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Hello, everyone and welcome to the Friday edition of the Daily Stock Watch! We will end this week's segment with another card that could see some gains after Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan if Gifts Storm (or a different combo variant) comes out victorious after the spectacle. It also sees a lot of Legacy play, and I'm actually more surprised that it only reached its all-time high of $10.32 today.
Mindbreak Trap has always been on the radar as a reprint spec, but it never materialized in any of the previous Masters sets. We could say that this never happened because it's a trap and it might require a certain set where traps are aplenty, or simply because the price doesn't get inflated enough for it to merit a reprinting. It's also a situational card if you'd like to cast it for free, but sometimes, we tend to forget the fact that it could deal with creatures that have a "cannot be countered" clause in them. And it's quite a common sight in Modern nowadays to see creatures that have them in Emrakul, the Aeons Torn (which gets cheated in by Through the Breach) and Dragonlord Dromoka in tier one decks such as Blue Moon and GWx Eldrazi Tron. It's not very efficient in matchups like this, but it gets the job done all the time against 300 or more copies of Grapeshot and Empty the Warrens that's still on the stack.
UWR Control
It's almost always a one-of in Modern decks that direly need it in matchups where an opponent could just combo out and flat out beat them because of the fact that it's hard to cast unless its alternative cost is triggered. This prevents the card from seeing main deck action, and Flusterstorm is solely responsible for keeping it out of Legacy lists that could simply get away with multiple copies of it in a format where multiple spells could happen in a turn even though you're not playing against storm.
Things it could stop in Modern
Gifts storm is an actual tier one deck in Modern, and I'm quite sure that a lot of players will be using it for the upcoming Pro Tour. This might be the best time for Mindbreak Trap to shine, but we'd probably still see single copies making it to sideboards of lists that pack blue. I like the idea of it breaking the $15 barrier soon, and stocks online are running dry. Although only 0.2% of winning decks last year have used an average 1.7 copies of Mindbreak Trap according to the Utility Checker, we could expect this number to increase this year if the meta shifts to combo in the coming months. I still don't see Mindbreak Trap getting reprinted anytime soon, so bite me if it gets the axe.
At the moment, you could still find copies of Mindbreak Trap from online stores such as Star City Games, Card Kingdom, TCGPlayer, and Channel Fireball for anywhere between $7.48 (played condition) up to $11.99 (near mint copies). Foils are out of stock at $25-$30, and these would have been good pickups. I'd like to get some copies for $8 if that's possible, and I'll hold on to them for a while. If Masters 25 proves to be the reprinting ground for the card, then this would be a bad spec altogether. I still like our chances here if you could get in.
And that’s it for the Friday edition of the Daily Stock Watch! See you again next week, 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!
