Where Are They Now? - May 2023

Hello again everyone! This is Ryan, also known as the Penny Pincher, here to talk about last year’s biggest price jumpers and whether they’ve kept their momentum until today.

Now most of the time I have maybe one card that’s risen, and then I tend to show the worst falls, but this time I’m switching it up because I found we have two rises and one drop that only seems to have fallen due to the card evening out its release price! Let’s get to it!

Ledger Shredder

$8.09$9.99

When Streets Of New Capenna released, this card was lacking in its appeal to players and it started out on the ground floor of the pricing scale, but it only took a week for the masses to see its potential and to start grabbing them up in handfuls! Shredder’s ability to Connive on the second spell cast for each player, each turn, has made this not only a great flying stomper, but an excellent way to filter your deck. Personally I love getting its trigger during the declare blockers step from a spell they cast, only to follow suit and cast a couple spells myself, possibly making my 1/3 blocker a 3/5 powerhouse, or Conniving into a counter or pump spell. This card’s utility is amazing and its appeal to players is extreme. Sometimes cards soar, and Ledger Shredder has caught a nice drift.

Grand Crescendo

$7.00$6.99

Alright, hear me out. Yes, Grand Crescendo is technically a card that has fallen in price since last year, but when you look at the price from a year ago it would appear that the reason it was so high was a fresh release mixed with a great ability and it just didn’t have time to stabilize before it ended up on Arjen’s radar as a Weekly Winner. So this one counts as a win in my book!

Putting as many creatures on the board as you can dump mana into and giving each of them, plus the creatures already on your board, indestructible until end of turn is a win condition in its own right, not to mention a saving grace when the opponent's attack would have you down for the count if it broke through. Grand Crescendo’s power is evident and the Magic world isn’t blind. Any deck of the right archetype in white could easily see the why and how on this guy, so I hope you all have some Farewells to deal with this instant speed threat!

Unlicensed Hearse

$3.33$5.99

I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve lost a game to ignoring my opponent’s Unlicensed Hearse. My Infect brain just can’t compensate for an opponent who Crews vehicles properly, and this one is a hell card to Crew! Being able to simply tap the Hearse and exile any two cards from a single graveyard is a great method of graveyard hate, but being able to the Crew into this particular vehicle and have its power and toughness reflect just how many cards it has done this to is a wonderful way to smack your opponent, essentially with their own force behind it. I’m sure that would be an awesome feeling, but I’m still taking Kotori’s “Vehicles: Mech Piloting for Dummies” course and getting failing grades. So for now I get to be on the receiving end of this particular card’s ire, and boy does it sting!

Those are the cards that stood at the top of our Weekly Winners category last year and (at least this time!) managed to stick to it in the top tier and maintain steady price for this entire year! I hope you all enjoy this look at our heroes from just one year ago and I hope as well that more of you will join us on the members only side of things! We love our site and we love that you do too, so we have plenty of boons for the site’s members and I’m telling you, they’re all worth it and more! See you guys next time and remember to protect those cards! I recently lost a few myself to a spilled drink and now my Infect buddies are missing a moth. Dark times… Dark times indeed.

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