Weekly Winners 2024 - 18

My last article that I write while on holiday. We've had a fun week with cards from Modern, Pioneer, Standard, and Commander moving. It also shows that Modern Horizons 3 is having its first impact on prices.

Like every week, just in time for FNM, I'll tell you about the Magic: the Gathering cards that'll be the talk of the town tonight! Come discuss this week's price movements with us on Discord.

Articles

• In Safe Bets as CEDH Grows, Deven explores the evolving competitive EDH scene and identifies cards poised for value gains amidst the format's expansion. He discusses the impact of Magic Online leagues and Wizards' support on card prices, highlighting how certain staples and Reserved List cards are becoming essential investments. For deeper insights into smart card picks for CEDH's growth, delve into Deven's strategic analysis.

• A staggering new sale record of $3 million for an Alpha Edition Black Lotus graded 10 by CGC, surpassing previous records including a special one-of-a-kind card sold to a celebrity last year. This sale underscores the soaring value and collector interest in pristine, rare cards within the community.

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Onto the Weekly Winners!

#1 Kappa Cannoneer $10.99 (+855%)

Let's start by addressing the Turtle in the room. Kappa Cannoneer has shot up this past week by a lot. The Turtle Warrior was printed in Commander: Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty, and since it's a Commander set, it's only legal in formats like Legacy, Vintage, and of course Commander. For you get a 4/4 with ward that grows whenever an artifact enters the battlefield under your control. But that last part also makes Kappa Cannoneer unblockable. It has all the hallmarks of a good card: hard to remove because of ward, big beater that can only become more powerful, and can even become unblockable. But six mana is pretty steep, which is solved by Improvise. Now you can cast your Cannoneer for as little as if you have five artifacts to help it cast. And artifacts tend to be notoriously cheap in formats like Legacy where it has been seeing some play.

Now let's get to the part that has changed in the past week. It all started with leaks from Modern Horizons 3 where Kappa Cannoneer showed up, meaning the card would become Modern legal. But leaks are not official previews and sometimes people like to mess with others. So while leaks are not a guarantee that these cards will actually show up in a set, it may trigger people to buy certain cards anyway just to be sure. But it turns out that a few days later Wizards actually confirmed the cards that were in the leak, meaning we now know for certain that Kappa Cannoneer will be in Modern Horizons 3. It even showed that the card would appear in the set as both a regular print and a retro print.

$14.00

Kappa Cannoneer	CardKingdom $9.99	TCGPlayer $12.01
Kappa Cannoneer	CardKingdom	TCGPlayer
Kappa Cannoneer (Retro Frame)	CardKingdom	TCGPlayer $14.00

#2 Three Steps Ahead $6.90 (+130%)

Three Steps Ahead is a newer card from Outlaws of Thunder Junction with the Spree ability. You have to choose at least one mode and pay the associated cost, but you are allowed to choose multiple. This makes these cards very versatile. In this case it can either be a counterspell, card advantage (or filtering), or board advantage by making a copy of something. When this card was previewed, it was pretty accepted that it would find it's way into decks in multiple formats. And that has indeed happened. It's seeing some play in Pioneer, and is even being tinkered with in Modern. But the main reason for this card moving up this week seems to be Standard.

Yuta Takahashi took the deck above to 2nd place in the Outlaws of Thunder Junction Pro Tour, and it plays four copies of Three Steps Ahead in a UW Control deck. This has sent people scurrying to find these cards to be able to play this deck as well.

Three Steps Ahead	CardKingdom $6.49	TCGPlayer $7.73
Three Steps Ahead (Extended Art)	CardKingdom $7.99	TCGPlayer $13.13

#3 Collector's Cage $13.38 (+64%)

As I've mentioned, I'm currently on holiday and in a completely different timezone, meaning I have to write these articles a day in advance. This means that sometimes I may miss a spike that happened overnight before the article becomes published. Collector's Cage seems to be one of the cards that I have missed because of this; but don't worry, we'll talk about it now. This artifact has Hideaway, an ability that was first introduced in Lorwyn. Whenever a permanent with Hideaway X enters the battlefield, you get to exile one from the top X cards of your library and put it under the card. Whenever you activate an ability of the card and a specific condition is met you get to cast the exiled card without paying its mana cost. In the case of Collector's Cage you get to Hideaway 5. Whenever you activate the ability where you get to put a +1/+1 counter on a creature you control, if you then control three creatures with different powers, you get to cast the exiled card.

Collector's Cage seems to be showing up in Mardu Midrange and Humans decks in Modern and also sees play in White Weenie decks in Pioneer. Being able to play an exiled card at instant speed is pretty good. In these decks it's not hard to meet the three creatures with different power condition. It can double as a combat trick when you have, for example, Thalia's Lieutenant under it, but there are also more expensive and powerful spells that you can hide under it. 

But what probably also helped is that Aspiringspike has been playing the card on his stream in a "Hide & Seek" Modern combo deck where he tries to cheat out big spells like Emrakul, the Aeons Torn and Emeria's Call.

Collector's Cage	CardKingdom $15.99	TCGPlayer $13.00
Collector's Cage (Extended Art)	CardKingdom $16.99	TCGPlayer $21.93
Collector's Cage (Showcase)	CardKingdom $19.99	TCGPlayer $27.00
Emrakul, the Aeons Torn	CardKingdom $22.99	TCGPlayer $23.02
Emeria's Call	CardKingdom $7.99	TCGPlayer $5.64

Cheap Pickups

Please note: for our 'record low' we consider the price of the card over the past seven years. Many cards were even cheaper (a) decade(s) ago. Also note: some cards are still going down, and might be even cheaper pickups next week.

Arclight Phoenix $2.12 - Moving up!

Arclight Phoenix has been identified by the MTGStocks Premium Penny Stocks feature as a card that has reached its bottom and is starting a consistent uptrend.

Everybody Lives! $10.50 - Slowly moving down

Loyal Retainers $2.48 - Slowly moving down

Arclight Phoenix	CardKingdom $3.49	TCGPlayer $2.12
Everybody Lives!	CardKingdom $14.99	TCGPlayer $10.50
Loyal Retainers	CardKingdom $4.49	TCGPlayer $2.49