It has been a long time since EDH card were in the Weekly Winners. Well, they are back! Last week's winner is also back, this time as #2. Once again, I present you the cards that will be the talk of the town tonight.
Blade of Selves is an extremely powerful card in EDH. The myriad ability gives you the chance to attack every player with the copies of one powerful creature. Sure, the whole board will turn against you, but only if your opponents survive the attack. There are enough ways to finish of your opponents with one attack, and I think EDH players have already figured out how to optimize this card.
But don't forget the casual appeal Blade of Selves has. It is printed in a Commander set, but what keeps you from sticking it in your Eldrazi-Urzatron-Annhilator multiplayer casual deck?
But, a card being good or powerful is not enough to drive up a card past the $15 mark. In the case of Blade of Selves, it's price increase is probably a buyout. I also have reason to assume the price spike was caused by a single store changing their prices in such a way, it causing a run on the card. I will come back to you about this when I have more solid evidence on this.
Protean Hulk was last week's winner. But it is back this week as the #2, adding another $2.16 to the $2.84 from last week. A pretty steep increase for a card that sees little competitive play.
The reason that Protean Hulk grew in price again, is probably due to the attention the card drew last week, and the fact that it is pretty easy to pick up a playset of a card that might become a deck in Modern. $20 for a playset of a key card in a deck is not much, considering the price tag of Modern decks. Deck brewing and forum talk will follow, drawing more attention and giving people a reason to buy into the card.
For those of you who have missed last week's installment of Weekly Winners, Modern Nexus wrote a nice primer on the deck. And this week Hipsters of the Coast wrote an interesting article, also showing another possible build with Protean Hulk.
Command Beacon is one of the most EDH/ Commander focused cards ever printed. The reason for its price tag is simple: every deck can play it, and it gives you (a one time only) direct, free, access to your commander. A nifty trick, especially when you want to play commanders with a steep casting cost. There are several ways to exploit Command Beacon. First cards that comes to mind are Life from the Loam and Crucible of Worlds.
Cheap Pickups
For the past five or six weeks, very little cards seem to be hitting their all time low. It is starting to look like a trend. Compared with two or three months ago the differences are big. Back then, I had the luxury to choose between all the interesting and cheap cards I could add to the article. As of late, the opposite is true. This week, I'm glad to report, I do have some interesting cheap pickups for you.