For years I’ve occasionally dotted my columns with financial articles about casual cards. In the past few years, financial columns have exploded in number. You can’t click on a site without seeing some articles about trading, speculating, and defeating sharks all around you. The problem is that most writers are people who frequent tournaments a lot. Sure, they might occasionally do an article to remind people the value of top end casual cards (usually written so tournament players won’t be scammed out of their Doubling Season), but there’s not always a lot of material for casual players.

That’s where my articles come in. I like to write a financial article about once every year or so to give financial advice geared for casual players from Commander to Emperor and multiplayer to duels. (I’ve written a good number of financial articles right here on SCG!) Today I want to look at some cards that I feel give you a better play value than their price tags. Some of these cards were never major players and have very low value, and others have some serious value but are worth it. Today’s we’ll be looking at those cards and what their prices are here at StarCityGames.com right now.

Without further ado, let’s begin!

Cauldron of Souls — $3

With the Shadowmoor/Eventide block apparently selling far fewer cards than many others due to the time of the release, cards from these sets have inflated price tags. Cards such as the Lieges and Woodfall Primus keep rising, and who knows what a Primus will be worth in five years barring a reprint. Considering the value of many of the cards from the block, I am downright shocked that Cauldron of Souls is just a three-buck card.

Not only is it one of the best cards from Shadowmoor for multiplayer, but its artifact status allows it to be played in many decks. I still have no idea why it’s not worth more, but considering how useful it can be to simply tap it for no mana at all and give some creatures persist, I’m stunned that it doesn’t have a higher price.

Sygg, River Cutthroat – $2

On a similar note, Sygg, River Cutthroat is a steal at $1.50. It’s a creature that can be dropped early and then abused for a long time. I once thought about building a Sygg Commander deck, and maybe I should do it! Sygg’s awesome!

Thran Dynamo – $4

I know it’s just an uncommon and paying more for it than some rares may feel off to some of you. However, no unrestricted artifact accelerates your mana base better than this. Chrome Mox strips a card out of your hand and Sol Ring is better, but that’s it. There’s no disadvantage of Mana Vault or Mana Crypt, and all you do is make three mana every turn. For four mana, that is an amazingly good deal.

With one piece of acceleration, you drop it on turn 3 and then you’ll have at least 7-8 mana on turn 4. You can also tap it for mana when you play it and only lose one mana when you drop it. People who have had to wait too long for Dreamstone Hedron know the value of this. It’s unquestionably one of the best mana artifacts out there for casual players and worth the price of admission.

Draining Whelk — $1.50

Counters are decent in multiplayer because you want to stop stuff. They aren’t great because they don’t contribute to you overcoming the inherent card disadvantage in the format. That’s where this really shines, because it’s basically a Dragon and Counterspell in one. You almost always produce a 5/5 flyer for your trouble and usually more.

Getting a beater along with your counter is very powerful. Doing it in a duel is even greater, but there the casting cost is more prohibitive. This card is so powerful; it’s often been my only counter in a deck. If I had to create a list of the 50 most powerful multiplayer cards of all time, this would be in the running. Add some serious power to your deck.

All Suns’ Dawn – $1

How many colors do you have to be playing for All Suns’ Dawn to be amazing? At five, it’s clearly broken—five cards for five mana—wow. At four its super great, since you still net four cards for five mana. At three colors, it’s a better Tidings. Recurring three cards for five mana is powerful, no doubt. At two mana, it’s just a shade worse than Restock, which is still a perfectly acceptable card. If you are playing a deck with the right number of colors, then say hello to your new best friend!

I don’t think a lot of people realize that cards from Legends have really dropped in value due to a large number of factors. Most of the cards aren’t particularly good, especially compared to modern cards. Most tournament formats don’t allow them. I also suspect that their relative obscurity has hurt many of them, since most people haven’t seen them and don’t know what they do, so they aren’t looking for them. For today’s article, I wanted to look at a few rares and uncommons that have play value but aren’t anything resembling pricey. Here they are:

Arboria – $3

This awesome uncommon can prevent you and other players from being attacked for a turn. It works wonders with cards that have flash or give yours flash, because then you can play stuff on other turns and be unassailable for the game.

Boris Devilboon – $6

The ability to tap some mana and your dork to make Demon tokens is nice. Black is always looking for something to sacrifice, and red wants to throw creatures into the breach. Why not make some dorks for your team this week!

Caverns of Despair – $5

I mentioned this a few weeks ago, but I would be remiss if I didn’t bring it up again. I have found this to be a very valuable card, especially for multiplayer. Take another look at it.

Field of Dreams – $6

For a long time, this card was highly desired. It gave players a chance to see what was drawn so they could fight with counters or discard, and it worked well with everything from Vexing Arcanix to Sinbad. Today it works with even more cards and strategies; some ideas are scry, Harsh Deceiver and friends from Kamigawa Block, and the new Sinbad—Fa’adiyah Seer. I’m sure you can find a lot more uses for it if you look.

Gravity Sphere – $13

Few flying hosers are written as elegantly or powerfully as this: "All creatures lose flying." Yes, they do. (The Italian version is $5, and that’s a huge drop in price for the budget minded among you.)

Knowledge Vault – $5

I love tapping two mana and the Vault to stock a card under it. Then whenever you want, for no mana, you can sacrifice the Vault and discard your hand to place all cards under the Vault into a brand new hand. This is very useful, and the good news is that if the Vault is destroyed the cards go to your graveyard, plus it doesn’t require you to keep mana open to sacrifice the Vault—so it slides into a lot of decks.

Nova Pentacle – $10

The amount of awesome I’ve written about the No Pentacle could fill a large space shuttle. The ability to have one opponent choose where another opponent’s damage is going is key in multiplayer, and it really helps to keep you alive even in duels. It’s especially good when you have zero creatures or just a Stuffy Doll in play.

There are also a lot of cheap Legends cards that have been reprinted in later sets. Rolling with a Legends version of a good card such as Horn of Deafening, Killer Bees, or Relic Barrier is pretty swank. Alright, let’s look again at some more cards that are worth their price in dollars.

Oversold Cemetery -$5

Although a bit pricey in the finance department, the ability to return, for no mana, any creature from your graveyard each upkeep as long as there are at least four of them is quite powerful. Imagine playing a duel tomorrow with many of the cards from Innistrad block enhanced by this. It’s always going to have a place in decks.

Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs – $0.50

People like to attack in multiplayer. They don’t like cards such as Moat or Arboria or other cards that prevent them from doing so. If you have a card out that simply suggests that a foe look elsewhere for someone to attack, then you are up. This guy just points out that if you attack, you may be making a bunch of Ogres for me. If you aren’t prepared for the Ogre-pocalypse, then either pay a lot of mana or look for another target.

I’m not drawing a bunch of cards or recurring creatures—nothing obscene. I’m just making some ground-pounders. It has the needed light touch of having an effect without your foes feeling like its impacting them.

Citanul Flute – $1.50

There are few things as powerful in Magic as a Tutor. This is a game about random chance, and you never know what cards will be in your opening hand. You may or may not draw critical cards. Tutors change the math. Now you can find the right removal, right creature, right answer, right combo piece, or right mana for the situation. Many of the most powerful cards in the game have been Tutors that fetch more than one card:  Gifts Ungiven, Birthing Pod, Survival of the Fittest, Knight of the Reliquary, Tooth and Nail, Land Tax, and so forth.

It’s why cheap Tutors have dominated formats from Stoneforge Mystic to Yavimaya Elder to Vampiric Tutor. Considering how valuable a recursive Tutor can be, I’m surprised by the price tag on a few repeating Tutors in casual land. About half a year ago I pointed out the cheap price on Hibernation’s End, and that’s not the only cheap card of significant power you can find.

Citanul Flute is another powerful card from the same barn. Unlike the more powerful mana hog Planar Portal, this can be used and the card Tutored for played in the same turn. If you have out six mana, just grab a three-drop and play it. You can even use it when you tap out for a zero casting cost creature such as Memnite or Ornithopter. The flexibility to grab something small and play it or something large for next turn is very potent. This will dominate a table like few other artifacts.  

Memory Jar – $3

And speaking of a powerful artifact, how come this major player from long ago still has such a low value? It’s legal in Commander, so that’s not the issue. I suspect that’s why cards such as Biorhythm have low price tags, but this isn’t impacted by that factor. It’s a symmetrical card on the surface which is inherently unsymmetrical when you start playing with it.

You sacrifice it on your turn, and you draw seven new cards to play with. But only you can play sorceries and permanents. At the end of the turn, everybody gets their old hands back and what they drew off the Jar goes to the ‘yard. That means your enemy can’t play anything but instants—so you gain the full value of the card. And if you combine it with anything from Academy Ruins and Goblin Welder to Megrim and Underworld Dreams, this is a major power.

Ajani Goldmane – $5

To this day, I feel that Ajani Goldmane is one of the better planeswalkers in multiplayer. He has abilities that aren’t super-mega-shiny, and thus he flies under the radar. His +1 ability is a nice and easy two life per turn, which is not that bad but it adds up. The really good -1 ability that was used in Standard for a while doesn’t have the sheer power in multiplayer that it had elsewhere.

However, it can restock everything from a Triskelion to a Fertilid and pull off that -1/-1 counter off a persist creature. It works well but doesn’t scare anyone. The ultimate is nice and all, but without trample or evasion it’s not like the token spooks people like a certain land from Coldsnap does. It’s just a big dork that’s easily handled.  

Liliana Vess – $8

While on the topic of older planeswalkers no longer in print that are really good in multiplayer, don’t forget the original Liliana. The ability to instantly Tutor when you’ve played her is outstanding, and you can do it again if she hasn’t been attacked. Her +1 discards are also really great, and she ratchets card advantage very quickly. If you manage to go off with her you won’t forget it, but she’s a bit too powerful and I’ve rarely seen the end. Just using her to Tutor twice and discard a couple of times is worth it because of her major game changing presence on the board.

Novablast Wurm – $1.50

Attacking to destroy the world is something that’s been fun ever since Worldslayer was printed. Attacking to destroy just other creatures is still gravy, and this Wurm does it in style. For an investment of seven mana, you get a 7/7 beater that attacks to blow up everything. Combine it with a Lightning Greaves for maximum board wiping, Wurm protection, and creature slaying. It’s so easy to break in half a card already this good.

Fact or Fiction – $1.50

If you were to list the best card drawing spells of all time for blue, what would be on the list? Clearly, Ancestral Recall would top it, but then what? Stroke of Genius? Braingeyser? Tidings? Deep Analysis? Fact or Fiction has to be in the running for top five and would certainly be top ten. Considering how powerful this spell can be, purchasing some for $1.50 appears to be a staggeringly good deal.

It’s so much cheaper than uncommons in other colors that aren’t nearly as powerful. Take Krosan Grip, for example. It’s a good card, no doubt, but it’s not three dollars better than Natural End, a cheap common. But Fact or Fiction is lot more powerful than a buck and a half versus some uncommon like Divination or Deep Analysis.

Skullclamp – $2.50

While on the topic of the most broken uncommon of all-time in their color, make sure you note that the uber-powerful Skullclamp is just a three-buck card. The ways you can use and abuse this have been recorded since the dawn of the new border, and I’m sure relating these stories here would be redundant. Just note how cheap this card is.

And that brings us to the end of today’s article. Above we looked at a variety of cards from Legends to the mythic era and from little known cards to power cards. Hopefully you found a few gems in here to pick up and try out. Thanks for reading!

Until later,
Abe Sargent