Hello everyone and welcome to my daily series of financial articles about Born of the Gods! The official spoiler season started over the holidays with Kiora and went into full gear last night with the first of two preview weeks of cards on Daily MTG. Over the next two weeks I’ll be giving my thoughts about the cards in this set—how they will open, where they will raise/drop to going forward, and what their long-term prospects are.
How I review:
Starting Price: The first price we assign to this card as a preorder.
Current Price: The current price of the card by the time this article goes live.
Future Price – Short Term: The price I believe this card will be at before Magic Online redemptions go live for Born of the Gods.
Future Price – Medium Term: The price I believe this card will be at by the time the next set (Journey into Nyx) comes out.
Future Price – Long Term: The price I believe this card will be at a year from now when the next winter set is released (name unknown still).
Note: The Prerelease cards and the buy-a-box promo were spoiled in Spanish. I’m going to hold off reviewing them here until the English names are spoiled because none of those cards is particularly exciting.
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Starting Price: $10 Current Price: $10 Future Price (Short Term): $8 Future Price (Medium Term): $6 Future Price (Long Term): $10 |
None of the Gods from Theros have fallen below $6 yet (I’m looking at you Heliod). It is harder to turn the BotG Gods "live" (7 > 5). It is worth noting though that Ephara counts two toward its own devotion so you only need five other devotion to activate it (the Theros gods all needed four other devotion since they only counted one toward their own devotion). I see a lot of people saying "it’s seven versus five" when in truth it’s five versus four (which is a lot more palatable).
The ability on Ephara is really strong as well. To note:
1) You draw a card whenever a creature enters the battlefield under your control, not just when you cast it. If you have a token generator, you’ll draw a card off the token.
2) You draw a card each upkeep if you’ve gotten a creature out the turn before. Beckon Apparition on your opponent’s turn? Draw a card on your upkeep. Advent of the Wurm during your opponent’s turn? Draw a card on your upkeep. Play another creature on your turn? Draw a card. This turns Ephara into quite a card drawing engine!
3) Playable Standard cards that can reliably put a creature into play at instant speed, white or blue: Advent of the Wurm (GW), Beckon Apparition (W), Heliod (W), Mystic Genesis (GU), Selesnya Charm (GW).
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Starting Price: $30 Current Price: $30 Future Price (Short Term): $25 Future Price (Medium Term): $20 Future Price (Long Term): $20 |
We started Kiora at $30, and Kiora did not sell at all. I dropped Kiora to $25—still wasn’t selling. When I dropped it to $20, it started selling. Then I raised it back to $25, and it kept selling quickly. Kiora is now back up to $30, and I attribute the price drop to people not paying attention to spoiler season online over the holiday season.
I compare Kiora to Tamiyo, the Moon Sage. Tamiyo debuted at $40, dropped to $30 right after release, hit $20 after the release of the core set, and then rebounded to $25-$30 for the rest of its time in Standard. I expect Kiora to be in the same range—they are similar-acting planeswalkers. Kiora is easy to remove (two loyalty) but costs one less to play (four mana versus five).
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Starting Price: $2 Current Price: $10 Future Price (Short Term): $8 Future Price (Medium Term): $2 Future Price (Long Term): $1 |
The most overhyped card I’ve seen from a set release in a long time. Right now there are two effects in Standard that can reliably tap your own creature without attacking: Springleaf Drum (also spoiled today) and Hidden Strings. Otherwise, here’s the play you’ll have with Pain Seer.
Turn 2: Cast Pain Seer.
Turn 3: Attack with Pain Seer and hope your opponent doesn’t have a blocker.
Turn 4: Draw your first card with Pain Seer.
In short, you’ve got a Grizzly Bear (Walking Corpse) on turns 2 and 3, which is the definition of unexciting. This is Blood Scrivener all over again (rose to $8 preorder and is now a $0.75 rare). Pain Seer is better than Blood Scrivener (extra toughness and at least has a Standard-playable combo to work with in Springleaf Drum), but more often than not Pain Seer is just going to be a 2/2 dork that doesn’t have any relevant game text.
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Starting Price: $5 Current Price: $5 Future Price (Short Term): $4 Future Price (Medium Term): $4 Future Price (Long Term): $4 |
The Theros Temples have jumped all over the place in value, dropping as low at $2 each (in November) and settling in at the $4-$6 range. The black ones have had the most success so far in holding value thanks to the popularity of Mono-Black Devotion decks. Unless Standard has a serious shakeup, I’m anticipating the values on the new Temples to mirror the trends on the Theros ones.
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Starting Price: $5 Current Price: $5 Future Price (Short Term): $5 Future Price (Medium Term): $5 Future Price (Long Term): $5 |
See Temple of Enlightenment. Unlike the other black lands, I put this one at $5 instead of $6 because B/R is traditionally one of the two weakest dual land combinations in Magic (the other is W/R).
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Starting Price: $5 Current Price: $5 Future Price (Short Term): $5 Future Price (Medium Term): $5 Future Price (Long Term): $5 |
W/G is still a popular dual land combination in Standard (see Naya and G/W Aggro) so this should be in the middling range for Temples.
Thank you all for reading. I’ll see you tomorrow for the next update of this series!
- Ben Bleiweiss
- General Manager, StarCityGames.com