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Financial Value Of Gatecrash XIII

There were some money cards spoiled last night! Ben Bleiweiss has years of experience pricing Magic cards. What does he think of Duskmantle Seer, Spark Trooper, and more?

New Cards
Duskmantle Seer

Starting Price: $10

Thoughts:
Duskmantle Seer brings back the anticipated Dark Confidant ability to the new Ravnica block. Duskmantle Seer has some immediate disadvantages compared to Dark Confidant—most notably, it allows your opponent to draw cards, and it costs four mana instead of two. On the flip side—your opponent draws their extra card on your turn (so unless it’s an instant or a card with flash, they can’t play it immediately), that card draw costs them life, and Duskmantle Seer is a 4/4 flyer for only four mana. My thoughts are that this is one of those “benefits both players” cards that will end up being extremely good because of the timing of the draw for your opponent. I think that this is the card spoiled in the set so far that has the most room to rise in price; it’s mythic, it beats, and it has an extremely powerful effect.

Gruul Ragebeast

Starting Price: $0.50

Thoughts:
Bulk rare. I’ll at least point out that unlike a lot of other cards of this type (Pandemonium comes to mind), the effect isn’t symmetrical.

Spark Trooper

Starting Price: $4

Thoughts:
There are good Ball Lightning variants and bad Ball Lightning variants. I put this one in the good pile for the sole reason that Spark Trooper goes a long way to enabling a viable battalion strategy in Standard. The lifelink is a nice bonus, but the real value is getting a Ball Lightning for a deck that wants a Ball Lightning-type card. If battalion decks take off, this has room to hit the $5-$6 range, and quickly.

Unexpected Results

Starting Price: $2

Thoughts:
Cards that have an unpredictable effect like this need to be really good to hold value—if not, they end up in the bulk bins quickly. Is Mind’s Desire for one worth four mana? Is it worth it if you get to recast it until you hit a nonland spell? I think that this is not playable in Constructed. For every game you flip Ulamog or Emrakul, you’re going to have ten games where you flip Noble Hierarch, Seething Song, or some other piece of your deck that isn’t worth four mana to cast.

See you tomorrow for the penultimate update for the daily Financial Value of Gatecrash series! We’ll update tomorrow, Monday (once the full set is spoiled), and a week from Friday, with a recap, a cheat sheet of prices, and some final thoughts!

 

Previous Editions of Financial Value of Gatecrash

First mentions of cards are listed below. However there are also updated prices and specuation in each edition.