Modern Times - Ragavan, Yawgmoth, Aether Vial
Hello everyone! Welcome back for this week’s edition of Modern Times! Modern has been idling at a nice, cool pace for the past couple months and has been slowly absorbing both
While the ebb-and-flow has been minimal, there are a couple standout movements that are worth discussion: two very relevant Modern staples, and one older format staple that is hitting lows once thought impossible. Let’s dive in!
Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer
I knew it would be only a matter of time until I would write an article with Ragavan front and center. Given its reprint in
Being a mainstay in almost every deck that plays blue or red in the format, it’s unlikely that anything short of a banning will ever diminish the pervasiveness of Ragavan’s presence in the game. Simultaneously, it’s impossible to imagine a more pushed one-mana creature ever being printed in the format–although, WOTC never is short of surprises.
For over a year, Ragavan was valued in a tight range of around $75-$80, which at times made it the most valuable single card in the format. However, the recent printing on the “bonus” print sheet, Multiverse Legends, incorporated directly into the MOM print run made accessibility to the card unexpectedly higher than originally thought. Coupled with the fact that MH2 packs are still plentiful and cheaper on the secondary market than most Collector’s Boosters, Ragavan’s supply in the MTG economy is ever-increasing. This surge in supply and increase in the share of decks like Temur Rhinos in the Modern Meta (which is one of the few decks not to use Ragavan) has pushed the market value of the card to around $55. Given the freshness of MOM, it’s likely the supply of this little guy will continue to climb, subsequently pushing down the market price further.
| Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer | ||
|---|---|---|
| Modern Horizons 2 | ||
| March of the Machine: Multiverse Legends | ||
| March of the Machine: Multiverse Legends | ||
Yawgmoth, Thran Physician
Yawgmoth was the quintessential “big bad” in the original Magic: The Gathering storyline back in the 1990s, all the way through the early 2000s. It wasn’t until
Backstory notwithstanding, Yawgmoth is a fun and interesting card that people spent years on trying to build around. It wasn’t until recently that Yawgmoth found a home in Modern in a toolbox-style deck that feels like a marriage between aristocrats-style and pod-style decks. Most recently, at the Grand Open Qualifier in Prague, Golgari Yawgmoth landed 10th place overall in the event–an event where Izzet Murktide had one of its weakest showings and didn’t even place a top 10 finish.
It was only last October when we saw Yawgmoth top out at around $40, but with recent reprintings in
Go to any Modern Reddit or Discord community, and you’d find many dedicated Yawgmoth optimizers and fans. The deck takes chops to play and has a steep learning curve, but is incredibly rewarding, resilient, and consistent. For these qualities, I would expect its share in the meta to continue to grow, making Yawgmoth a really attractive pickup right now while the price is at an all-time low.
| Yawgmoth, Thran Physician | ||
|---|---|---|
| Time Spiral: Remastered | ||
| Dominaria Remastered: Extras | ||
| Dominaria Remastered: Extras | ||
| Modern Horizons | ||
Aether Vial
Maybe it’s because I started playing Modern during the reign of
For years, Aether Vial was a $40 card that was a staple in many Modern and Legacy decks, most notably Elves, Merfolk, and Death and Taxes. Today, with the elementals cycle from MH2, along with non-tribal powerhouses like Ragavan and
In a way, I am both happy and sad to be wrong. Being able to pick up a playset of Aether Vials for $40 is amazing and terrific, especially since a single Aether Vial once cost that much. At the same time, it signals a hard shift in Modern favoring more recent innovations in MTG coming from direct-to-Modern sets like MH1 and MH2 as well as power-crept standard sets like
Aether Vial is definitely worth grabbing at its current price for those that play tribal Modern decks, which still see some play. However, it’s important to highlight that price movements and strong declines in cards like Aether Vial signal a different future for speculation and investment in the Modern format. Whether you take Aether Vial’s recent decline as a good deal or a cautionary tale is for you to decide.
| Aether Vial | ||
|---|---|---|
| Darksteel | ||
| Modern Masters | ||
| Masterpiece Series: Kaladesh Inventions | ||
| Double Masters 2022 | ||
| Double Masters 2022: Extras | ||
| Double Masters 2022: Extras | ||
Looking Ahead
One of the most appealing features of Modern is that it’s an eternal format with a strong player base, large card pool, and no cards on the Reserved List. Being able to pull from the original
One could title this article “Out With the Old, In With the New,” which is somewhat of an underlying theme in most Modern finance articles across the MTG finance community. However, this title seems to be cliché, and implies that speculating on these older staples are futile with most price variation in Modern staples manifesting themselves in the most powerful, and newer cards in the format.
One interesting caveat to this is that the price movements aren’t coming directly from the fact that cards are overtly powerful, rather they are coming from the power level of the decks themselves. Modern has one of the most fluid and open metas across MTG formats, so the value in these older staples are one-in-the same with the value in the powerhouses of the format in that they are directly tied to the share of a given deck that plays that card in the meta itself.
Looking ahead, it is almost advisable to speculate on what decks you believe will make up a larger share of the format itself, and invest in the staples of that deck. For example, given Yawgmoth’s growing potential in the meta, investing in pieces that support that deck such as
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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.
