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By: one million words, Pete Jahn
Feb 06 2009 1:25am
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Five Up Five Down and Five to Consider
 
It’s a couple days before Grand Prix LA, as I write this, so I have been playing and thinking about Extended. Of course, I have also been thinking about – and playing – Classic, Pauper, Alara Block, Standard and Classic, too. However, these are all constructed formats, and they all require good cards.
 
I have bought some recently. I ordered 34 cards from MTGOTraders.com earlier this week. (I always order in blocks of 32, to make the trade easier – but I apparently could not count that day.)   Some of what I ordered was Pauper fodder, but the bulk of the order was for cards I expected to play in Standard or Extended in the near future. 
 
In fact, I found myself doing the electronic equivalent of making my Christmas wish list while at MTGOtraders. I browsed through the older formats and made a list of the cards I don’t have, but want. I remember watching my little brother do this with a toy catalog – except he marked everything. 
 
I’m more selective. I have some general rules, when looking at cards for the long haul. (Picking up the cards for a netdeck is different – although I try not to do that. They are generally expensive, especially for a new combo deck, like Extended Elves.)  
 
In general, I don’t hunt creatures – especially old ones. Over time, creatures have become much better. Once upon a time, Morphling was insane. It was the best creature in existence (although Masticore was a close second, and debatable first.) Today, it is pretty much unplayable outside of Prismatic Singleton, and marginal even there. Once upon a time the best one casting cost creature was Jackal Pup – but now Figure of Destiny and Wild Nacatl are so much better it isn’t funny. 
 
In short, creatures don’t hold their value. The average creature is very important in limited, good in block, marginal in Standard and probably unplayable in Extended and so forth. 
 
Just look at Battlegrace Angel. See what I mean? It’s a 4 of in top tier Alara block decks (for now), and completely absent in the Standard Top 8s. 
 
I’m also hesitant to examine anything costing more than three mana, unless it is blue and can be played at instant speed. Older formats, like Extended, are too fast otherwise.
 
 I also don’t like cards that are narrow, or only fit one archetype. For example, both Dragonstorm and Enduring Ideal were the core cards around which combo decks were built in past years. Now, however, the decks are not quite good enough, so the value is dropping. They are too narrow.
 
On the other hand, cards that do something nothing else can do have a lot of potential. For example, I talked about Serum Powder – named Mulligan Mox during playtesting.   It allows players to take a free mulligan.   Last time I did an article like this, I talked about Serum Powder. Back then, it cost $0.12. Now it costs $1.50, mainly because it is seeing play in some versions of the All In Red (AIR) decks. 
 
I’ve listed twenty cards, broken into those clearly going to hold or increase in value, those probably at the top of the curve and headed down, and I have thrown in a few long shots that might be worth having. I like the long shot category. Some of those have been good calls. (Others, in other categories – not so much.)
 
Let’s start looking at some cards.
 
Up and Staying Up
 
These cards will hold their value.
 
Engineered_Explosives.jpg
 
I am so ANGRY that I only have three copies of Engineered Explosives.  
 
This is as close to Pernicious Deed as you can get nowadays, and it is almost as good.   It is also quite splashable – at least assuming that your deck runs more than one color. Of course, with the Onslaught Fetchlands and the Ravnica duals, any Extended deck can.
 
Here’s a reminder – you can pay any amount of mana for the X – even more than you need. The number of counters is based on the number of different colors – not the mana cost. For example, if you want two counters on the Explosives to kill a Bitterblossom, you could pay UB – or UUB, The main difference is that Spell Snare will counter the first, but not the second.
 
Looking at the metagame, I see Zoo as a big contender. Pretty much any control deck is going to use these (aside from Rock decks, which have other tools.) It will be an Extended staple for a couple more years, but I’m not sure it will translate into Classic afterwards. 
 
Here’s one which does translate nicely into Classic.
 
  Chrome_Mox.jpg
 

This is highly splashable, extremely potent mana acceleration. It is so good it can be played into everything from storm decks to Zoo to Burn to control decks. Check out the most recent Top 8 lists in Extended PEs – or the Top 8s in Classic, for that matter. Chrome Mox is going to be playable in a lot of formats for a long time. It will remain Extended legal for almost two years, and the price will keep rising during that time. It might drop a bit when Mirrodin rotates, but it it will always have a home in Classic.
 

Glen_Elendra_Archmage.jpg

 
Earlier, I said that I was not interested in creatures. This isn’t a creature. Glen Elendra Archmage is a Counterspell that beats for two through the air. With tricksieness – like Riptide Laboratory, it does it again and again. Over time, it has moved from a rarity in sideboards to a sideboard staple, to half presideboarded, to four in the main. Sure, the Counter is conditional, but if you are facing nothing but creature beats while playing a mono-blue deck, this will at least provide a two-turn chump blocker, and more with Rip Tide Laboratory or Momentary Blink.
 
Mono-blue Faerie control is one off the best Extended decks out there, and this is a four of in that deck.  That is not going to change much (although Rip Tide Laboratory will leave with the next rotation, the deck will survve.)
 
 
Here’s another weapon in the mono-blue arsenal. Vedalken Shackles is a reuasable Control Magic, and that can be a nightmare for a creature beast deck like Zoo. Vedalken Shackles is the reason that I side in Ancient Grudge when playing Zoo against blue decks. 
 
I recommended Shackles in past articles like this. At that point, I paid about $5.00 for my copies. V. Shackles is a bit more than that, now, and I don’t expect it to go down. The number in the card pool is pretty much stable, and the demand for Extended cards is going to rise over time. It is already.
 
If you want to play blue control in Extended this season, buy them now. If you want a price break, then wait until late March, when the paper PTQ season format changes, so people stop playtesting online. At that point, people may dump some copies, and the price will drop for a bit. By next fall, however, the prices will increase further.
 
Vendilion_Clique.jpg
 
Vendilion Clique is another creature – but it is a blue one, it has evasion, you can play it at instant speed and it doubles as a Thoughtseize. That is a potent combination. It is tailor made for blue control – and blue control is a deck that will appear in every format. 
 
Equally important, from the perspective of future value; it is a rare from a second set, so the numbers opened in draft are lower than first sets. The second set, in this case, was the one available while Version 3.0 was struggling, meaning that far fewer copies were opened in draft than more other sets. Don’t believe that highly playable rares in limited quantities can get expensive – check out Underground Sea.
 
On The Way Down
 
 The next few cards are ones that have peaked, and are going to drop.
 
 
Note that my predictive history on this card is bad – I predicted Wizards would ban this card last December. They did not. Worlds proved that Elves was just a good deck, not a format breaker. Glimpse of Nature is a critical part of that deck, but it is not really usable in other decks. I expect it to be good while Elves is good, but to tank after that. If you like elves, then by all means get them. If not, then you can probably wait until the deck tanks, and the price falls a bunch. Look at Enduring Ideal – it is not a $15.00 card any more.
 
Figure_of_Destiny.jpg
 
First off, I am not saying that this is a bad card. It is actually an insane card, and I play my three copies a lot. I also expect this to remain in play as long as it is standard legal. I’m only predicting a price drop because it is so insanely expensive. The price has to drop. I would also note that it is not highly played in Extended – Extended is multi-colored, and decks can rarely afford to generate either five R/W mana, or spend the time and turns necessary to pump the Figure that much. 
 
If you want to play a netdeck running Figure of Destiny in a PE, buy them. If you are looking for a long-term investment, then you probably want to wait a bit. They should drop a bit.
 
Tarmogoyf.jpg
 
To write about the ‘Goyf I could pretty much copy the above section and change the names. Tarmogoyf is still a very good creature, but outside of Zoo and a few similar decks, I don’t see it having all that many homes. (Yes, I do realize that Zoo is one of the most common decks around. I’m not saying that Goyf isn’t still fine – it is. There is a reason the card is still worth more than a draft set. However I think it has peaked, and will very slowly fall in price. In my Zoo deck, I would rather drop a Dark Confidant or Tidehollow Sculler on turn two than Tarmogoyf. (Yes, that might change on turn eight…)
 
It’s great, but if you don’t need the card at the moment, I’d wait for it to drop a couple more TIX.
 
Bitterblossom.jpg
 
Bitterblossomthe stupid Faerie enchantment is just such a good card that it is going to survive into Extended, and even into Classic. True, cutting edge Faerie decks are mono-blue, but Bitterblossoms are showing up in other decks – and will continue to appear in various decks in the future. I have seen Bitterblossom in control, Rock, beatdown and even oddities. However, it does not show up as often as it did a month or two ago.  It shows up occasionally in Classic PEs. It is not common, at the moment, but it is such a good tool that it will return on occasion.
 
Bitterblossom primarily sees play in Standard, where it features in Faeries and the new hot deck, WB Tokens.
 
The fact that Wizards is rumored to be printing a Bitterblossom hoser in the next set Conflux is a pretty good indication that it is not going away anytime soon.  Probably. However, the price is already high. I don’t think it is going to rise much more, but it should drop in 9 months, when it rotates out of Standard. After that, it will rise again, slowly.
 
 
Riptide Laboratory is pretty hot right now. The labs can bounce Vendlilion Clique, Sower of Temptation, Venser, Glen Elandra Archmage, etc. It is very good in Extended at the moment. The downside is that this will rotate out of Extended in ten months. I expect it to fall in price at that time. The Labs/Glen Elandra/Venser combo might be good enough for classic, but I’d have to see it to believe it. Classic is so fast and potent, a 5 mana counterspell not named Force of Will seems questionable.
 
These are a Gamble
 
 Squee_Goblin_Nabob.jpg

Squee’s pretty cheap right now, and demand for him should increase. First, he is the only recurrable for free card in the format, and you never know when that might be important. Secondly, the Exodus set is coming, which means Survival of the Fittest decks will soon be returning to Classic. All of these means that he could increase in value.
 
Squee has been on my buy list for a while. I might buy now, or wait until summer to see if he gets new art in 11th Edition. I’m not a big fan of the current art. Of course, if I get my Survivals before 11th, the art won’t matter.
 
 

Gifts Ungiven is an instant speed tutor for a reasonable price. The instant speed part is what is important. Those are, in the modern Extended world, few and far between. Classic has cards like Demonic Consultation and Intuition, but Wizards is not printing them anymore. At present, the best blue card advantage instants available are Gifts Ungiven, Esper Charm and Thirst for Knowledge. Esper is awfully mana intensive, Thirst is scheduled to rotate in 20 months – leaving Gifts. Now it is difficult to pointless to try to predict a metagame five or six sets in advance, but I am confident a base blue deck wanting card advantage will remain. . 
 
 
The Onslaught fetchlands - and Polluted Delta in particular – are already heavily played in Classic.   That won’t change.
 
These will rotate out of Extended next year. That could result in a considerable change to the format, and Wizards might not really want that to happen. One of several things might happen.
 
Wizards could reprint these in 11th Edition. Possible, but I’m not certain. They are important cards, but they don’t seem altogether right for a base set. The base set does include Terramorphic Expanse, so the concept seems fine. What does not seem ideal is the pay one life. Maybe, but I could also see Wizards reprinting the Mirage fetchlands – the ones that came into play tapped. Wizards might reprint the lands in an Expert set, like the third set of Alara. Again, maybe, but don’t count on it.
 
Another alternative – Wizards could print the other half of the fetchland set – ones with enemy colors. Thus, instead of a fetchland to fetch Islands and Swamps, it could fetch Islands and Mountains. With Ravnica duals, that would not change a lot, other than to sell a bunch more rare lands.
 
If the Onslaught fetchlands are not reprinted, then their value might drop. As I said, they are – and will be – heavily played in Classic, but I don’t think we will have as many Classic players as we have Extended players, which will mean lower demand and prices. Not a lot, though – these lands are so very good with the true duals from MED. 
 
I have placed my bet - I just got my last fetchland - a Bloodstained Mire - from MTGOTraders last month.  I have playsets of all of them.
 
 
Classic has Wasteland, to punish decks with shaky mana bases. Extended has Ghost Quarter, which is picking up in popularity. Life from the Loam plus Ghost Quarter can destroy some decks, like Zoo and Tron. I’m not sure what Wizards will do to replace the fetchlands when they rotate, but without easy fetches, Ghost Quarter is even more effective. I could see mono-red burn decks packing a playset in the future, much the way the original Red Deck Wins decks automatically included 4 Wastelands, back when that was Extended legal.
 
They are cheap now. I have four.
 
Pithing_Needle.jpg
 
I expect this to rise a bit, since Conflux is supposed to bring more potent Planeswalkers.  Pithing Needle does shut down planeswalkers, even if it pretty close to useless against Bitterblossom (the bad flowers have a triggered ability, not an activated one. I don’t expect Pithing Needle to rotate out of Standard, unless Wizards wants to put it in an expansion. It is simple and straight forward, and Wizards will want to provide all decks with a solid answer to Planeswalkers and the like. About the only thing that might cut the value is if Wizards reprints it with a new name, or prints a better version (and how could they make it better without making it more expensive – and therefore worse?)   
 
Conclusions:
 
I am finishing this up at the hotel, a day away from GP LA. This is pretty stupid timing: in 48 hours or so, we will know what is big in Extended, and what is tanking. It would be a lot easier to make my predictions after the fact, but… whatever. 
   
If you can make it to the GP, stop in. Even if you don’t play offline, the spectacle is often worth it.
 
PRJ
 
“one million words” on MTGO, “Judge!” at GP LA”

 

4 Comments

some cards by whiffy at Fri, 02/06/2009 - 04:29
whiffy's picture
5

I liked this very much. A few quick thoughts of my own on cards. Explosives is the same in classic as it is in ext and is a staple of the format and will be for years to come. Chrome mox is on the way out what with petal and soon mox diamond only really abusable in two deck types. i give it a 50/50 shot at surviving. ialso think click is dying to get into some classic lists.
did you play in the gp?

Explosives & Mox have just by Stu Benedict at Fri, 02/06/2009 - 13:33
Stu Benedict's picture

Explosives & Mox have just recently risen because of the current ext season. I don't see them holding their current value at all. Explosives was hanging around $10 as a classic staple before the ext season began .... why wouldn't they fall after the season is over?

Aether Vial and Forbidden Orchard by Eternal_Hammer (not verified) at Fri, 02/06/2009 - 16:07
Eternal_Hammer's picture
5

Very interesting article which I enjoyed. Thank you for writing.

I think it is very likley that the release of Masters edition III will trigger the split to form online Legagcy, and so with that My card predicted to rise is one that will hopefully see play in that format - therefore I would strongly recommend buying aether vial at this time. The card is banned in extended hence its low online price tag, and although it see play in classic I feel the real home for this card is legagcy. With other uncommons from this block like Eternal Witness selling in excess of 4 tickets each I think it is highly reasonable to expect the Vial to rise in value come October.

The other card which I think will rise is Forbidden Orchard, one of the primary reasons for the rise will be the playability of the card increases with the release of Oath of Druids. The Orchard is a perfect Oath enabler and will see play in classic Im sure. Additionally with the rotation of the onslaught sacrifice lands mana bases wont be as splashable as before, so a good multicolourmana producing land may find its way into certain extended decks too, representing a double whammy for this previously online-overlooked rare to rise considerably in value.

Just my two prediction of rising cards in the months to come.

Once again nice article

Multicolor Land by Rerepete at Fri, 02/06/2009 - 23:25
Rerepete's picture
5

Conflux has a couple of Multicolor Lands, although they do have drawbacks. I like Ancient Ziggurat (which can only be used for creature spells).

If you haven't seen the whole Conflux set, go to Beta Gatherer (http://beta.gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Default.aspx) and do an advanced search by set name.