Wow, was this a crazy weekend or what? Between the spoilers at PAX East, GP Miami, and on the mothership, there are a ton of new cards to talk about. Here’s where we dive right into the discussion!
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 Dragons of Tarkir.
Future Price – Medium Term
: The price I believe this card will be at by the time the next set (Magic Origins aka Magic 2016) comes out.
Future Price – Long Term
: The price I believe this card will be at a year from now when the first set of the second block of next year is released! (Remember: new block
structure! Big set / Small set + Big set / Small set is the new schedule.)
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Rarity: Rare Starting Price: $3 Current Price: $3 Future Price (Short Term): $4 Future Price (Medium Term): $2 Future Price (Long Term): $2 |
Anafenza would have been so, so good if it could work with tokens. She’s decent enough in the right deck (White Weenie without tokens revival?), but the +1/+1 boost may not be enough to get past needing WW on turn 2 in today’s Standard.
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Rarity: Rare Starting Price: $2 Current Price: $1 Future Price (Short Term): $0.50 Future Price (Medium Term): $0.50 Future Price (Long Term): $1 |
I still maintain that there are enough Warriors to get there in Standard right now, but so far nobody is excited about this tribe in the least. I think Blood-Chin Fanatic has a huge upside for potentially breaking out in Standard, so I’d pick up a playset if/when it bottoms out at pure bulk pricing.
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Rarity: Rare Starting Price: $4 Current Price: $5 Future Price (Short Term): $6 Future Price (Medium Term): $3 Future Price (Long Term): $4 |
There are talks about playing this in Legacy (since it is an instant), so you know it’s worth taking a look at for Standard. There’s been a buyout on Congregation at Dawn to combo with Collected Company in Modern (get Kitchen Finks, Melira, and Viscera Seer; untap, cast Collected Company + Seer, and win), and honestly I think that the card is just good enough to see play of its own merit in at least Standard. End of turn getting 2x three-CC creatures at four mana is not a bad bargain, and six cards is deep enough to make it happen in a creature-heavy deck.
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Rarity: Rare Starting Price: $0.50 Current Price: $0.50 Future Price (Short Term): $0.50 Future Price (Medium Term): $0.50 Future Price (Long Term): $0.50 |
Bulk rare. An interesting design, but bulky bulk bulk!
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Rarity: Mythic Starting Price: $5 Current Price: $5 Future Price (Short Term): $3 Future Price (Medium Term): $3 Future Price (Long Term): $3 |
I’m not sold on Deathmist Raptor, but many of our employees are really intrigued about brewing with it (especially with the morph creatures that flip for free by revealing a colored card from Khans). I do know that the Japanese have been investing heavily in buying up this card from us so far, and usually there is a cool brew that lurks beneath that sort of spending.
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Rarity: Mythic Starting Price: $4 Current Price: $6 Future Price (Short Term): $10 Future Price (Medium Term): $5 Future Price (Long Term): $4 |
Playable two-drop red creatures always garner attention in Standard. I don’t think Dragon Whisperer is good enough; it’s a bad firebreathing creature that costs a mana a turn to become evasive, and the third ability will rarely come into play in Standard. Overhyped right now!
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Rarity: Mythic Starting Price: $5 Current Price: $6 Future Price (Short Term): $5 Future Price (Medium Term): $4 Future Price (Long Term): $4 |
I’ve seen cards like this before, and they rarely end up panning out in the long term. Yes, it’s nice that you get a large hexproof creature for only five mana. However, that four toughness is killer. In addition, the lack of hexproof on offense is killer (hooray for black cards!). Would have been more playable if the anticipate effect triggered on attacking and not on resolution of combat damage.
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Rarity: Rare Starting Price: $3 Current Price: $1 Future Price (Short Term): $2 Future Price (Medium Term): $2 Future Price (Long Term): $2 |
This one has me a little baffled. Opportunity has been a tournament-playable Standard card in multiple formats. There’s no competition right now with Sphinx’s Revelation, so this seems like a card that’ll be played in control decks once Dragons of Tarkir is legal. However, the interest in the card isn’t there right now. The best two explanations I have are that Opportunity has always been an uncommon, so this is a rare that people are thinking of as an uncommon as far as pricing and excitement goes, and people would rather play Dig Through Time and Treasure Cruise in Standard. Pick these up now – they will go up once they start getting played.
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Rarity: Rare Starting Price: $2 Current Price: $1 Future Price (Short Term): $1 Future Price (Medium Term): $1 Future Price (Long Term): $1 |
Not too bullish on this card, but there will likely be more targets for this to kill in Standard than there are for Silumgar’s Assassin. Probably worth having as board material, but it’s no Intrepid Hero in a format full of fatties.
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Rarity: Rare Starting Price: $5 Current Price: $5 Future Price (Short Term): $4 Future Price (Medium Term): $4 Future Price (Long Term): $4 |
: I quite like this Command, and I hope that it starts getting a little more respect. It’s quite versatile; I could see playing with any number of these
cards, much less the possibility of all of them in any given game:
BR1, Instant
Raise Dead + Opponent Discards a Card
Shock + Opponent Discards a Card
Shatter + Opponent Discards a Card
Should see play in Standard, might see play in Modern.
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Rarity: Rare Starting Price: $1 Current Price: $1 Future Price (Short Term): $0.50 Future Price (Medium Term): $0.50 Future Price (Long Term): $0.50 |
A bulk effect, though an extremely cheap way to make copies of any given creature. Just too restrictive in how you get the copy and what you can do with it before it vanishes.
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Rarity: Mythic Starting Price: $30 Current Price: $30 Future Price (Short Term): $25 Future Price (Medium Term): $20 Future Price (Long Term): $15 |
So people are really, really divided on the power level of Narset. I can understand that – Narset breaks a lot of the “good” planeswalker rules (doesn’t technically protect itself, etc), but Narset is cheap and has a huge loyalty.
Contrast this to Sarkhan Unbroken. Sarkhan is three colors (harder to cast), five mana (harder to cast), and four loyalty (easier to kill). I’m not saying Sarkhan is a bad card – he’s not – but I am saying that the people who typically hype planeswalkers (casual players, Standard brewers) are very high on Sarkhan right now, and I just think that he’s decent but not overpowered or paradigm-shifting. This is the prototypical planeswalker that receives a lot of hype and then goes down in value as people get their hands on him.
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Rarity: Mythic Starting Price: $4 Current Price: $8 Future Price (Short Term): $8 Future Price (Medium Term): $5 Future Price (Long Term): $3 |
Reached $10, and then settled back down to $8. The value of Shorecrasher Elemental is tied completely at this point to the viability of a Master of Waves / Thassa shell. Whether that deck is good or not, Shorecrasher Elemental has no home (so to speak) as soon as Battle for Zendikar hits the shelves. Even if this spikes in the short term, it is one of the worst long-term bets in the set. I’d probably avoid.
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Rarity: Rare Starting Price: $0.50 Current Price: $0.50 Future Price (Short Term): $0.50 Future Price (Medium Term): $0.50 Future Price (Long Term): $0.50 |
Total bulk rare.
Pack Value
To determine the value of a booster pack, I’m going to start with the following formula:
(2R + 1M)/121
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).
30 out of the 53 Rares have been spoiled. Here are the ones that are $2 and up!
Arashin Foremost: $2
Atarka’s Command: $5
Den Protector: $2
Ojutai’s Command: $6
Stratus Dancer: $2
Thunderbreak Regent : $5
Total Rare Value: $46
13 out of the 15 Mythic Rares have been spoiled! Here are the ones $4 and up!
Deathmist Raptor: $5
Dragon Whisperer: $6
Dragonlord Atarka: $10
Narset Transcendent: $50
Ojutai Exemplars: $10
Sarkhan Unbroken: $30
Total Mythic Value: $153
So plugging this into the formula, we get the following:
(2R ($92) + 1M ($153) = $245
$245/121 = $2.02 value per pack, or $72.72 per box.
There are 23 more rares and 2 more mythics left to discuss. Join me again tomorrow when we will inevitably have more cards to speak about!