Rarity: Rare
Starting Price: $2
Current Price: $3
Future Price – Low: $1
Future Price – High: $3
Thoughts: This card has a lot of upsides that I ultimately believe will make it Constructed-playable. Being an X spell that gives control decks a way to gather a bunch of cards at once is awesome, and being instant-speed is extremely necessary for this card as well. With all of those upsides, though, it will never get you out of the pickles Fact or Fiction could get you out of. You will never get the card you really want unless you reveal multiple copies of that card.
For pricing this card, I thought about how many decks would have wanted Steam Augury if it were mono-blue, and I don’t think the answer is very many. Don’t get me wrong; I think this card is much better than Steam Augury, but I think they’re comparable enough for me to know that this card will see some play, but I don’t expect it to be an automatic four-of in every blue Standard deck.
Rarity: Rare
Starting Price: $4
Current Price: $4
Future Price – Low: $2
Future Price – High: $7
Thoughts: I think this card is incredible! It’s exactly what I want in a one-drop Vampire. It’s very aggressive and helps cast other Vampires later in the game, while also giving you the benefit of having things you actually want to discard to cards like Olivia, Mobilized for War or even Heir of Falkenrath. I believe it’s very clear at this point that there will be a very aggressive B/R deck, which will make the demand for this card and cards like it very high. It also increases the upside of older slightly forgotten Vampires, like Drana, Liberator of Malakir.
Stromkirk Noble started at $2.50 and shortly after release spiked up to $10. After a few weeks at $10 it fell to the $6-$8 range, where it lived for many months before finally falling below $5. I think that pattern, although a little less top-heavy, is what I would expect Falkenrath Gorger to follow. This card is very good and I would expect it to see play in both Modern and Standard.
Rarity: Rare
Starting Price: $2
Current Price: $2
Future Price – Low: $1.50
Future Price – High: $2
Thoughts: Harness the Storm is a unique card that I’m sure will find its way into a sweet Modern/Legacy combo deck of sorts one day. As far as Standard or Commander goes, I don’t think it’s playable. There is a chance that the foil versions will go up over time because of its ability to see Legacy play, but this isn’t a card I would invest heavily in.
Rarity: Mythic
Starting Price: $15
Current Price: $25
Future Price – Low: $12
Future Price – High: $20
Thoughts: The reactions I’m reading about Jace, Unraveler of Secrets haven’t been overwhelmingly positive. He’s being compared to Ob Nixilis Reignited, which I don’t believe to be a very fair comparison. Jace gives you card selection, and while he’s not able to kill a creature, he does interact well with enters-the-battlefield creatures you might be playing. I can easily see a few copies of this card starting to pop up in Modern and Standard control decks.
With all that in mind, I don’t think he has a shot to ever hit $50+ like some of the other Jaces have in the past. It takes a metagame-defining card to be over $20 and I don’t foresee Jace, Unraveler of Secrets fitting into such a category.
Rarity: Mythic
Starting Price: $10
Current Price: $15
Future Price – Low: $7
Future Price – High: $20
Thoughts: In my first Shadows over Innistrad financial review, I said that I would expect there to be a B/R aggro deck with Relentless Dead. There haven’t been any additional good Zombies spoiled, but Wizards is certainly delivering in the Vampire department.
I think this is the best card they’ve spoiled so far. It easily beats out Arlinn Kord as my new favorite Shadows over Innistrad card. If B/R Vampires isn’t a Tier 1 deck by May, I would be very surprised. As with most mythics in Tier 1 decks, they become very expensive, very quickly. I can see a scenario where Vampires isn’t outstanding in this Standard environment, but I’m very confident that, by the time Magic Origins and Dragons of Tarkir rotate, it will have been or will become a dominant Standard deck.
In my opinion, this is a very safe acquisition if you can get them in the $10-$12 ballpark.
Rarity: Rare
Starting Price: $2
Current Price: $2
Future Price – Low: $1
Future Price – High: $6
Thoughts: I can’t tell if this is a sleeper card yet. It does so many things for so little mana that I feel like it has the capability of becoming absurd at some point in time. I also believe that the wording on it is very particular and they’ll spoil some very interesting things that work well with this card over the next few days.
“You may cast Spirit spells as though they had flash.”
I can’t think of a reason they would currently word it like that unless they planned on printing something in the future that interacted with it. If that happens, this card has a huge ability to spike and spike quickly.
Rarity: Mythic
Starting Price: $15
Current Price: $8
Future Price – Low: $5
Future Price – High: $12
Thoughts: Frowny face. I think this is actually a good card; it just doesn’t have a good place outside of Casual right now. It also doesn’t read as a very exciting card, which hurts the hype and ultimately the value of the card. I absolutely expect this card to see Standard play at some point in its life; I’m just not sure how much or how soon. If nothing gets spoiled that breaks this card, I’d recommend waiting for it to drop down to around $5-$6 before picking them up.
This was a very exciting day for spoilers! I was confident that Wizards would deliver on a lot of sweet cards in this set, and I really feel like they have and will continue to.
I also wanted to mention that there have been people asking for me to do the value of a pack at the end of these articles. I’ll probably wait till the end of this week or the start of next week to start doing that. It doesn’t really mean anything unless you have a lot of the set spoiled, but that’s definitely something I plan on adding to the series.
I’ll see you all tomorrow, in the meantime, start working on your B/R Vampires list!