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Because of their high-profile nature, Pro Tours are milestone events in the evolution of competitive metagames and financial markets. In the weeks and days leading up to a Pro Tour, professional players dissect the format and attempt to unlock the secrets of new cards, while speculators take positions based on future expectation.
When the cards hit the table Friday afternoon, a picture of the Pro Tour metagame will begin to develop, and the market will react strongly over the weekend. Cards that don't live up to expectations will fall in demand and price, and cards that exceed expectations will rise.
This second category is the interesting one, because it holds the opportunity for profit. The trick is to identify the cards with the highest potential PT performance relative to current expectations.
An expensive card like Gideon, Ally of Zendikar is likely to perform well at the Pro Tour, but it’s already expected to and that's reflected in the price. On the other hand, when a bulk rare is discovered as a critical component in a winning archetype, it will make huge gains.
Because of playtesting demands, Pro Tour players are heavy factors in the purchase of Magic Online cards during release week. They also have valuable inside information regarding the Pro Tour metagame.
Thus, it's prudent to believe at least some number of them are involved in speculation in some fashion, even if it’s done indirectly by disseminating information.
I have been studying the MTGO market, and found some startling price movements around a cluster of cards that point towards a new archetype. Given the large gains enjoyed by these cards and the obvious synergy between them, I am confident they will have coming out party at the PT that the community at large isn't anticipating.
As of 5am EST Thursday, compared to 24 hours earlier:
- Wasteland Strangler is up 660%, to 1.14 from 0.15.
- Blight Herder is up 1620%, to 0.86 from 0.05.
- Stasis Snare is up 145% to 0.76 from 0.31.
- Horribly Awry is up 68% to 0.32 from .019.
- Quarantine Field is up 49% to 2.23 from 1.5.
- Oblivion Sower is up 44% to 9.44 from 6.57.
- Infinite Obliteration is up 900% to 0.30 from 0.03.
- Silkwrap is up 238% to 0.27 from 0.08.
Ingest and Process
These cards point to an Ingest-Exile deck that seeks to make the most of Wasteland Strangler and Blight Herder--both highly overpowered creatures when their restrictive conditions are met.
Here’s a sketch of a potential decklist:
Esper Exile
Fathom Feeder, Horribly Awry, and Silkwrap reliably enable a fully-powered Wasteland Strangler on turn three. The addition of Stasis Snare, Spell Shrivel, Utter End and Quarantine Field help attain the critical mass needed for a turn-five Blight Herder producing Eldrazi scion tokens.
Even the sideboard provides enablers, with Transgress the Mind, Radiant Purge and Infinite Obliteration.
Wasteland Strangler is beautifully positioned in a metagame of cheap creatures like Jace, Vryn's Prodigy, Mantis Rider, Warden of the First Tree, and Abbot of Keral Keep. Blight Herder is a nightmare for opponents relying on one-for-one removal, and the Eldrazi scions can even help cast future spells.
Assuming these creatures have a breakout performance at the Pro Tour, they have to raise higher than their current prices around $0.5.
Return of The Aristocrats?
I have also taken note of:
- Grim Haruspex, up 500%, to 0.18 from 0.03.
- Abzan Ascendancy, up 92%, to 0.25 from 0.13.
- Rally the Ancestors, up 96%, to 0.49 from 0.25.
- Zulaport Cutthroat, up 89%, to 1.36 from 0.71.
- Carrier Thrall, up 400%, to 0.10 from 0.02.
- Catacomb Sifter, up 48%, to 0.49 from 0.33.
These cards point to an Abzan Aristocrats-style deck combining sacrifice outlets like Nantuko Husk and Evolutionary Leap with two-for-the-price-of-one creatures like Carrier Thrall and Catacomb Sifter.
Add engine cards like Grim Haruspex, Zulaport Cutthroat and Abzan Ascendancy and you have a synergistic deck that can generate insane value. Rally the Ancestors could bring everything back for another go.
Speculating on the Aristocrats deck is tricky, because it relies on commons and uncommons from Battle for Zendikar rather than rares and mythics. But if the archetype finds success, everything in it, regardless of set, will trend upwards.
Pro Tour Battle for Zendikar is shaping up to be an eventful tournament. Stay tuned to Quiet Speculation for all of the latest updates.
-Adam
Besides being 
While definitely not on the level of Knight of the Reliquary, Retreat to Coralhelm provides just enough value that it’s not an entirely blank combo piece on its own (unlike Splinter Twin). Tapping down blockers with every landfall trigger can really help us push damage past a clogged board, and can even be used defensively (against Twin, for example) if we hold fetchlands to sacrifice on our opponent's turn. Scry 1 might seem minor, but anyone with experience playing Temples in the previous Standard format can speak to how deceptively powerful that ability can be. This effect is compounded by the ramped-up card quality in Modern, as less lands and more powerful effects translate into more value for scry (just look at UR Thopters from Pro Tour Vancouver). While we would never play Retreat to Coralhelm on its own in Modern, we can still work to take advantage of its abilities by focusing on compounding its tempo-generating tap ability.
take advantage of either card’s unique abilities without requiring both to win. Otherwise, we are just another clunky two-card combo deck and should probably be playing Splinter Twin. So, starting at the bottom, we have two sorcery speed three-drops, one costing 2U and the other 1GW. This automatically suggests Bant, or at least G/W/u. While we could splash for a fourth (or fifth) color, keeping our mana requirements as simple as possible will let us play more colorless bullet lands for Knight of the Reliquary. Bant has access to two excellent mana creatures in the form of Birds of Paradise and Noble Hierarch, which will help us accelerate out three-drops as early as turn two, and even contribute to attacking in Noble Hierarch’s case.
When I refer to context, I’m talking about the collective environmental factors that influence the state of Magic as we see it today. Burn as a major format player, Splinter Twin as a punisher for non-interaction, Blood Moon as a safeguard for crazy manabases, Tarmogoyf as a ubiquitous threat; all of these and more contribute to this notion of “context” that many refer to as the metagame. Whether your realize it or not, our card evaluation process always involves one or more of these factors: “I can’t play 4 Dismember because of Burn”…”5 Color sounds sweet, but how do you handle Blood Moon?”…”Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker is the man, but dude…” Context can be carried further, however, and it’s important to remember “identity”, or what this archetype is doing that is unique to itself. Merfolk exists as a strong, linear deck that punishes blue decks and can grind out opponents relying on one-for-one removal. This elevates it above the teeming masses of Sliver Aggro, Allies, Vampires, Goblin Tribal, Zoo, etc because while each of these decks does something slightly different, at their core they are just a worse Merfolk deck. Now sure, there is value in playing a similar strategy that attacks the field from a different angle (ex: playing Zoo when Merfolk hate is prevalent) but if you can’t easily answer the question “Why aren’t you just playing X” then maybe you should just play X.
I say all that to observe this; we have to be careful of where we sit on the archetype spectrum. Adding Serum Visions and Mana Leak to our deck might be right, but at that point we start to do a lot of the things that Twin can do better, and I find that worrisome. On the other end of the spectrum, we could go all-in on aggro, playing Delver of Secrets and Vapor Snag and end up with an incohesive strategy where our combo is out of place. For me, Retreat to Coralhelm’s tap ability and Knight of the Reliquary’s aggressive sizing suggests a close fit alongside cards that help to generate and push tempo. Our identity, if we were to label it, should be something along the lines of aggro-tempo with a combo element.
Discouraging use of both counterspells and instant speed removal, Voice of Resurgence often functions as a pseudo-Grand Abolisher by forcing our opponents into using mana on their own turn. Unsuspecting players will often look to maximize mana efficiency in the face of a Voice of Resurgence by powering out threats where they would otherwise leave up removal/countermagic, paving the way for us to execute our combo. The mere threat of free Elemental tokens is often enough to discourage our opponents from interacting with us at instant speed, which is exactly where we want to be. Even Voice’s fail-state (dying to Lightning Bolt) still leaves an Elemental behind and helps clear the way for Knight to live later.
I like playing the full set of Path to Exile here, as it is the stronger spell, lets us keep our blue to a relatively light splash, and we often don’t mind giving our opponent a free land. Killing a creature cheaply and efficiently, no questions asked, is what we’re in the market for, and Path to Exile delivers. In this same vein, Remand works to buy time and gives us a broad answer to all sorts of threats, be they Tarmogoyf, Mana Leak, or Splinter Twin. As long as we’re presenting a clock or forcing through our combo, the “card disadvantage” associated with Remand giving our opponent back their spell is often irrelevant, as we are usually too far ahead on tempo for this to matter.
feeling I would like to avoid, which leads me to wanting more early drops. While we have a plethora of two-drops available to us, our identity as a landfall deck along with our seven fetchlands really makes me want to try Steppe Lynx. Having a second creature out that can go huge with Knight of the Reliquary burning through land drops is great, but I’m more excited for what 11 one drops does for our consistency. While it can sometimes be awkward to have both mana creatures and Steppe Lynx in hand on turn one, the ability to always have something to do on the first turn of every game is not to be undervalued, and goes a long way towards pushing that tempo effect we’ve talked about so much. Again, even if Steppe Lynx eats a Lightning Bolt, that is one less removal spell our opponent is aiming at our Knight of the Reliquary, and the ceiling on Steppe Lynx is huge. Go on, attack with Steppe Lynx for eight damage over two turns and tell me you’re not having fun!
is one of the best cards legal in Modern without a great home. Great against aggro, midrange, and control, Kitchen Finks punishes one-for-one removal and even goes nicely with our Gavony Township. A must include for any archetype looking for help against Burn or Jund.
is a solid role-player against Tron that does good work against Scapeshift and Amulet as well. I’ve found some difficulty with the Tron matchup and I’ve liked the 2/1 flying body too, but Mindcensor could definitely be anything else if you need the room.
![Insider: [MTGO] An Introduction to Short Selling – The Case of Jace](https://www.quietspeculation.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/IMG_7555.jpg)
This story begins with the spoiling of Monastery Mentor. I was intrigued from the start. It looks like Young Pyromancer, but it costs more. But Mentor and its tokens are more powerful. This cannot be good in Modern. It is insane in 
As I mentioned, the deck was exceptional at disrupting the opponent. I then usually spent far too much time just staring at my opponent, unable to attack for more than two at a time thanks to Spirits that had survived the attrition war. That was too slow. With no reach and no surprise combo, I just had to slowly plink away during the mid to late game, and that wasn't good enough. Opponents could weather my anemic beats until they found a more impactful threat and then I was doomed. This also exposed a weakness of the deck, where resolved threats where extremely dangerous. I only had five removal spells in my main 60, so Jund and non-burn aggro were extremely dangerous (Jund is built to play a long removal game and stick a single threat to win, just like Mentor, and if I can't trade for Souls tokens then those drops are lethal). It also couldn't beat Tron. Once my opponents adjusted to the Mentor game plan and I couldn't get free wins from surprise anymore, I struggled to break even at events.
I decided the problem with Monastery Mentor was that since it really wanted you to have cards in your hand you should always have more cards in your hand. Because I rarely got above five lands, I knew Sphinx's Revelation was not a great option. This was fortunate because I really wanted to use Esper Charm again (it was a Standard favorite of mine). On paper, Charm was perfect, a versatile instant that drew cards in my colors. In practice...let's not speak of how it was in practice but calling it clunky would be charitable.
I didn't need as many answers as before since the pressure of Delver was usually enough.
It wasn't necessarily that it was a great answer for the threats, it was how Command affected the format. Grixis became the default blue deck, and my list suffered against opposing discard and counters. Also, Lightning Bolt. The proliferation of Command meant more Bolts and Bolt is a great answer to all of my threats except Colonnade. More removal heavy decks was bad enough, but Command proved to be such an amazing value engine that it meant that the first problem of running out of resources came back with a vengeance. Souls just wasn't enough to make up for it. I was getting my early game stuffed more often and this made the lack of card advantage, especially compared to Grixis decks, more glaring.
I found that a lot of my losses now happened with the opponent in burn range, but I had no reach. I wanted burn, and I knew that burn played well with Pyromancer, so it should also be good with Mentor. So I ditched the black for red, and then for several months ditched Mentor entirely in favor of a Jeskai control list because I wanted to see if the Temples are Modern playable (they were, mostly).
It had raw power and value in Cryptic Command and the burn to finish off games. It powered through matchups and could race or win out of nowhere. And would fail to win many games. There were times that it just clunked along despite the game going to plan with a flipped Delver and cards in hand to power out a Mentor turn. Changing Mana Leak for Remand did nothing. Trying new cards like Soulfire Grand Master didn't help (though it did make Burn and other Delver decks into very, very good matchups). It's hard to describe the problem any other way than the deck felt like it was tearing during games. There would be Delver style games and control style games where you won via Mentor just like expected and then there were in between games when something...just felt wrong. Like the deck was doing what it wanted to be but didn't actually want to do it. Changing the boarding strategies didn't help, nor did moving around card numbers. Something was fundamentally wrong with my deck.
They looked like they should. Sometimes they played like they did. But often there was just this tension between the strategies that make Mentor/Delver lists a poor choice for now. The reason I think is Mentor's mana cost. Young Pyromancer plays so well with Delver of Secrets because Delver already wants to play with red spells while white is not nearly so compatible. Red just has more universally proactive non-creature spells than white and they complement aggressive strategies better. Also Pyromancer costs two which neatly fits into the Delver game. Turn one Delver, turn two Pyromancer, turn three start chucking burn is a very effective and proven strategy. The ideal with Mentor is turn one Delver, turn two Remand, turn three Mentor, turn four go nuts. That turn difference means that Mentor is just slightly off the beat with Delver, making Pyromancer a much better partner. Delver and Pyro sync well while Mentor and Delver step on each other's toes too much.
Most decks have a hard time removing Ojutai if he does not attack, making him an impenetrable brick wall to aggressive decks. He also has good synergy with some of the other cards in the deck, particularly Restoration Angel and the two utility lands, Minamo School at Water's Edge and Eiganjo Castle. Restoration Angel and the two utility lands can blank a piece of targeted removal while reestablishing hexproof to protect your Dragonlord. Minamo acts as instant speed hexproof for Ojutai and Eiganjo Castle can prevent combinations like Lightning Bolt and Kolighan's Command from killing Ojutai. Overall, Dragonlord Ojutai is the deck’s premier threat and closes the game out quickly, often in three turns with fetches and shocklands helping out.
Titan has always been a powerhouse: when paired with Kitchen Finks and Ghost Quarter it can grind down and crush most fair decks. Watanabe adds in cards like Wall of Omens to create more card advantage and Vendilion Clique as a disruptive threat to stifle the opponent’s plans. Sun Titan can have more utility than just hitting those few cards, such as returning Celestial Colonnade or Flooded Strand, but those are the most common recursion targets. As with Ojutai, Sun Titan will quickly end the game if left unchecked. Titan is particular strong with Restoration Angel, who can set up an attack, get your recursion value, and then blink Sun Titan. This saves it from combat and gets another piece of value from the graveyard. In a format as fast as Modern, it is risky to run more than one six-drop and it will often be your first cut against non-GBx decks that want to grind and have few answers to recurring Kitchen Finks. While not as premium as Dragonlord Ojutai, Sun Titan serves a major role in the deck, giving greater late-game grinding potential without losing steam in the mid- to late-game like traditional UW Control.
The next set of threats are the deck’s fliers, Restoration Angel and Vendilion Clique. Both of these cards synergize with the rest of the deck by having flash and by generating value through information or enter the battlefield effects. These two cards are often your first threat in the game and demand answers or they can start chipping away at your opponent’s life totals. Though neither threat is as difficult to answer as Ojutai or Titan, they both apply pressure to the opponent and can create blowout situations due to their flash ability. While both of these threats are impactful, they are more tied to the synergistic elements of the deck and can apply pressure. Titan and Ojutai are your main finishers, alongside the mighty Celestial Colonnade.
Colonnade is often a tempo card where you tap out to race in conjunction with another flier, ending the game in two swings around turn seven or eight. Colonnade is not the big premier end-game threat in this deck unlike its role in previous UWx control lists. Use Colonnade as a battering ram that can quickly close your opponent’s game before you hit the very late turns. Of course, the card still functions as a good finisher if you start running out of gas or the board gets stalled without your fliers. Colonnade is also a great blocker, assuming you can survive until turn six to get this additional blocker. Colonnade is much more flexible in this deck, where we have a tendency to tap out for threats like Ojutai or Sun Titan and an ability to end the game around turn eight or nine, rather than turn 15.
Instead, it plays four copies of Spell Snare to slow down opponents and hit some of the massive threats from decks like Abzan, Jund, Affinity and Infect. While four copies can seem like overkill, an unanswered Tarmogoyf or Dark Confidant can destroy you. The other great thing about Spell Snare is casting it on the draw enables turn one interaction outside of Path. Like most heavily blue decks, this deck also runs Cryptic Command. The difference here is that we k only run three copies. This UW Control build wants to end the game quickly, and drawing multiple Cryptics instead of threats is much worse here than in other blue decks.
All of those cards, except Threads, also dramatically improve Grixis Control and Delver matchups. These cards are also highly relevant against Grixis Twin, although the threat of Splinter Twin can make it the hardest of the Grixis contests. Looking beyond the anti-Grixis arsenal, there are only six cards left for the rest of the format. Aven Mindcensor helps against Scapeshift, a deck that could be poised for a rise in popularity with Bring to Light acting as Scapeshifts five through eight. It also doubles as random hate against decks like Amulet Bloom and Company lists with Chord. Stony Silence targets Affinity and Crucible is for land destruction matchups like Living End and sometimes GBx decks that overload on Fulminator Mage. Overall, the sideboard is very GBx and Grixis-targeted, as these are two very big players in the meta. Although there is not much hate for other decks, most of those matchups are already decent or favorable (such as Affinity).
Looking at the matchups in a broader sense, the deck is very meta-dependent and can easily steal a tournament against the right field. First up is Affinity, one of the big players in our current meta. Affinity is an excellent matchup for this deck as you have interaction early with Spell Snare and Path to Exile with Supreme Verdict and Ghost Quarter coming online later to deal with the more problematic cards. The deck does not change much post board, but Stony Silence can just end the game on turn two since Affinity rarely has the cards to significantly improve the matchup from game one to game two (just save those Spheres for Ghirapur Aether Grid). Even if they do answer Silence, it buys you time to catch up tempo-wise and land your own answers and win conditions.
The GBx decks are slightly favorable. Their big hitter cards are Liliana of the Veil, Dark Confidant, and Tarmogoyf: answer those cards cleanly and start closing out the game with Ojutai or Sun Titan, and BGx will have a hard time catching up. That said, dealing with a resolved Liliana can be very difficult for this deck. After sideboarding, the matchup gets better with many tools added to deal with the three hard hitters, like Negate for Liliana or Threads of Disloyalty for Tarmogoyf and Dark Confidant. Overall, the Abzan and Jund matchups are slightly favorable if played properly. Abzan will be somewhat harder, with Lingering Souls to clog up the skies and Path to Exile as harder, non-damage-based removal.
Restoration Angel is an all-star in this match-up and acts as a threat, an ambush blocker, and a way to blank removal. This deck also answers Grixis Delver’s threats cheaply and uses Supreme Verdict as a reset button after the opponent has burned through their resources, resulting in an easy way to close out games. Twin is the hardest variant since there is no easy way to answer Splinter Twin outside of countermagic and Path. Depending on the skill of the Twin player, they may board into a more controlling shell that eschews the combo, which is much better for us than for them. Then again, the players I have seen on Magic Online board into a more combo-oriented version with extra Dispels and Negates, which will make games two and three significantly harder.
The deck’s worst match-ups are Tron and Burn. Both decks will just win the game if you give them too much time, and no matter how many counterspells you have or how many threats you drop, both decks are much more likely to have you dead on turn eight than the other way around. While there are some decent sideboard cards against Burn, such as Negate, Spellskite, and Dispel, Tron is the deck that really feels like a must-dodge matchup. Ghost Quarter helps far less than you think and we are very soft to a turn three Tron. Luckily, Tron is not a huge player in the meta right now. If it becomes prominent, however, this is not the deck to play.![[MTGO] 1 Year, 100 Tix – September Report](https://www.quietspeculation.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/100T1Y-calendar.jpg)
