Hello everyone and welcome back to my daily series of financial articles about Born of the Gods! I was home sick yesterday, so for today we’re going to have two articles—one to cover the cards spoiled on late Wednesday/Thursday and one to cover the cards spoiled on Friday. Check back later today around noon EST for part 2 of today’s article!
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).
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Starting Price: $12 Current Price: $10 Future Price (Short Term): $8 Future Price (Medium Term): $6 Future Price (Long Term): $10 |
The ability on Karametra does not seem very exciting. Green has lots of ways to put creatures into play (token generators, etc.), and if this triggered like Ephara, we’d be in business. Unfortunately, there are much better cards you can play in green if you’re looking to ramp (both in Standard and in casual play), so Karametra will likely end up being the worst God in Born of the Gods for Standard play.
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Starting Price: $15 Current Price: $20 Future Price (Short Term): $30 Future Price (Medium Term): $20 Future Price (Long Term): $20 |
On the flip side from Karametra, Xenagos (the God, not the planeswalker) is absolutely fantastic as a card. Can you believe it’s been fourteen years since Fires of Yavimaya saw print in Invasion? And it’s been twelve years since Fires of Yavimaya has been Standard legal? Xenagos is the first card that I believe will have the same impact on Standard that Fires had back in the day.
The keys to Xenagos being so good in no particular order are:
1) He affects the board the turn he comes into play. Even if you tap out to cast Xenagos and can’t cast another creature that turn, a creature you already have on the board gets +X/+X. Since you’re already playing green, that’s likely a minimum of +3/+3, and likely more toward +4/+4 on average.
2) Any creature you play going forward gets hasted and doubles in size.
3) If you get Xenagos active as a creature, it’s a huge beater.
4) Xenagos works really well with Domri Rade
Let’s look a little more closely at #2. Which creatures are already seeing play in G/R (or Naya or Jund) decks in Standard, and which are fringe players that Xenagos might push over the top?
Already seeing play: Advent of the Wurm; Boon Satyr; Boros Reckoner; Burning-Tree Emissary; Chandra’s Phoenix; Exava; Experiment One; Fanatic of Mogis (8/4 haste that damages an opponent with it comes into play for four mana? This was already seeing play!); Firefist Striker; Fleecemane Lion; Frostburn Weird (pump to 4/1; give it +4/+4 to go to 8/5; pump to 12/1); Ghor-Clan Rampager (this is the biggy! 8/8 trample haste for four or make any of your other guys +4/+4 and trample [double note: can’t do this before the Xenagos trigger because they have to be attacking]; but trample is the key here); Gore-House Chainwalker; Hammer of Purphoros (6/6 haste tokens each turn!); Kalonian Hydra (12/12 trample/haste the turn is comes into play—4/4 to start; +4/+4 and haste from Xenagos; +4/+4 and trample from attacking); Kalonian Tusker (6/6 haste for two on turn 5/6 makes this a real threat late game); Legion Loyalist; Loxodon Smiter; Mistcutter Hydra; Nylea; Polukranos; Purphoros; Rakdos Cackler; Scavenging Ooze; Skylasher; Stormbreath Dragon; Unflinching Courage; Voice of Resurgence; Witchstalker; Xenagos, the Reveler (ha ha 4/4 haste Satyrs!); Young Pyromancer (4/3 attacker)
Fringe, but Xenagos makes a must-deal-with threat: Arbor Colossus, Armada Wurm, Bloodfray Giant, Call of the Conclave, Deadbridge Goliath, Dryad Militant (which becomes a 4/3 with haste for one mana), Ember Swallower, Firedrinker Shaman, Hellhole Flailer (6/5 haste that sacs to deal six damage to your opponent), Master Biomancer (bring other creatures into play with four +1/+1 counters), Nivmagus Elemental, Ogre Battledriver, Progenitor Mimic (start getting hasty token creatures), Reaper of the Wilds, Rubblebelt Raiders, Savageborn Hydra (turn 4 Xenagos [assuming ramp], turn 5 Savageborn hydra for four, attacking with a 8/8 double-strike creature), Scourge of Valkas (R becomes +2/+2 instead of +1/+0, making this a quick evasive killing creature), Sire of Insanity (12/10 haste creature), Skarrg Guildmage (turn your lands into 8/8 trampling creatures each turn), Slaughterhorn, Spark Trooper (12/7 trample lifelink creature = not bad), Spike Jester, Splatter Thug, Trostani (attack with hasty tokens!), Truefire Paladin (WR becomes +4/+4 instead of +2/+0), Underworld Cerberus (12/12 hasty unblockable creature), Varolz, Wild Beastmaster (turns into a surprise mini Overrun the turn it comes into play and god forbid you have a way to get it bigger before Xenagos doubles it up)
Long story short, Xenagos turns even your one-drops in a R/G Aggro deck into a massive monster and turns the larger guys you’re already playing into game-ending threats the turn Xenagos (or that creature since it gains haste) hits the table.
Don’t underestimate Xenagos—this is one card that is going to live up to the hype.
Updates
Fated Conflagration and Fated Intervention – From $2 to $1.50. Not selling well enough to stay at $2.
Forgestoker Dragon, Tromokratis, Arbiter of the Ideal – From $1 to $0.50. Also not selling well enough to stay at their current prices.
Pack Value
I started this feature on Wednesday and will be continuing it with every update!
To determine the value of a booster pack, I’m going to start with the following formula:
(2R + 1M) / 80
That isn’t enough of a picture though. In fairness, $0.50 to $1 bulk rares don’t really amount to “real” value if you’re looking to trade with other players. So I’m omitting the value of any rare that is below $2 (rounded from $1.99) and any mythic that is below $4 (rounded from $3.99).
No new Born of the God Rares were spoiled in time for this article (there will be several in the second update today!) There are still fourteen out of 35 Born of the God rares spoiled. Nine of them fall in the “bulk” range (Arbiter of the Ideal, Eater of Hope, Forgestoker Dragon, Mindreaver, Nessian Wilds Ravager, Silent Sentinel, Tromokratis, and the addition of Fated Conflagration and Fated Intervention today). Here are the remaining five rares:
Hero of Iroas: $2
Pain Seer: $12
Temple of Enlightenment: $5
Temple of Malice: $5
Temple of Plenty: $5
Total Rare Value: $29
Seven out of ten mythics have been spoiled so far. One falls in the “bulk” range (Champion of Stray Souls). Here are the others:
Ephara: $10
Flame-Wreathed Phoenix: $10
Karametra: $10
Kiora, the Crashing Wave: $30
Mogis, God of Slaughter: $13
Xenagos, God of Revels: $20
Total Mythic Value: $93
So plugging this into the formula, we get the following:
(2R ($58) + 1M ($93) = $151
$151 /80 = $1.89 value per pack, or $68.04 per box.
There are three mythics left to be spoiled (including one God) and still two-thirds of the rares. Also, there are uncommons that are hitting the $2 range (Bile Blight and Searing Blood in particular), so we’ll look at adding them to the formula once we know how many uncommons are in the set.
See you all later today for part 2 of this article!
- Ben Bleiweiss
- General Manager, StarCityGames.com