Weekly Winners 2023 - 23

This has been a fun week! We're seeing the first real movement because of the Lord of the Rings sets, and a card spiking because of a new combo in Pioneer.

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

In his Alt of the Deal series, Jason talks about Tom the Bomb and why you should care about this card. The new Lord of the Rings sets seem very promising, and you don't want to be too late to get the gems.

You should also definitely check out Harvey's article. The Big Things looks at "Aftermath's Correction" and gets into the financial impact on the new smaller set March of the Machine: The Aftermath.

Not too long ago the From Cute to Brute was put up for sale, and shipped pretty quickly. Matt talks about this particular Secret Lair set in New Horizons and how it may affect prices.

If you want to make sure you have your Commander staples before they become too expensive, the History, Restapled series from Steve is something to keep an eye out for. Steve tries to identify these cards before they're no longer affordable.

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Onto the Weekly Winners!

#1 Metamorphic Alteration $8.50 (+1,877%)

A few days ago on the MTGStocks Discord a user asked what was happening with Metamorphic Alteration. I hadn't looked into it yet, but as soon as another user chimed in to explain what was going on, I immediately replied that I kinda hoped that this spike would not die down before today. Because personally, I really found it funny that the interaction that this card has with a newer card is actually making waves in a constructed format.

When we quickly go over the card, we see an aura for two mana that can make the creature it enchants a copy of another target creature. What's important here is that the card says that you can target any creature on the battlefield with the aura, and you get to choose another creature on the battlefield. So on both parts it doesn't matter who controls the creatures. This means that I can enchant a creature of my opponent, and choosing a creature that I control to copy.

With that out of the way, lets talk about the actual interaction that made this card spike. New decks are appearing in Pioneer that try to play Archfiend of the Dross, and then make sure their opponent receives a copy of it using Metamorphic Alteration. Since the targeted creature will become a copy of Archfiend of the Dross, but was already on the battlefield, it will receive no oil counters. When you then pass the turn, your opponent will lose the game due to the Archfiend's upkeep trigger.

It seems like this combo is mostly played in a Grixis shell where you try to frustrate your opponent from doing what they want to do, pushing into the mid-game, filtering cards with Fable of the Mirror-Breaker and Dig Through Time, and protecting your combo with cheap counter spells. If you're unable to pull off the combo, you can still try to close out the game by attacking with the creatures. Hitting your opponent with one, or multiple, 6/6 flyers will also end the game pretty quickly.

While we do see a small bump in the price of Archfiend of the Dross as well, for now it seems like this card can still be bought for about $0.50.

Metamorphic Alteration	CardKingdom $0.99	TCGPlayer $0.98
Metamorphic Alteration	CardKingdom $5.49	TCGPlayer $4.82
Archfiend of the Dross	CardKingdom $0.49	TCGPlayer $0.52

#2 Arachnogenesis $78.21 (+161%)

Arachnogenesis was already a $30 card, but this week it's spiked to new heights. The card was printed in Commander 2015 and hasn't received a reprint since. This instant generates a bunch of Spiders, but to be fair, it doesn't necessarily need to be put in a deck that cares about Spiders. Being able to generate a bunch of blockers on the fly (get it?) in itself doesn't seem very bad.

But as you can imagine, this card is mostly popular in Commander in decks that do care about Spiders. It's a popular inclusion in decks around Ishkanah, Grafwidow and Thantis, the Warweaver, for example. When you put it in a deck that makes Spiders stronger, then the pay off from these blockers is even greater.

So the cards I just mentioned aren't new. But can we think of an upcoming set that may contain Spiders? You probably guessed it! Shelob is a notable spider in the Lord of the Rings lore, and so far we have seen two Shelob cards: Shelob, Child of Ungoliant and Shelob, Dread Weaver.

$1.49

$0.70$0.49

But besides the actual Shelob cards, there will most likely be more Spider support as well. Seeing as Spiders are becoming more popular, and the creature type gets more toys to include in the decks. Cards like Arachnogenesis are an easy target to hoard. That being said, since Arachnogenesis hasn't been reprinted and Spiders are getting some love, there is a good chance that it may be reprinted soon. When that happens, the price is likely to plummet.

Arachnogenesis	CardKingdom $7.99	TCGPlayer $6.31
Ishkanah, Grafwidow	CardKingdom $5.49	TCGPlayer $5.33
Thantis, the Warweaver	CardKingdom $1.49	TCGPlayer $2.25
Shelob, Child of Ungoliant	CardKingdom $0.49	TCGPlayer $0.70
Shelob, Dread Weaver	CardKingdom $3.99	TCGPlayer $2.70

#3 Heaven's Gate $6.00 (+20%)

Here's an older uncommon card from Legends. It's not on the reserved list, but also hasn't been reprinted. When we look at the card's text we see several lines, but in the new format the oracle text reads "One or more target creatures become white until end of turn." You may wonder why this card is $5 with an effect like that. The answer is pretty simple: it's old, it's from Legends, no reprints, and thus is relatively rare.

Yet it went up by a whole dollar and 20%. And while that may not be that shocking in Magic land, I thought it would be fun to briefly talk about this card. First, because it may have actually gone up a little bit because of the upcoming Lord of the Rings set, but also because it's fun to occasionally talk about lesser-known cards.

In the The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth set we see a new Spirit commander being printed in King of the Oathbreakers. When we look at the oracle text on this new legend we see two (or three when you count flying) abilities. The first one says that whenever a Spirit you control becomes the target of a spell it phases out. Its last ability will give you a flying 1/1 Spirit token whenever a Spirit you control phases in.

To leverage these abilities, you should try to let as many Spirits you control phase in to get more of them. With cards like Heaven's Gate we can very cheaply target all our own Spirits and let them phase out. This will also save them from (mass) removal, but since we can do this at instant speed, we can also get a bunch of tokens on our next turn.

$26.95$16.99

$2.80$1.99

In the same way we also see some movement on Touch of Darkness, another card from this same cycle that has the same effect in this deck. We also see Cauldron Haze moving up. You can definitely see the common theme here: cheap cards that can target a lot of creatures at the same time.

Heaven's Gate	CardKingdom $13.99	TCGPlayer $22.19
Touch of Darkness	CardKingdom $16.99	TCGPlayer $26.95
Cauldron Haze	CardKingdom $1.99	TCGPlayer $2.80

Cheap Pickups

Please note: for our 'record low' we consider the price of the card over the past 7 years. Many cards have been even cheaper (a) decade(s) ago. Also note: some cards are still going down, and might be even cheaper pickups next week.

Overmaster $0.79 - Moving up!

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

Serra Paragon $7.73 - Slowly moving down

Wrenn and Seven $8.03 - Slowly moving down

 

Overmaster	CardKingdom $0.79	TCGPlayer $0.66
Overmaster (Retro Frame)	CardKingdom $1.29	TCGPlayer $0.60
Serra Paragon	CardKingdom $6.49	TCGPlayer $4.27
Wrenn and Seven	CardKingdom $5.49	TCGPlayer $5.98

 

That's it for this week. Make sure to check back next week for more Weekly Winners!