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Hello, everyone and welcome to the Wednesday special edition of the Daily Stock Watch! It's the middle of the week and we're close to finding out what decks will come out victorious at Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan. My pick for today is a vital cog to one of the favorites to win the whole thing, and it's also seeing action in a darkhorse deck that could pull off a major surprise over the weekend.
Manamorphose is a R/G cantrip that serves as the "firestarter" in both UR Storm and Instant Reanimator decks. It pads the spell count for Storm while helping its pilot dig deeper into the deck for the missing pieces of the combo, while it appears in a cameo role for the Reanimator deck as an extra spell that could help in mana-fixing issues of the deck. Today, this card just reached its all-time high of $7.54, and I expect this number to continue climbing after this weekend's spectacle.
UR Storm
According to my Utility Checker, an average of 3.5 copies of Manamorphose was used by 5% of winning decks last year, while 3.4 copies of it are being used by 6% of successful decks this year. It's safe to say that UR Storm is a tier one deck, barring any bans on its key components, for the coming months. Since Manamorphose was last printed in the original Modern Masters set, the supplies have been low lately as the demand for it continues to rise. If Path to Exile is a sub-$10 card despite its multiple printings (and arguably a lower demand nowadays), I'd like to think that Manamorphose is primed to reach that price tag sooner than later.
Manamorphose and Friends
Taking into consideration that one of these cards could get banned in the coming days, the meta could change dramatically and that could mean two things for our spec's immediate future: it could either plummet to sub-$5 range if UR Storm dies or gets nerfed; or it could propel itself to $10-$12 territory as an important piece of Modern's top dog. I'm leaning more towards this card's progress, and I'd like to pick up copies now for $5-$6 before it doubles in price.
At the moment, Star City Games is out of stock for the MM copies of the card, but they still have a lot of the Shadowmoor version for only $5.99. Card Kingdom is almost dry for the MM version as well, and they are already selling copies of the older version for $8.99. The lowest you could get from TCGPlayer is at $7.34, and the same price is what Channel Fireball has for their remaining copies. The foil copies are handsomely priced at north of $15, and it would be great if you could pick them up at prices lower than this for extra profit. I think that this is a safe bet considering how useful it is. However, Masters 25 is just across the horizon, so don't go all in on this card. It's not really due for a reprint, but it could just be included in the set to help reduce its value. I'd say that we still have at least two to three weeks to let go of whatever we could hoard for the time being.
And that’s it for the Wednesday edition of the Daily Stock Watch! See you again tomorrow, as we check out a new card that should be on the go, or good enough for speculating. As always, feel free to share your opinion in the comments section below. And if you want to keep up with all the market movement, be sure to check in with the QS Discord Channel for real time market information, and stay ahead of the hottest specs!
