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Remember the days when Old School cards were inexpensive and undesirable by most players? At GP Vegas in 2015, I remember walking around from vendor to vendor asking for cards like Juzam Djinn, Chaos Orb, and Beta Mind Twist. Nearly every vendor at the show didn’t bother to bring such illiquid, hard-to-sell cards.
Nowadays, between the explosion of Old School’s popularity and the advent of the “Reserved List buyouts of 2020”, these cards are readily available. The only catch is they’re more than ten times their 2015 pricing!
The result: many popular Old School cards, especially those that also see Commander play, have gotten away from many in the community. Prices have become so prohibitively expensive that the community has begun reaching for budget alternatives. Unfortunately, this has driven up the price of the budget black-bordered options as well!
Everyone knows about cheaper alternatives like Italian Legends, so I won’t dwell on those kinds of options. Instead, this week I’ll examine other black-bordered budget printings for Old School / Commander, discuss pricing, and talk about where one can buy or sell some of the more obscure options.
Copy Artifact: A Case Study
While browsing MTG Stocks Sunday morning, I noticed Copy Artifact was on the climb—it’s a likely buyout candidate but also sees significant play in Commander.
In 2015 during Grand Prix Las Vegas, as I was hunting for Old School cards, Revised Copy Artifact was $5. Today it shows as $66 on MTG Stocks and its market price is $50. That’s 1000% in price appreciation in just five years!
Obviously more prestigious printings from Beta and Alpha are even more expensive. Beta Copy Artifact’s market price is nearly $600 and Card Kingdom is completely out of stock, with $650 as their near mint price. Black bordered copies are simply out of reach, right?
Not necessarily! There are Foreign Black Border (FBB) options as well as Collectors’ Edition, for those not worried about tournament legality. Surely, those are going to be significantly cheaper, right?
That depends on how you define “significantly”. There was a time not too long ago (maybe ~2017-2018) when these would have been dirt cheap. In fact, Collectors’ Edition Copy Artifacts were under $10 in through 2017—a great budget option for players! Today’s price: nearly $50! In fact, it’s cheaper to purchase a heavily played Revised copy than it is a Collectors’ Edition copy!
FBB options have also jumped in kind. Market pricing on TCGplayer is $60—I am not sure what the price was in 2017, but I’m pretty confident it was a lot less! Perhaps the most budget option is the Foreign White Border “FWB” printing—good luck finding cheap copies outside of Europe, though. A quick search on TCGplayer and eBay suggests HP Revised is still cheapest. ABUGames prices FWB at about the same value as Revised, so all copies have climbed up in price in step.
Suddenly, budget options—especially with black borders—aren’t so “budget” anymore.
The Rise of Foreign Black Border
Copy Artifact may be special because it’s on the Reserved List, but it’s certainly no exception. Even non-RL cards popular in Old School and Commander have gotten pricey lately, lifting FBB and CE/IE versions. The result: some surprisingly expensive cards!
Looking up pricing on these cards can be tricky. Often times, popular FBB cards are too few in stock on TCGplayer and eBay in order to determine an accurate value. Card Kingdom doesn’t buy or sell FBB cards. Star City Games does, but their buy prices are significantly below market value.
Your best bet for pricing out FBB cards is ABUGames. If you don’t want to see inflated sell prices, you can examine what they’re willing to pay in cash. Here’s an example: Mana Vault.
Star City Games pays $20 in cash for FBB 1994 German Mana Vault—that’s less than they pay for white-bordered Revised copies, by the way ($30). ABUGames also pays around $30 cash for Revised Mana Vault. But their buy price for FBB 1994 German copies is $88.74 cash! That’s more than four times SCG’s offer! Honestly, this is a much closer approximation to this card’s value, driven by Commander demand no doubt.
These once eschewed printings have truly surged in price, often eclipsing their Revised counterparts. The demand for black-bordered printings of these cards is real.
Here’s another example: FBB German 1994 Mind Twist can be sold to ABUGames for $33.66! Compare that to their buy price on Revised copies, $2.64. Clearly the black-bordered printing is driving up price—it’s good to know there is an attractive buylist outlet in case you have some copies you want to sell and are having difficulty moving them.
While not tournament legal, Collectors’ Edition copies of these popular black-bordered cards have also climbed drastically in the past couple years. If you’re looking to price these out, there are more references. TCGplayer usually has at least a few copies of each CE/IE card in stock, so that could be a good first choice. But unlike FBB, many vendors will pay up for CE/IE printings nowadays. Card Kingdom has a fairly robust buylist for CE/IE. Even Star City Games is in the ballpark of the other two (though still not the best option).
If you really want to a challenge, you could deal in FBB printings from Japanese Chronicles and Renaissance sets. It turns out Star City Games has buy prices for these as well, though again I wouldn’t use their buylist to unload these obscure cards unless you’re absolutely desperate to liquidate.
While receiving $5 for a Japanese Chronicles copy of any card other than Blood Moon may seem attractive, I assure you the card is worth significantly more. Unfortunately, we can’t use any other vendor to estimate pricing—even ABUGames doesn’t have these printings listed on their buy list. So in this case, we have no choice but to rely on TCGPlayer and eBay.
See what I mean when I say Star City Games’ buy prices are only last resort? Why sell for $5 when you could sell for $35 on TCGplayer? The cheapest Renaissance copy for sale right now is MP, $38.75.
Japanese Chronicles are cheaper—the lowest price on TCGplayer is $11.99 for a moderately played copy (eBay is consistent in price). Still, that’s more than double SCG’s offer of $5, and a far better option to try and sell these cards.
In my opinion, if you’re looking to maximize value from your cards and move them with fairly reliable liquidity, you should check out the Old School Discord. I’m seeing frequent sales posts there recently, containing FBB and CE/IE cards, and they always seem to sell for more than I anticipated they would.
A Nod To Collectors’ Edition
I’ve written about Collectors’ Edition and International Collectors’ Edition in the past, so I won’t dwell long on this bucket of cards. But to complete this week’s article, I need to at least mention how these budget black-bordered alternatives have also climbed steadily in price over the past couple years.
The most desirable cards from these sets—Power, duals, etc.—have really become expensive of late. Nice CE moxes, for example, readily sell for $450 nowadays and someone is always looking to buy in the Old School Discord. But even the less-than-playable CE cards, such as Dingus Egg, can be buylisted for a couple bucks nowadays. In fact, Card Kingdom has 270 Collectors’ Edition cards listed on their buylist—almost any CE card is worth at least something nowadays! Even lowly War Mammoth can be buylisted for $0.23!
Clearly, these rectangular, black-bordered cards are worth digging out if you’re sitting on any. While they’re not tournament legal, they still hold some allure for players seeking budget black-bordered options for their Old School / Commander decks. These cards have done nothing but appreciate in value over the past couple years. Consider how CE moxes were just $100 three years ago and now they have gone up fivefold!
Wrapping It Up
When the Old School format took off, many once-forgotten cards suddenly surged in price. There was a window of a couple years when budget black-bordered cards were available at a significant discount to their English counterparts.
Now, with Commander and Old School prices soaring again thanks to the daily Reserved List buyouts, players are reaching for these once-inexpensive alternatives for their decks. But unlike a few years ago, this time FBB and CE/IE options are not nearly so cheap. Many have taken off in price, and are often more costly than Revised or Chronicles alternatives.
I believe this trend will continue. Other budget options are also likely to see gains, such as Gold-Bordered cards and Foreign White Bordered (FWB) printings. But just because this trend exists doesn’t mean it’s easy to profit on it. These cards are a little tougher to sell, and buylists are sparse (ABUGames is probably your best bet). Luckily as this market heats up, these cards are suddenly more liquid than ever before.
One look at the Old School Discord, and I’m confident these cards are suddenly desirable. Thus, I wanted to highlight this trend—this way, players now aware of the trend can dig out their FBB cards and help bring them to the market, making a few bucks along the way and helping out some players who are trying to navigate a volatile market filled with buyouts. After all, this new trend seems like it’ll be around for at least a bit longer.
We've seen midrange decks lean on other plans but still rely on 4 Hour of Promise before, most notably 
It turns out that in Uro mirrors, ramping yourself while de-ramping opponents is the sauce, even if that's not to happen until the mid-game. Indeed, Bant Moss 
Rashmi, Eternities Crafter was hardly singled out as a Modern-playable upon its release, costing enough to emerge on the turn many decks end the game by and refusing to trigger until the next turn. But 
Didn't I tell ya? No Uro! Instead, 
After its Challenge placing, Reclaimer Toolbox 
Here's a blurb I've written defining Stage 1 creatures:
The real clincher, though, is haste. The best of Magic's evergreen mechanics, haste is Time Walk on a creature, and compensates for Swift's low starting power. Even without any prowess boosts, Swiftspear has dealt 2 damage by the end of its second turn on the battlefield--the same amount as something like Savannah Lions. (Of course, it often deals much more.)
If I were to ask a given group of Modern players which cards should be banned from the format, I'd be extremely surprised to hear Swiftspear among them. But I think there's a compelling parallel to be drawn between Swiftspear now and Wild Nacatl back when the 3/3 was banned. Here's what Wizards 
. With shock lands, 
Natch, Treefolk Harbinger wasn't much of a staple at the time this announcement was made. And similarly, I can't think of many lesser one-drops trying and failing to break into Modern, as since they're failing, they aren't necessarily on my radar. The reason in 2011? People just played Nacatl instead. And now? They play Swiftspear.
That's playing out in the numbers, too; most Nacatl decks were simply Zoo decks, with very little difference in composition. By contrast, Swiftspear is splashable enough to find its way to multiple aggro strategies, often with diverse means of achieving their shared goal of reducing opponents to 0 life.
Then there's the issue of Punishing Fire. I've long held that Wild Nacatl was an unneeded Modern ban, caught in the crossfires of a larger issue: the Punishing Fire-Grove of the Burnwillows combination. These cards together, coupled with the slower speed of the format a decade back, made it difficult for any aggro deck relying on x/1s or x/2s to break into the tournament scene. Nacatl was so important for aggro decks not only because it was very efficient, the reason given for its banning, but because it was the only Stage 1 creature immune to Punishing Fire. It's my belief that only banning Fire would have greatly decreased Nacatl's share among aggro decks by virtue of the move letting other x/1s and x/2s into the fold.
Another Glass of Red
I've recommended 
I was wrong. A more experienced player warned me before the tournament that I was, and should play Orb instead. I'd already lent out my Orbs, so I forged ahead and suffered. See, I'd fallen into the causality trap where I correlated the combo with losing. I was fixated on losing after fighting Twin to a stalemate and then getting combo'd out of nowhere. I was looking only to attack that angle. It didn't work because that's not the real reason I was losing. Twin was a tempo creature deck. It was heavily if not entirely dependent on its creatures actually gaining value when they hit. It's not like a 1/4, 2/1, or 2/1 flier is very impressive on its own. Especially against my 3/2's, 3/4 flier, or 6/6.
Tron wins by getting seven mana on turn three, then dropping big colorless bombs. 
The answer was that Tron lands aren't the problem with Tron. Yes, they're the whole namesake of the deck, but the problem isn't that Tron ramps. The problem is that Tron drops big colorless monsters early. I realize that the former problem enables the other, but dealing with the former won't solve the latter. Too many players thought Moon was a solution to Tron, not realizing that Tron doesn't actually need colorless mana. Just generic mana, meaning red is just as good. Yes, Moon means that Tron can't hit those monsters early anymore, but there's nothing stopping Tron from hitting them later. And Karn Liberated is still a huge threat on turn seven. The problem isn't the Tron lands, the problem is Tron's threats.
Worse is when players bring in Damping Sphere. The first spell isn't taxed, meaning that Prowess still gets to play its game. Not as much of it, and Sphere is still effective at preventing the explosive turns. As I learned against Izzet Phoenix, a smart player will be judicious with their spells so as to maximize their value and play around and through the Sphere. Unless you can really take advantage of it, the time that Sphere will buy is meaningless.
cast. The mana base is geared to only cast Humans, and I either had to save an Unclaimed Territory or draw Ancient Ziggurat/Aether Vial to actually play the thing. I've recently switched to Izzet Staticaster, and while it's not as powerful, it has been more effective because I cast it more often and easily. Theoretical power is meaningless if it's too hard to cast.
Which is an elaborate way of introducing the fact that for the first time in 
I will admit that at least part of this is simply that I'm me. I've been playing Merfolk a 
The metagame is 
is very good, but it costs three. And Noble Hierarch only lives past the first turn in games Humans is never going to lose against Prowess. Thus, Mage is too slow most of the time.
that's mostly one-mana spells. It's the main reason that Eldrazi Tron's been relevant so long. Add to this Merfolk not playing many one-mana spells, and it's a huge beating. And Chalice is also good elsewhere.
Ponza is an accelerated beatdown deck. Its creatures are enormous, and it has plenty of removal between Bolt, Bonecrusher Giant, Glorybringer, and Chandra, Torch of Defiance. The mana from Utopia Sprawl and Arbor Elf let this ostensibly midrange deck play more like an aggro deck and just outmuscle Merfolk... in theory. But there's a reason we play the game, and it turns out that the matchup is a lot better than I thought.
really target a single deck, and if a deck's gameplan is only good against a single type of deck (or just one specific deck), it is doomed to fail.
The answer is a flat no. The reason that Souls is good against Jund is that it mutes Liliana of the Veil. Discarding Souls to Liliana is still positive value, and the tokens provide ablative armor against her downtick. Thus, Junk dodged Jund's best card while getting full value from its Liliana. It wasn't the tokens but their context that mattered. Yes, trading a Bolt for a Spirit token is poor value. However, that doesn't make it no value. It also ignores that the tokens are 1/1s facing huge Tarmogoyfs and Scavenging Oozes.
This deck is touted as a new and potent metagame deck. The idea is to race Prowess by chumping while beating in the air, especially now that Crash Through sees little play, while going wide and tall with all the anthem effects against everything else. After testing it myself (and 
Metagaming is hard. It's really easy to fall into a trap and miss the subtleties of a deck or a particular matchup and focus on the wrong thing. The new tokens deck is making the same mistakes as the old tokens deck in thinking that going wide with 1/1s is enough to beat attrition decks. It isn't, and never has been. Token decks snowball well, but the ball breaks apart easily, and catching up is very hard. The mono-white version has an advantage in that it can get explosive with anthem effects, but that doesn't excuse the underlying weakness of needing to draw the right cards in the right order.
Stoneforge also gives a juicy turn two option, and a proactive one at that, for a deck that's historically lacked such options; in the past, UW Flash has slammed creatures as unappealing as Wall of Omens (provides card draw down the road with Restoration Angel, maybe) or otherwise hoped opponents give them something to Mana Leak or Remand. Since neither of those counterspells are particularly alluring in a deck that likes going long, Stoneforge lets Flash decks totally omit them in favor of a question rather than an answer---many decks, still, will lose to Batterskull if they can't immediately take out the Kor. Wielding that threat allows the deck to 
Slamming Puresteel Palladin and then a series of 0-cost equipment not only refills a pilot's hand, but allows them to suit up Palladin to survive Lightning Bolt and the like. Alternatively, equipment can go to the evasive Ornithopter, itself especially fond of Cranial Plating. Still, the star of the artifact show is Colossus Hammer, a cheap weapon that benefits greatly from Palladin's cost reduction; while the trinket generally costs a whopping 8 mana to attach, in this deck doing so often costs 0, letting players toss it around freely between their 0-drop creatures until opponents run out of Fatal Pushes. Even though it energized Cheeri0s the first time around, Sram, Senior Edificer dodges inclusion here, as it doesn't synergize well with Hammer; instead, Sigarda's Edge is employed to add consistency to the Hammer plan via more cost reduction.
Space is so tight because of the combo components in play; Aid makes a return, but Palladin is replaced by Magnetic Theft. As an instant, Theft can save creatures from toughness-based removal, but its juiciest application is to end the game as early as turn two: Kor Duelist into Hammer and Theft yields a cool 20 damage. Inkmoth Nexus also threatens instant death when it hits with a Hammer, if not before turn three.
Both creatures roughly ask the same thing of pilots: that they cast instants and sorceries during their turns. And while Phoenix is robust in that it comes back from the graveyard each turn, Stormwing is by virtue of resisting Lightning Bolt (with an instant), Fatal Push, and Inquisition of Kozilek. It helps, too, that the graveyard hate frequently employed to deal with Arclight, such as Grafdiggers' Cage and Surgical Extraction, does absolutely nothing to Entity, a feature the Elemental shares with Thing in the Ice---that said, conditionally disrupting opponents with Thing and still dying to Push seems a lot worse than just getting them dead with Stormwing while staying strong against more disruption.
And then there were the games where I actually was behind. I've experience hopeless matchups before because I've lived through 
The real bonus as far as I'm concerned is the aggro matchup. While the main interaction is still Path, Bant runs Supreme Verdict which is a literal lifesaver. Bant can get overwhelmed just like UW, though activated Ice-Fang helps considerably. The difference is that Bant has Verdict as an actual out and a means to regain a lost board. Add in Uro's lifegain and games against Prowess, Dredge, and Ponza feel infinitely better.
The blow from 
One thing I can measure is the manabase. Bant's is far more painful than UW, and in a world full of Prowess, that may be the killer. This is not unique to this era of Bant; it was 
