Weekly Winners 2024 - 34

Commander and Standard are driving prices this week, and Lord of the Rings Poster cards are going hard.

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

Check out our other great content from this week.

How Has the Print Change for Secret Lair Affected Prices So Far? by Harvey McGuinness

Cards to Buy or Sell NOW for Modern by Corey Williams

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Secret Lair Value

This week we launched a new feature for Premium members! The "Secret Lair Value" feature provides a comprehensive analysis of all Secret Lair drops. It displays the MSRP, current sealed market price, secondary market price for exact printings, and the cost of acquiring the lowest-priced versions of included cards. This tool enables you to quickly assess the financial aspects of Secret Lair products, comparing their retail cost against current market values.

Did you know that if you buy the Prime Slime drop sealed it will cost you $50, while the separate prints from this set are only $30? But you can get the lowest prints of these cards for less than $2.50! The more you know, the better choices you can make. Premium members get all kinds of extra features, so at least check out the Go Premium page to see what you'll get.

Onto the Weekly Winners!

#1 Urabrask's Forge $12.58 (+172%)

Let's kick off the winners with Urabrask's Forge. This red artifact from Phyrexia: All Will Be One has been showing up in Standard since its printing. Every combat it will give you an X/1 red token with haste, where X is the number of oil counters on Urabrask's Forge. And every beginning of combat, you get to add such a counter on it. This can add up quickly over the turns, and gives you a "free" attack every combat since you have to sacrifice the token anyway at the next end step.

This artifact sees play in Commander in decks around Migloz, Maze Crusher and Samut, Vizier of Naktamun, for example. But Commander isn't the driving force behind this spike. The real reason is Standard, and especially since a Boros Midrange deck piloted by Yushi Uzuki finished first place in the Japan Open.

But this deck is not the only Standard archetype where we see the Forge appearing. It's also played in Gruul Prowess, Boros Convoke, and mono-red aggro.

Urabrask's Forge	CardKingdom $6.99	TCGPlayer $12.58
Urabrask's Forge (Extended Art)	CardKingdom $6.99	TCGPlayer $13.00
Migloz, Maze Crusher	CardKingdom $0.49	TCGPlayer $0.25
Samut, Vizier of Naktamun	CardKingdom $2.99	TCGPlayer $1.93

#2 Plague of Vermin $39.99 (+63%)

Bloomburrow isn't done spiking cards yet! The past few weeks in the Weekly Winners we've already talked about how the creature types that Bloomburrow revolves around are spiking cards that benefit that type. Last week we talked about Frogs and Bats, for instance.

$0.60$0.49

And when we read Plague of Vermin it's not hard to guess which creature type is spiking this one. This sorcery from Shadowmoor let's you, and your opponents, trade life for 1/1 Rats. And while everyone gets to build an army of Rats, you're going to try to be the one to benefit most from that. Because when you play this card, there's a good chance that your commander is a new one from Bloomburrow, like Wick, the Whorled Mind netting you a big big Snail. Or maybe you're playing Vren, the Relentless who wants your opponents' creatures to die. But to do that, you have to make sure they have sufficient creatures! Commander not from Bloomburrow, like Ashcoat of the Shadow Swarm, also work perfectly well with this sorcery. Speaking of Ashcoat, that's also a card that's been moving up lately because of the new Rat support.

Since Plague of Vermin is a rare with only one printing in Shadowmoor, the card is prone to being more expensive until it's reprinted. It's important to note that Shadowmoor came out in 2008 during the recession, meaning fewer people were inclined to buy Magic cards, so far fewer packs were opened compared to other sets before or after the recession. This makes it so that rares and mythics from this set tend to be more expensive.

Plague of Vermin	CardKingdom $24.99	TCGPlayer $39.99
Wick, the Whorled Mind	CardKingdom $0.49	TCGPlayer $0.32
Vren, the Relentless	CardKingdom $0.49	TCGPlayer $0.60
Ashcoat of the Shadow Swarm	CardKingdom $69.99	TCGPlayer $80.25

#3 Savvy Trader $4.74 (+168%)

Savvy Trader is from the Commander: Outlaws of Thunder Junction set, and to be more specific, it's found in the Grand Larceny deck. It's another card that's seeing more play because of Bloomburrow. This Human Citizen lets you exile a card from your graveyard and you get to play that card as long as it's exiled. But the thing that's more likely the reason for this card being good is the part where you get to play your spells at a discount, as long as you play it from anywhere than your hand.

$6.25$8.99

Commander: Outlaws of Thunder Junction has been offering plenty of support for casting spells anywhere other than your hand, and especially commanders like Glarb, Calamity's Augur and Flubs, the Fool. The latter of the two is the Buy-a-Box promo of the set. Both of these commanders are enticing players to be creative with where their spells come from. And since it's likely that you're not casting from your hand with these, Savvy Trader will make them cheaper.

Savvy Trader	CardKingdom $1.49	TCGPlayer $4.13
Glarb, Calamity's Augur	CardKingdom $3.99	TCGPlayer $3.38
Flubs, the Fool	CardKingdom $8.99	TCGPlayer $6.25

#4 Lord of the Rings Poster Special

The last week the Interests have been dominated by the The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth Borderless Poster cards. What is a Borderless Poster card you ask? Well, let me give you a few examples:

$38.40$12.99

$94.99$44.99

They tend to be pretty colorful and trippy cards and are obviously alternative styles than those of their regular prints. Articles have been written about these cards when they came out, and while some loved the style, others' main critique was that these cards are impossible to read. When Wizards talked about these cards in their article back in September, they also talked about pull rates. And since this was a huge article, I guess a lot of people missed how rare theses Poster cards actually are.

$20.00$5.99

$41.69$8.99

So let me check if I actually read this article right. These Poster cards are only found in Special Edition Collector Boosters. In these packs they're only found in 1 out of 9. The chance of pulling a non-foil or foil is even (so 2/9 to find the one or the other), so there are just as many foils as non-foil opened in total. That doesn't mean the price has to be the same for the two, since foils may have a higher demand and thus a higher premium.

Estimates say that there must be at least 11,000 of each circulating, but obviously the exact amount is unknown. Thing is that these cards may be more rare than people initially realized. The short story is that they've been going up rather quickly. The most popular, and expensive one, is the copy of The One Ring which has been moving from around $200 to nearly $400.

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.

Omenpath Journey $4.51 - Moving up!

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

Flare of Denial $7.41 - Moving down

Displaced Dinosaurs $8.45 - Moving down

Omenpath Journey	CardKingdom $4.99	TCGPlayer $4.50
Flare of Denial	CardKingdom $9.49	TCGPlayer $7.40
Displaced Dinosaurs	CardKingdom $9.49	TCGPlayer $8.41