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Hello, everyone and welcome to a new edition of the Daily Stock Watch! I remember how I was writing about cards from the Bridgevine deck a few weeks back and I didn't actually expect I'd be doing something like that for some time again for a different deck. However, here we are again and I honestly wanted to write about two cards at the same time but I feel like this one deserves more attention as its side-by-side buddy is still Standard legal. Today's card is a resurgent finance spec that is rewarding its believers despite of its downtime since it peaked.
When I saw an MPS of this card, I knew that it was going to be special. I was able to keep at least 20 copies of this card until now after taking them in sometime in the latter part of 2016 when it reached what I thought was its rock bottom at a little over $2. I almost sold it when it rebounded nicely before 2017 entered but I got greedy and held on to them longer, only to see the price dip down close to how much I got them for. Today, I am rewarded nicely by that greedy yet lucky decision to have faith in a card that looked virtually useless in Modern for what it does. Hangarback Walker has always been a strong creature for me and I doubt that people will still lose faith in Walking Ballista going forward as this two will be featured in a lot of decks that would love to have a mana sink, or a creature that could be cast for free and still be useful in a dragging game. Whatever the circumstances may be, we could be certain for now that these two creatures will always have a home in Modern.
In case you missed out on what deck I'm talking about, here's a refresher for you:
Hardened Modular by Lauri Pispa
I've already constructed a carbon copy list of this deck in paper and will test it out over the weekend for a PPTQ. I've been goldfishing the deck and it's fair to say that it is resilient and will still have game against control variants such as Jeskai and UW even in the latter parts of the game. Having access to green easily makes the deck competitive against Stony Silence in boarded games while having Walking Ballista around gives it the power to deal with a resolved Kataki, War's Wage with relative ease that the old Affinity variant doesn't have access to. Whoever thought of this deck is an absolute Magic wizard as I could say that it was well constructed to combat the current meta or probably any kind of it until a new archetype breaks out.
The Zero Crew
These are the cards in Modern that are seeing moderate to tons of action in top tier decks, and there's no denying that they are all powerful in their respective decks because of the versatility that they offer. We will be seeing more of these cards in the coming months as Modern is in a relatively healthy state right now as further cemented by WotC's decision to not ban any card during the most recent B&R announcement. Hangarback Walker will be a staple now so get your copies before it inevitably reaches the $20 zone soon. The window before that happens is not that big so go for it as soon as you can.
At the moment, your best bet to get copies of Hangarback Walker online is through Card Kingdom (selling it for $11.99) and multiple vendors at TCGPlayer (for anywhere between $10.35 to $13.31) for non-foil copies. StarCityGames is out of stock and should be back with supplies soon when all the other sites have exhausted their copies, and when they could refill at the near $20 range. Purchasing the MPS version is starting to look like a good move at the moment but that is something that I'm leaving you to decide on. This is another card that's very much safe to risk on if you're a betting man.
And that’s it for today’s edition of the Daily Stock Watch! See you again next time, 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!
