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Judges are an important part of the infrastructure that keeps Magic thriving and well. With every store, event, FNM, or another tournament, there are bound to be rules issues, as Magic is a vastly complex game with cryptic and sometimes counter-intuitive rulings. You all are probably well aware of the distinct shout of "JUDGE!" in the middle of a tournament as a complex (or sometimes not all so complex) rule sparks a question. With over 230 pages in the Comprehensive Rules and many more in other documents related to judging, being a Judge takes time, effort, and dedication.
To show appreciation for the judging community, Wizards of The Coast started giving out Promo cards to Judges for judging tournaments and other events. These Judge promos were highly sought after as they tended to be very rare, and a sign of achievement. Over the years as more and more Judges are trained, and more and more players join the game, more and more Judge Promos are printed. These tended to be iconic cards, or cards that see play. The promos were also able to circumvent the Reserved List, so it is one of the few ways to get foil reserved list cards. Today we will observe, analyze, and speculate on the investability of Judge Promos long term.
Good Cards
Highly played cards are going to be the most stable, and most in-demand cards. That isn't much of a surprise, nor is it a surprise that scarce Judge foils of those cards are going to be expensive, and sought after on a higher scale. Let's take a look at some examples and see what the trends are.
Lightning Bolt
Lightning Bolt, one of Alpha's original "3 for one mana" cycles. Ignoring Ancestral Recall, it is easily the best of the cycle, and its introduction to Modern in 2009 was explosive. As it still sees play today in a variety of decks due to its incredible versatility, it's no surprise this one is near the top of the price range. It's seen stable growth across the years, with its current position well earned. I see no reason that this growth should not continue. There are currently 15 listings for this card on TCGplayer, and eBay shows a trend of around 2-5 copies sold per month. The supply seems to be low enough to sustain price, and high enough to sustain growth. With dozens of decks across most formats using this card in some form or fashion, I see no reason for anything but continued growth. It's a simply good card, and collectible as anything.
Rhystic Study
Rhystic Study is a Commander all-star. There is little to no reason why any Commander running blue should not be running Rhystic Study. The value generated by this card is overpowering, cheap, and fits well regardless of power level. A casual deck and a CEDH deck alike can run this card and benefit all the same.
You can see that it has seen consistent growth throughout its existence. You see a period of decreased interest and consolidation in the period leading up to 2020, followed by a tad bit of turmoil around prices, a period of stagnation, and as the new year rang in, a renewed interest as markets shifted. For most of its life cycle, the money was focused on other sectors. More people were looking for Wheel of Fortune's and Timetwister's than a fancy foil for their Commander deck. I see this having a decent amount of to grow, especially with in-store play opening up across the country.
2020 Judge Promos
2020 Judge promos are an interesting case. Due to being printed and distributed in a time where there weren't many events to judge in the first place, makes odd circumstances for these cards development. A number of cards started at astronomical prices and dropped to very low prices very quickly, and others have simply experienced stagnant or negative horizontal movement. Some heavier played cards like Demonic Tutor has seen some uptick, but overall very slow growth and not much interest. Personally, I believe that these are way too low, especially considering some of these are the cheapest printing, or not too far off from being the cheapest printing.
Gamble
Gamble is just barely above its non-foil, non-promo counterparts, and it has no reason to be. It's played a lot in Commander, and in CEDH as well. Only a 50% price increase doesn't make much sense to me.
Birthing Pod
Oh, the ol' pod; what an iconic card. Sadly, this one makes a bit of sense. This card has a home in many decks, but its lack of total ubiquity makes it a bit harder to have a higher sticking price. If it returns to Modern, this is easily much more, but I don't see too drastic growth at this point.
Demonic Tutor
Demonic Tutor is an insanely powerful card. It lacks the low mana requirements of Vampiric Tutor, but what it loses in cheapness, it gains in the efficiency of not requiring a draw. It ends up being perfect for a mid to late game when the extra cost of 1 generic mana tends to be less of an issue. There is an easy reason why this card showed movement when others didn't, it simply is the best card of the year's promos.
Reserved List Foils
In the days of yore, Wizards found an unbelievable loophole in the age-old agreement known as the Reserved List. If they simply printed those cards in foil, then technically it wouldn't count as a violation of the Reserved List. This culminated in many From The Vaults, and many Judge Promos that have reserved list cards, often in the only available foil printings. This combined with the explosion of Reserved List cards, and the fact that these promos are all highly-played cards, it's no surprise most of these promos are at the top of the list for the price. Among many notable are Gaea's Cradle, Wheel of Fortune, and Survival of the Fittest are all at the top of the list.
Gaea's Cradle
An incredibly powerful inclusion in most green decks, it's no surprise that as the normal Gaea's Cradle went up, that the promo would increase at an increasingly higher rate. Being that this is the only way to get a foil version of this card, and it being the centerpiece of many already expensive decks, players are willing to shell out the big bucks for this one. I don't see too much room for growth here as the market consolidates these higher-end pieces and moves towards different interests. I personally would wait a bit before looking to pick up a copy. I do believe that long term this card has not reached its peak, but now will not be that time.
Wheel of Fortune
For fans of the modern card frame, black border, foil, and spending slightly less than the next highest option, the Judge Promo of Wheel of Fortune is a great pick! Fans of anything but that rejoice, as you now saved a very large amount of money. As with Gaea's Cradle, I firmly believe we have seen the most we will get for a little while. There will be a large increase at some point, but for now, there won't be too much movement.
Survival of the Fittest
I feel that while the previous two have universal ubiquity in decks that would benefit from them, Survival of the Fittest sees ever so slightly less play. This is seemingly offset for the most part by the fact that the decks that do run Survival of the Fittest, tend to be able to sling some more cash anyways, which while true with both of the previously mentioned cards, this fact is a great preventative measure in any major downturn, but gives this card slightly more instability, however so small.
What's the Point of a Foil if People Can't See the Shine?
With stores opening doors for the first time in over a year, foils are starting to matter more and more every day. With most play happening online over webcam, where foils are harder to read, impossible to notice, or simply not worth it for most, the shift to in-person makes aesthetics matter even more. As we've seen, over the past year, some foil cards from newer sets are cheaper than the non-foil versions.
While this is in part due to a large decrease in the quality of foils, foil quality has been decreasing steadily over the past couple of years (Commander Legends being the big, heavy, and cumbersome nail in the coffin). With both increasing foil quality of some of the last few sets, and the increasing importance of foils, we likely will see general growth across the board with foils, Judge Promos simply being near the tippy top of that ladder.
Judges Judge, Why Shouldn't You?
I like to end each of my articles with a reminder. A reminder to follow your gut, be smart and make decisions for yourself. The smartest analysts in this field get specs wrong all the time, and sometimes a contrarian viewpoint ends up being the correct one. Your call may be right, it may wrong, and it might just be crazy, but it might just be absolute lunacy that leads you to salvation. Remember, be smart, be calm, and invest in cardboard. Have a great rest of your week.
Wizards printed three blunt-force anti-Tron cards and three more which interact favorably with Tron. And by blunt, I mean that Break the Ice, Obsidian Charmaw, and Void Mirror might as well have explicit rules text saying "use this against Tron." Void Mirror is the most obvious, as it counters any spell that was cast without any colored mana. Tron is a deck famous for casting colorless threats. You do the math. Mirror is also effective against all the suspend cards in MH2, almost as if Wizards was providing extra incentive for players to play the card. It is also quite potent against normal Tron's cousin, Eldrazi Tron, as if it wasn't obvious enough.
Break and Charmaw are similar in that both are intended to destroy Tron lands. Technically, Charmaw destroys any nonbasic land, which means it is likely a shoo-in for Ponza. However, the cost reduction of Charmaw is targeted at colorless lands, and again, what deck besides Tron uses lots of colorless lands? The fact that it can hit Tron turn three on the play cannot be an accident. Meanwhile, Break costs two specifically to prevent turn three Karn Liberated. Again, it specifically targets lands that make colorless mana. It also hits snow lands, but that hasn't been too relevant since Arcum's Astrolabe was banned. Though it is worth noting that snow-covered basics are not always strictly better than regular basics anymore.
Finally, there are Rishadan Dockhand, Tide Shaper, and Vindicate. Vindicate destroys any permanent, which means against Tron it will usually be Stone Rain. However, it also destroys Karn and Ugin, the Spirit Dragon. Vindicate isn't specifically targeting Tron, it's just very good there. The Merfolk both disrupt mana, Tron's whole deal, but aren't specifically targeted against Tron. Shaper in particular is very good since taking a turn off to Spreading Seas was often necessary but not desirable for Merfolk since Seas isn't a threat. Now they can do both! If you'd ask me, it's obvious that MH2 was meant to put some pressure on Tron.
Shame it's going to fail at that, then. I hate to burst any bubbles, but there is very little chance of Tron being uniquely hated out by anything in MH2. It might lose some popularity initially, but Tron will easily recover and continue to fun-police all over midrange and prison. Mainly because the dedicated hate is easier to avoid than it appears. Mirror doesn't counter colorless spells (which actually would be devastating), just spells that weren't cast with colored mana. Thus it's easily defeated so long as Tron has out a Chromatic Star or a forest. It wouldn't surprise me if Tron started running Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth for this very purpose, giving them a way to tap even their colorless lands for G and empty their hand of said Stars for multiple big-mana plays. Break the Ice is black and can be beaten with Veil of Summer. Overloading Break is a win, but at that point, Tron was unlikely to win anyway. And Charmaw is only good disruption on the play.
However, that's not entirely the cards' fault. The answer lies in the mirror. How many players have seen all the new hate, will assume that Tron's going to be hated out and/or dropped, and will cut their Tron hate? Be honest, you've at least thought about it. That's the main reason that Tron 
Not so unlike Tron, every time there's a shift in the metagame or a new piece of graveyard hate, Dredge is declared a dead deck. And for 
it sees so much play in Legacy where there are 
Burn, enough that I expect it to overtake Timely Reinforcements as the sideboard card of choice. Thanks to it granting hexproof without restriction, it's less powerful but more versatile than Veil of Summer, and therefore counters Mill's Glimpses, Hedron Crab triggers, and Archive Traps. Otherwise known as their most damaging spells.
At Your Peril
I'd also like to note that all combo decks that don't win via Thassa's Oracle will be hit by Blossoming Calm, Storm being the hardest hit: Gifts Ungiven targets opponents, so Calm both counters the Gifts and protects against Grapeshot for a turn. If Calm is adopted as widely as I think it should be, then Storm and similar decks will have to rebuild. MH2 has provided a number of options for Storm to move into green, though I have no idea if that's ideal. Is Caleb Scherer still around? Somebody ask him.
Power: 4
That's a far cry from Abundant Harvest. A fair bit of the card's power lies in just how easy it is to navigate, a factor that ensures most players will resolve it correctly without spending energy deliberating. Harvest always asks players the same (very easy) question: would you rather this card be a land or a spell? Having 100% control over getting one or the other is so strong that I'd situate this card's impact level somewhere between that of Preordain and Ponder.
HELLO?!?!! This is so good!! You have 100% control over getting one or the other. Harvest is always the better of the two.
One archetype that doesn't have its early game curve tied up and is known to have tons of mana to throw around during the game is control. Currently, these decks are built with flooding in mind, and pack insurance like Celestial Colonnade. But I can envision a world where control decks want green, and in that world, Harvest presents an alluring alternative to running mana sinks. These control decks will seek to put the game away a bit faster than what we now see out of UW or Esper, 
Power: 5
True, Ragavan doesn't draw a card every turn. Even in the mirror, it will sometimes flip a land. But it draws a card sometimes, and by drawing once, it has already paid for itself in terms of card economy. I'll also argue that in many instances, it has already paid for itself just by generating a treasure. That extra mana means it also ramps into the opponent's payoffs; I've played one game where I was able to cast, from my opponent's library, turn two Teferi, Time Raveler (which met Force of Negation) and then turn four Jace, the Mind Sculptor (which resolved and won me the game).
So Ragavan is the best creature ever printed. Will it be banned in Modern? Obviously, it's far too early to tell. It's not like we lack answers to a 2/1. Hexdrinker, too, is a massively pushed aggressive one-drop that 
Decks will splash for this card. They will splash for this card like crazy. By which I mean they will be rebuilt to accommodate Ragavan alongside the best red spells that play to its bottom line (AKA Lightning Bolt). Imagine it out of control sideboards when all your Pushes are in the board. Scaaa-ry! But not every deck, or even every red deck, will want Ragavan.
Jund Rock: Hexdrinker was good enough for BGx players 
Power and flexibility will be rated by considering both a card’s floor (the least it will do) and its ceiling (its best-case scenario). For example, 
While the better Incarnations do score enough points on these metrics to make the Top 5, 
Power: 3
Splashability: 3
Power: 5
Much of Saga's power lies in its reliability, and the above constitutes what I'd consider a pretty comprehensive plan for a card whose floor is literally being a land that taps for colorless. One strike against Saga is that it will be traded in for an artifact every time; there's no option to keep it around as a land. But because of how saga enchantments work, players can still float a colorless in the main phase of that last turn to make their big play, and the mana it would normally cost to cast a one-mana artifact is on the house—if we're talking raw mana numbers, Saga is a Sol Ring on that final turn. I've found that being smart about which turn Saga is deployed, rather than just slamming it right away, allows for enough planning that trading it for a choice one-drop is almost always a big benefit.
The natural next question: how good is Construct? Without any other artifact support, that lifelinker (and its partner blocker) will be a 3/3 on the turn it crashes into the red zone. With just a single additional artifact, even Darksteel Citadel, it grows to the 
Basilisk Collar
Here's where Saga drops the ball. Few decks in color-hungry Modern can afford to sleeve up colorless lands, and Saga also requires players to include one-drop artifacts that might not see play in the build otherwise. So besides meshing with a few very specific strategies, Saga demands significant commitment while deckbuilding.
Power: 3
Here's where the points come rushing in. Modern deckbuilding has always been about striking a balance between artifact hate, enchantment removal, cards that interact well against planeswalkers, etc. Being able to target any permanent is the crux that brought Brazen Borrower into the fold of format playability despite its clear drawbacks. And it's the condition that ensures Prismatic Ending will go down as one of the most fearsome pieces of removal in the format.
The same amount of mana spent by opponents (in terms of tempo, Ending is almost always a wash)
In terms of straight-up effects, Fury can often have the most impactful, offering casters a pair of Forked Bolts. These can dismantle an enemy board with the utmost precision, dealing one to a dork, two to a creature, and another two a minused walker, for instance; all the excess damage goes to the dome, of course, which makes Fury very low-commitment. Indeed, I imagine it will often be cast as a kill spell with some trample.
Being green, Endurance has the most aggressively costed body of the cycle. A 3/4 with reach and flash is one dangerous spider, taking out any of Modern's Stage 1 creatures as they dash naively into the red zone as well as pricier utility threats that don't know any better (including, say, Lurrus of the Dream-Den). The threat of Endurance from green decks will have players thinking twice before they come in with the team, and make casting spells in the second main phase more important than ever.
Aether Gust has proven itself a fixture of the Modern tournament scene, popping up in sideboards everywhere even now that Uro's long gone and Tarmogoyf has been 
Seal of Removal: Seal of Fire was already played in prowess decks, and I imagine storing Unsummon on a get-it-now prowess trigger will be very exciting for those same mages. After all, Unsummon is a more reasonable Modern card than Shock. (Don't @ me. Just cuz I've always wanted to say that.)
Suspend: Temporary removal, just like Unsummon. Except it's not quite like Unsummon, because the creature can't be cast the following turn; delay-wise, it's more like Reflector Mage. Of note, the creature gets haste when it returns, and opponents don't have to spend mana recasting it, making it worse than Mage or Unsummon when it comes to sapping tempo. I'd say most of Suspend's potential comes from its interaction with Teferi, Time Raveler, which forces the card to just stay exiled. Very likely to see play in decks that both a) run Teferi and b) might want to hit their own creatures with Suspend to double up on ETB triggers or protect against removal.
Bone Shards: Very flexible removal spell that is sure to see use in strategies that like discarding (Hollow One, Dredge, etc.). Off the bat, Shards strikes me as a significant upgrade to Lightning Axe. Sacrificing a creature seems like a steep cost, but since discarding remains a possibility, it's straight upside over Axe. You can drop a 1/1 Elemental token for this thing and keep that Bedlam Reveler in hand!
Vindicate: The known and feared Vindicate, at last in Modern. Goodbye, Malestrom Pulse! And goodbye, Steam Vents!
Bone Shredder: Fleshbag Marauder upgrade for creature toolbox decks.
Mishra's Factory: The best manland comes to Modern, giving Mutavault a run for its money in decks that don't need the tribal synergy. Granted, that's not many, but Factory also gives Blinkmoth some competition in Affinity and related artifact decks. I mean, it's juts so big!
All that support don't come for free. Leave it to Wizards to rain on our fun. Or, rather, give us the tools to rain on someone else's.
Dress Down: Now that's more like it. Kiss your creature combo turn goodbye. Plus a cantrip even when it's not useful, and when is it not useful? Against most decks, Dress Down provides at least a Stifle, stopping a Kroxa trigger or a Confidant reveal or a Hierarch from tapping in the main phase or a Scourge of the Skyclaves from existing. Yes, it murders Scourge of the Skyclaves and then cantrips. Yes, it turns Death's Shadow into a 12/12 for the turn. Yes, grow big Goyf. A+ from ya boi.
Void Mirror: Tron can still cast their spells using Forest, or the mana from Chromatic Sphere. But they need to tap Forest to cast another Chromatic Sphere, so I'm not sure this card is totally blank against them. Granted, it's much better against decks like 
Dauthi Voidwalker: Might as well have Leyline of the Void on a stick, too. This one's a lot worse than Sanctifier, but not without its potential. Black could always use more hosers. That second ability seems like a whole lot of text for nothing.
Blessed Respite: Gaea's Blessing, meet Fog. Soothing Rest, meet The Sideboard. Rest is a versatile card that ironically fails to fulfill a key goal of Gaea's Blessing in the decks that side it where it's legal, which is to not lose against Mill. We'll miss the cantrip, too.
Flame Blitz: So you hate planeswalkers. Boy, have we got the card for you! Blitz is the one-mana walker sweeper that just keeps on sweeping. And if opponents don't have any, it can just be cycled. Value! Or if you already resolved one. Value! Or you could just cast that second one and deal 10 to all the walkers every round. You do hate planeswalkers, don't you?
Lonis, Cryptozoologist: Lonis investigates whenever a creature enters the battlefield, which isn't the toughest condition to meet. With that being said, it's a lot harder than existing options (see below). Where the Legend really shines is with its tap ability, which converts those many clues, formerly mana sinks, into mana and card advantage, flipping the script on their usefulness and letting players cast an opponent's cards for free.
Fae Offering: Generating one of each token is exactly where those serious about this archetype will want to be. Given Modern's wealth of versatile options, including Mishra's Bauble, Manamorphose, Noble Hierarch, and the like, it won't be too tough to meet Offering's condition on most turns, turning this unassuming enchantment into a potentially value-laden enabler.
Academy Manufactor: Um, let's start over: generating three of each token is exactly where those serious about this archetype will want to be. Manufactor turns Fae Offering, and especially simpler set-up cards, into nightmares for opponents to dismantle; in other words, it gets the ball rolling big-time.
Existing options: Modern has its share of cards that play nice with these theme. I'd say best of all is the already-played Tireless Tracker, which combines with fetchlands to pump out a grip of clues. I wonder if Standard all-stars like Goldspan Dragon and Galazeth Prismari won't be suitable payoffs here too, given their absurd potential when combined with these newer cards. Overall, though, the token theme strikes me as a little cute and a little durdly, and if it comes to be, will be floated mostly by Ragavan.
Sterling Grove: The first reprint on our list, Grove gives players access to a toolbox element, and as we know there's no shortage of surgical enchantments in Modern. That means Grove is something of a themed Demonic Tutor, and it also provides the buff of granting shroud to important pieces in a lockdown. At two mana, it's sure to be a staple in the deck, at least in its early stages.
Enchantress's Presence: Another reprint, Presence is the classic draw engine for Enchantress decks, taking its name from Argothian Enchantress (at this time, still not in Modern). At two mana, this one is sure to be a staple in the deck well into its old age. When Presence stops being good, the deck itself stops being good. And yeah, this is the hyper-aggressive, hyper-punishing Modern, so that may or may not be out of gate.
Sanctum Weaver: At last, a newbie! Weaver is Serra's Sanctum on legs, with the added benefit of making any color mana. Of course, Sanctum is much better, as it costs no mana and can't be Bolted; Modern may well be on its way to becoming Legacy-lite, but not without the caveat of Wizards deciding which cards to exclude from the format. I wouldn't hold my breath for Sanctum and its cycle-mates Gaea's Cradle and Tolarian Academy (okay, this last one is banned even from Legacy).
Sythis, Harvest's Hand: And here's our Argothian Enchantress retrain! I'd say losing shroud in Modern definitely hurts more than the lifegain helps, but we can't call this two-mana Nymph quite a strictly-worse version. In multiples, that life gain will surely add up into a win a nonzero percentage of the time.
New deck? Affinity? New deck? That's right, folks: 
Ethersworn Sphinx: Cascade is a lot better than draw 2. Right? Right...? Well, maybe not! In the build of post-MH2 Affinity I've been seeing pop up in casual online rooms, Sphinx tends to cascade into a mana rock or an Ornithopter. After all, the deck is mostly made up of cheap enablers. The value is still potentially there, and it does replace itself at worst. But I anticipate the main draw to Sphinx will be the slight velocity it provides (you might as well be drawing most of the time) and the massive 4/4 flying body.
Existing options: I mean, you know them—Ornithopter, Memnite, Frogmite. The decklist practically writes itself. The tuning is where things will start to get interesting: Chromatic Star & company, or no? Dispatch vs. Glavanic Blast? Do we run Sphinx at all? How about them tapped artifact lands? Uh... can Wizards unban Seat of the Synod already?! Is Cranial Plating even worth casting in 2021? (jk.)
Svyelun of Sea and Sky: This card doesn't look much like a Merfolk at all, at least in terms of strategic cohesion. But that's okay with me, and potential Svyleun's strength: it gives the deck a desperately needed Plan B. Unlike Merfolk's other threats, Svyelun is perfectly fine to be on the battlefield by itself, and indeed threatens to walk away with games unmolested; indeed, I even saw one out of UW Control the other day. That means potential to claw back into games and defeat board stalls, something Merfolk has traditionally sucked at. And it's not like Svyleun is bad in Merfolk itself: giving all your guys ward makes it considerably harder for opponents to dismantle the pumps-and-islandwalk synergies, incentivizing them to deal with this bulky bad boy first... and good luck with that, if it's indestructible!
Inevitable Betrayal: This one may find its way into all Suspend sideboards, as it can steal key creatures out of Tron or other big mana strategies. Wurmcoil Engine or Emrakul, the Aeons Torn sure beats making a pair of 4/4s off Crashing Footfalls, and potentially anything else the Suspend deck wants to be cheating.
Glimpse of Tomorrow: New dimension #1, and in my eyes the most likely to spur a new build into being. Glimpse wants players to commit a ton of permanents to the board (mana rocks, etc.) and then cheat out the title card to effectively cascade into Emrakul, Omnipotence, or whatever else. So it's literally Warp World, an eight-mana sorcery that 
Gaea's Will: New dimension #2, Gaea's Will is a retrain of Yawgmoth's Will, one of the most broken spells ever printed. We may see Will at the heart of a Storm-esque deck with an Electrodominance package or even as a way to just generate a bunch of value in the mid-game for other Suspend decks. I'm the most excited about the possibilities with this one. Of course, it may also end up being a flop.
Resurgent Belief: New Dimension # 3: A suspended Replenish. Belief also has combo potential, albeit in a totally different kind of shell. This deck could run self-mill or enchantment Entombs to set up a lock, or even just tempo- or value-generating enchantments like Omen of the Sea and Seal of Removal, or perhaps a mix of both. An interesting thing about Belief is that its Suspend mode actually isn't so much to ask, costing just two mana and charging two upkeeps before resolving, so it may see play without Electrodominance and the like to push it out early or on demand.
Both of these mechanics have seen Modern play on the most powerful cards respectively featuring them: Tribal Flames; Traverse the Ulvenwald; Grim Flayer; Wild Nacatl; Tarmogoyf. Er... okay, so the last two technically lacked the keywords, but you get the idea. Since the mana is so good in Modern thanks to the fetch-shock norm, and delirium is relatively easy to splash thanks to enablers like Bauble and Manamorphose, all of these cards are liable to see some play, both in and out of dedicated decks.
Scion of Draco: Two mana for a 4/4 flier that gives all your creatures useful keywords? Talk about pushed. Players will need all five basic types to pull that off, but given that Tribal Flames has incentivized Zoo decks to splash every color 
Territorial Kavu: This guy is amazing as well. Even better than Draco, if you ask me! Part of what makes Kavu so appealing is that it's a terrific rate even without the full five basic land types, so four-color aggro decks can make good use of him, too. Still, it will definitely appear alongside Draco in revamped domain decks. It's cheap, huge, and provides both card filtering and incidental graveyard hate. What's not to love?
Dragon's Rage Channeller: Which brings us to delirium. Four card types is a lot to ask on a 
Bloodbraid Marauder: Flashier than Channeller, as it's got Bloodbraid Elf's text box for half the cost. But keep in mind that delirium generally asks players to stuff their decks with air like Mishra's Bauble, weakening the potential hits, and that Marauder can't cascade into two- or three-drops, which will make the value it generates a lot lower on average than what Elf can come up with. Still, it should slot right into the delirium aggro deck.
The Underworld Cookbook seems fine to lock in a discard outlet. You can thank this card (
Damn: Black-heavy control and midrange with access to white. That means you, Esper Control! On power level: it's past due Wrath of God received an upgrade. And black some no-questions-asked two-mana removal. Two birds with one stone.
Defile: Anything Swamp-heavy. 8-Rack? Urborg, welcome into the fold!
Esper Sentinel: Humans. Not very aggressive, so potentially a sideboard card, but extremely powerful a lot of the time, especially with built-in synergy to grow it. I've seen "Rhystic Buddy" thrown around as a potential nickname; co-sign.
Flame Rift: Burn. I will note that in this more-combo-oriented-than-Legacy Modern format, 4 damage to each player might not be optimal; in racing scenarios, it's often less impressive than even Skullcrack, which provides a 3-point swing compared to Rift's 0-point swing. (Lightning Helix is king in these scenarios, generating a 6-point swing; Helix-or-Rift metagames, anyone?)
Shardless Agent: Suspend, but also random UGx midrange decks, and maybe Urza shells. This card will be find a ton of homes. Run with 4 Bloodbraid Elf for Modern 
These are very likely to see play in some capacity, but in newer shells, or in ways we haven't yet seen. Reverse-alphabetical this time. U mad?
Murktide Regent: Blue Tombstalker. Possibly not good enough in Modern. We have Scourge of the Skyclaves now, as well as, say, Pteramander.
Kaldra Compleat: Gives Batterskull some competition in terms of juicy Stoneforge Mystic picks. I even ran into a fully-invested white build trying to slam these as fast as possible via not just Mystic, but Quest for the Holy Relic. And all because 
Imperial Recruiter: Now this is a high-profile reprint! Previously, Recruiter was going for hundreds of dollars based on Legacy demand alone. It really gets anything, and isn't restricted to type like Goblin Matron, meaning this creature will see play in all the fish, value, or toolbox decks that could want it and are down to splash red.
Ignoble Hierarch: I'm itching to see the shells Ignoble Hierarch inspires. Mid-sized Jund aggro? Good ol' Jund Rock, but with dorks? Who knows! All that's for certain is that this evil (not to mention smelly) Noble Hierarch will see heaps of play.
General Ferrous Rokiric: Hexproof from monocolored spells means he's immune to Bolt, Push, Path, and even Collected Brutality. Then he's making huge bodies whenever a multicolored spell gets cast, including Manamorphose and, like, Burning-Tree Emissary. Oh, and Mantis Rider. Yeah, this guy's a Human! Maybe he should be in Shoe-Ins.... or maybe he'll helm a new multicolored aggro deck more focused on getting opponents dead than disrupting them. Think Voice of Resurgence and Siege Rhino. And Jegantha, the Wellspring!
After all I've said, there is a temptation to declare Izzet Prowess Tier 0, something I've never done before. I will resist this temptation and everyone reading should do so too. Izzet Prowess is nothing like Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis or Eye of Ugin-powered Eldrazi. The deck is slightly different from the previous few months when it was Tier 1, but not outstandingly so. Plus, it's taking over the top slot from another deck that just spiked out of nowhere. There's no reason to think that this spike won't also go away.
to the baseline. And May's baseline average points is 1.58, meaning that Izzet's performance was slightly below average given its population. To be Tier 0, I'd expect any deck to take down sufficient Top 16 or higher slots to stay above the base. Not necessarily sky-high, but well above the baseline.
Observation #1: Red decks are popular online
Observation #4: There is a correlation between price spikes and decks falling off
that consistently just squeaks into Top 32 the same weight as one that Top 8’s. Using a power ranking rewards good results and moves the winningest decks to the top of the pile and better reflects its metagame potential.
Finally, we come to the average power rankings. These are found by taking total points earned and dividing it by total decks, which measures points per deck. I use this to measure strength vs. popularity. Measuring deck strength is hard. Using the power rankings certainly helps, and serves to show how justified a deck’s popularity is.
Sultai Control was the best-performing deck relative to its popularity in May. What is Sultai Control? I'm using the descriptor as a catchall term for slow, answer-heavy BUG decks. Each deck was pretty different from the others, united only in speed and strategy. Which may have contributed to its good performance. It didn't actually make the power tier, and so isn't included, but Grixis Death's Shadow did the worst of any deck I've ever had in these articles. Its average power is 1; its presence in the population tier can therefore be attributed to its pilots stubborn dedication to their deck and not to any real success. Which is a paper-player attitude, and not something I'd count on from MTGO players.
For starters, 
I know I'm not the only one who began frantically searching Gatherer for Vampires when they spoiled Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord. Nor the only one crestfallen to discover that the best threat to cheat out was actually Morophon, the Boundless, which doesn't do much on its own. But man does it do much paired with a whole tribe.
Of course I was going to start with the Merfolk. The most important Merfolk printed since Master of the Pearl Trident, no less. I’m neither joking nor exaggerating. Rishadan Dockhand, a 1/2 for one with islandwalk, is better than any other one-drop Merfolk printed since Cursecatcher. I 
all-Merfolk, all-the-time plan, Cursecatcher was a solid creature and piece of disruption. Over the years, the creatures got better and the spells got cheaper and suddenly Cursecatcher just didn't do much anymore. To have a chance, Merfolk needed something interactive at one mana, not more beef. The lords had that locked down.
That out of the way, how does being on a creature affect Port's power and playability? On the one hand, the ability to keep opponents off mana is powerful in Modern too. By which I mean Porting Tron. Porting Tron lands is awesome, and will feel far better than Porting Cloudpost in Legacy because it will happen more often. Dockhand isn't a land, so it doesn't tie down your own mana as much as Port. Thus, Dockhand won't harm your own board development as much as Port. However, this comes at the price of being a creature and therefore far more vulnerable than a land. Relying on Dockhand to save you is asking for heartbreak.
Next up is something I never expected to see in Modern: manaless discard. Grief is a more powerful but less flexible Entomber Exarch if actually paid for. However, its evoke cost turns Grief into Unmask. Or as Unmask was intended to be used, anyway. These days, Unmask is mainly used by 
Grief can only ever be used to disrupt opponents, not to advance one's own unfair gameplan. But critically, evoking Grief creates card disadvantage. Thoughtseize is a 1-1 trade whose value comes from trading up on card quality and mana value. An evoked Grief is -1 card (the exiled black card), then the discard is a 1-1 trade. It's harder to say if a 4-mana 3/2 menace is better than the discarded card. Free is much better than costing something, but that only actually matters if you then do something with the mana that's saved. And given the density of black spells that will be necessary to make Grief reliably free (using Force of Will 
Which is why Unmask never saw much play. The reason that Reanimator and Dredge are the only decks that consistently play Unmask in Legacy is that they don't care about throwing away cards. All that matters is setting up their broken thing, and if that happens, they should win. Thus, it's worthwhile to 2-for-1 themselves to ensure their opponent can't disrupt them or to get the needed card into the graveyard. Fair decks have never made use of Unmask because they have to care about resources. Records are thin because Unmask is from before the internet was widespread, but I could only 
Still, that strikes me as the best-case scenario, and constructing a deck to do so consistently makes me question how well it functions outside of that specific play pattern. The 
Immediately after Grief was spoiled, there was speculation that it was part of a cycle because it was an incarnation. That's a 
Cabal Coffers: Another Odyssey block reprint. It's much better now that Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth and Dryad of the Ilysian Grove exist and let Coffers see play outside of mono-black decks. It's much, much worse because the opportunity cost of playing lands that don't make mana themselves is so high in Modern.
me to ask why you need to use Dakkon to cheat in the artifact rather than just cast it? Or Refurbish it several turns earlier? Surveiling every turn is decent, especially as a way to set up graveyard synergies, and exiling creatures is very good. But is either enough for Dakkon to see play?
