi's Puzzle Box and I advocated speculating on Winds of Change and Wheel of Fortune. Both of those plays have paid out nicely.

Maybe we can get in front of this Treasure Cruise hate trend by buying a few extra sideboard candidates in anticipation of a rising demand.

What would be a solid pickup in this category? How about Rest in Peace?

Foil copies of this enchantment have already exploded, but nonfoils can still be had aplenty for under a buck. That seems awfully inexpensive for a once-printed eternal card, even if it is mostly designated to the sideboard.

Granted, Return to Ravnica was opened a ton and the set itself already has a ton of value thanks to shock lands, Abrupt Decay, etc. But if you wanted to buy into a safe card that should drift up over time (while hopefully staying under the reprint radar), you could do worse than Rest in Peace.

At the risk of further berating, I’ll throw out my off-the-wall idea again: what about Trinisphere?

The card has been moving higher throughout all of 2014 despite the downward pressure on most Legacy cards during these months.

While this guy doesn’t fit into every deck, the lists that can take advantage of Trinisphere could really hinder a Treasure Cruise strategy. Once cards like Gitaxian Probe and Brainstorm cost three to cast, they all become significantly worse. I’d love to see the face of an opponent after sticking one of these on turn two – perhaps someday I’ll have that maniacal pleasure.

Lastly, if Trinisphere doesn’t strike your fancy, perhaps there is a different sphere that might: Sphere of Resistance.

This artifact has an immediate impact on board state. And unlike Thalia and The Gitrog Monster, which hits only a subset of spells and requires a player to play white, Sphere of Resistance can be cast by any deck.

Not that every deck would want to cast this artifact – obviously it too has limitations. But Chris Andersen jammed four copies of this artifact in his SCG Open Top 8 deck (Lands) a couple weeks ago.

It’s no fun when your opponent effectively casts Ancestral Recall on turn three. Sphere of Resistance makes this achievement a bit more challenging.

More to Unfold

Khans of Tarkir has been available for less than three months. This is a pittance of time on the scale of Legacy. Even Modern hasn’t fully evolved since the creation of Treasure Cruise and Jeskai Ascendancy. My guess is we’ll see further metagame evolution in 2015.

Rather than sit and wait to see what players pick up, one way to make a little money is to begin speculating on what that metagame will look like in advance. While I’m not a professional player by any means, even I can see how Treasure Cruise will warp Legacy. This means a metagame shift, which in turn means buying opportunities for the speculator.

What happens if Treasure Cruise becomes banned? Well, besides the fact that Legacy would shift yet again, you may argue that speculating on hate cards could lead to a poor outcome. But if you keep to safer, more generic sideboard plays like Rest in Peace and Leyline of the Void, you won’t really be stuck holding a loser. These are both powerful hate cards in their own right, and can destroy many strategies beyond just Treasure Cruise.

Besides, if Treasure Cruise is banned, that could just open the door up for Dig Through Time to become the go-to dredge spell. If this was the case, these sideboard cards would still be highly relevant.

I’m not advocating you go and buy out TCG Player – that’s never my style. But trading for a few extra copies of the cards mentioned in this article could help grow the value of your collection with minimal effort. These cards are easy enough to grab in even the smallest trades, yet they have significant upside due to their utility in eternal formats.

Anticipating metagame shifts is just one way to hedge for the future and try to make a little extra cash in the process.

…

Sigbits

• Star City Games has placed their dual lands on sale this month! Now we’ll have a better idea of how well these are really performing at the moment. For starters, I see there are only 15 Volcanic Islands left in stock, with NM copies discounted to $269.99. If these sell out throughout the month, this could be a positive sign for the U/R dual land. Compare that to Underground Sea: SCG has 59 in stock with the same price tag.
• While 1492 may have been a great year to sail the ocean blue, I had a feeling it doesn’t make for a good price on Polluted Delta. The Khans fetch land is sold out at SCG at $14.92 during the month of December. When the sale is over, expect the price to snap right back to its retail price of over $17.
• Lastly, shock lands are also on sale at Star City Games this month. The most popular one is probably Steam Vents, which is currently discounted to $11.06 (Return to Ravnica). Only 6 copies remain – I suspect this retail price will only be heading higher through 2015.