The recent Legacy bannings are having a visible influence on the markets as the Legacy format shifts. Old, obsolete decks might emerge and as powerlevels change, certain staples spike.
If you think that $9 is a high price tag for M19 Llanowar Elves, I can tell you that on july 16th its average was a whopping $89.99. Just statistics, because nobody has actually bought the card for that price, making the card drop down to $20 and today at $9.
This spike is not a glitch. Sometimes we have those, when a vendor makes a typo in registering a card and for example enters $199, instead of $1,99. We almost corrected this crazy Llanowar Elves spike last monday, because it looked just like a typo. But when researching it further, we had to conclude that it maybe wasn't a typo.
A price around $9 might even be a realistic price for this printing of Llanowar Elves. The card is not actually in Core Set 2019, in the sense that you won't be able to pull it from a booster. It will only be available in welcome decks and those will have a much, much smaller print run.
Avid Llanowar Elves collectors or those who seek the rarest and special kinds of printings will need to pay quite a sum of money for one of the most reprinted cards in the history of Magic. And it also gives an interesting insight in the inner workings of Magic Finance. Quite often the printed rarity or the availability of reprints means less to nothing when valuing a card. What matters more is the availability of a unique printing of a card. Or to summarise everything in one sentence: M19 Llanowar Elves is a collector's item and therefore has a high price.
With Arcane Artisan, legacy's Show and Tell deck has gotten a new toy to play with. The card is an extremely useful sideboard card. As a Show and Tell (SnT) player, I'm really, really enthousiastic about this new card and quite baffled by the fact that Wizards has chosen to print a card that is so obviously a great fit for the deck.
Arcane Artisan is a great sideboard card for a number of reasons. Before listing those, please let me explain why the card is played in the first place. Arcane Artisan is an alternative for the card Show and Tell since the mana cost and the end result are the same: sneaking a big fatty into play for . And in this deck, that is not redundant.
First of all, many players board out cards like Lightning Bolt and Swords to Plowshares against SnT because there are no targets they can hit with it and do any good with it. Having the possibility of bringing in Arcane Artisan may force other players to keep those removal spells in or Arcane Artisan will have little to no chance of getting killed by removal.
Second, Arcane Artisan dodges countermagic like Flusterstorm and Spell Pierce and it gives you extra protection when someone plays a cards like Diabolic Edict.
Third reason is that it protects against threats from SnT's worst matchup: Death and Taxes. Containment Priest does not work against it. And taxing effects don't effect creature abilities. Phyrexian Revoker gets a little worse as well, since your opponent now has to choose between Arcane Artisan and Sneak Attack, meaning that your opponent needs two to completely lock you down. Karakas remains a problem however, since bouncing tokens exiles them completely and you won't be able to put them back into play with Sneak Attack.
Expect Arcane Artisan to at least keep its current price, or even gain more traction when it proves to be as useful as thought. When Arcane Artisan really helps out with the Death & Taxes matchup it will make SnT a tad better.
Another white Legacy staple. If you've been reading our articles the past weeks, you might have noticed that Death & Taxes is more popular since the banning of Deathrite Shaman and Gitaxian Probe. Well, Council's Judgment is not only being played in Death & Taxes, but also in Legacy Miracles and Stoneblade.
When you read the card, it may be a little bit confusing, since its effect relies on the "Will of the Council". Now, in a Legacy match, the council only consists of two people: you and your opponent. And both of you get to choose a permanent which you do not control, meaning your opponent can only choose his own permanents. So you start by voting for the permanent you want to get rid of. Then it's your opponents turn, and if the opponent understands the card, he will vote for the same permanent you did. If not, he will lose two the other permanent he chose as well.
Long story short, in Legacy, the card actually reads:
Exile a nonland permanent you don't control. If you're lucky, exile another random nonland permanent you don't control.
Note that Council's Judgment does not target, meaning it can be used to get around Hexproof, Shroud and Protections. In Legacy this often means that it can get rid of True-Name Nemesis.
Since it only has one print, the one from Conspiracy, the print run is rather limited. Also, since it has this unique "Will of the Council" ability, its unlikely to be reprinted in core sets or expansions. Since it isn't Modern legal, it also won't appear in a Modern Masters.
The Weekly Loser
We're specifically mentioning the print from 10th Edition, since this print took the biggest hit. But the price of Crucible of Worlds is coming down hard since its reprint in Core Set 2019. This last version can be bought for about $20 each, which seems like an amazing price to get them for.
