Shoot the Sheriff, and Other Cards Picking Up Steam
Hello folks! While things have been fairly mellow this August (so far), there are a couple gems that have caught my attention from good ol’
Let’s take a look!
Shoot the Sheriff
On our first stop, we circle back to OTJ and examine a nifty uncommon removal spell: Shoot the Sheriff. This little removal spell is part of the continual iteration of
Doom Blade kills non-black creatures,
Now, in particular, this removal spell is actually seeing significant play in the new Standard meta. It’s pretty good at removing
Financially, this lovely uncommon is sitting at just shy of three bucks a copy. Will this number hold? Probably not. This movement, while interesting, is more of a reaction to its uptick in Standard play than its consideration in Modern or other eternal formats. If Vivi ever gets banned in Standard (which seems likely), then Shoot probably depreciates substantially.
| Shoot the Sheriff | ||
| Shoot the Sheriff |
High Noon
One of the most versatile
What’s nice about High Noon versus other symmetrical Rule of Law effects is that it has a built-in emergency eject button, much like
The ability to use High Noon as a stax piece to slow the game down, while you slowly build up your own resources, and then pop it when you’re ready to win, makes it exceedingly utilitarian, and flexible in its use.
Sitting around $4 and settling down, High Noon offers significant financial potential that’s just now being uncovered. How high could this climb? It’s tough to evaluate the true ceiling, but I feel like the ceiling is higher than $4, but less than $10.
| High Noon | ||
| High Noon (Extended Art) |
The Wandering Minstrel
While the cEDH community has hopped on The Wandering Minstrel as a lands-oriented combo Commander, there’s a very specific Modern deck that’s dipping their feet in The Wandering Minstrel: Amulet Titan. While Wandering isn’t
The interesting aspect of this is that Wandering is a two-mana creature, which means - unlike Spelunking - it can be searched out with
Having said that, the density of effects that allow lands to enter untapped in Amulet Titan in a world with a growing number of utility-driven lands released each set makes additional effects like Spelunking and The Wandering Minstrel invaluable on the margin. The recent unbanning of Green Sun’s also makes the Wandering Minstrel an incredibly accessible piece, while Spelunking remains somewhat more difficult to access outright.
Financially, Minstrel is surprisingly a bulk rare, valued at less than a dollar and resting at a flatline. Of esoteric cards we’re discussing today, I would argue that The Wandering Minstrel has the highest ceiling insofar as financial speculation goes. That isn’t to say it’ll be something that’ll shoot up to $50 a pop, but it’s not unreasonable to believe that this legend could have a realistic ceiling at $5 or so depending on how aggressive the uptick in play becomes across Standard, Modern, and Commander.
| The Wandering Minstrel | ||
| The Wandering Minstrel (Extended Art) | ||
| The Wandering Minstrel (Borderless) |
Clarion Conqueror
The last card worthy of discussion from the past couple weeks is the brand new stax all-star from Tarkir: Dragonstorm: Clarion Conqueror. This stax piece is devastating.
The problem with this is that it’s a symmetrical stax piece, thus, you too are affected by these devastating effects. While some decks can function without artifacts and some can function without the activated abilities of creatures, very seldom can most competitive decks function without making the use cases for Clarion narrow. Having said that, there are some decks – ones that lean more into triggered abilities – that can leverage this card with high efficacy: Orzhov Blink and Boros Energy (again).
Now, similar to Shoot the Sheriff, Boros Energy and Orzhov Blink typically sideboard Clarion, which doesn’t make it a staple for the format by any means, but it is seeing an encouraging amount of play all the same. Outside of Modern, there’s a few choice cEDH decks that can leverage Clarion, particularly shells like
As with most stax pieces, the financial potential depends heavily on the nature of the meta. Clarion attacks the Modern and Standard meta from the sideboard pretty meaningfully, but that could all change as new releases, bans, and the general fluidity of each competitive meta take on new shapes. If there is speculation potential for Clarion, it’s relatively short-term (less than a year). I could see this single creeping up maybe to the $5 or $6 range if its play persists further down the line.
| Clarion Conqueror | ||
| Clarion Conqueror (Borderless) | ||
| Clarion Conqueror (Showcase) |
Wrapping Things Up
Overall, it’s been a quiet couple of weeks, but in the quietness, there have been a few chirps of financial interest worth noting. More interestingly, these movements represent a fascinating trend in the financial potential of Modern playables in recent months: More price variation is coming from uncommons and rares/mythics that were at bulk status shortly after release, but are finding their way into their respective formats quietly, and compoundingly.
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Corey Williams
Corey Williams is an Assistant Professor of Economics at Shippensburg University in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania. He considers himself a macroeconometrician with his research body reflecting work in applied macroeconomics and econometrics. Corey is an L1 Judge who started playing Magic around Eighth Edition. He enjoys Modern, Commander, cEDH, and cube drafting. Outside of Magic, he loves running, teaching, and the occasional cult movie.