Weekly Winners (42)

As of this week -week 42- MTGStocks starts with publishing articles and columns about magic finance and the metagame.

These publications are, and will be in the experimental stage for the coming period. We're just trying it out to see if we can offer the magic community some additional interesting articles on finance and metagame!

Your comments, tips, ideas and such are more than welcome on twitter: @MTGPeter

So, without further ado, the first column in (hopefully) a series on MTG finance.

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Today I present you the first installment of weekly winners, a column about the cards that increased the most in price and popularity in this week.

The selection of cards is done by not only looking at the percentage of value they have gained in the past week, but also by absolute price increase and playability. If you have any thoughts on good/better selection criteria, shoot me a message on twitter: @MTGPeter

 

#1 Zur the Enchanter (+113% | $10,24)

The 113% price increase of this card has everything to do with power. Not of Zur himself (well maybe a little), but mostly the reason of it's increase is the power of Louis Scott Vargas. This popular hall of famer has pitched Zur the Enchanter in a wizards.com article of october 10th. Check out the article for the reasons why lsv thinks that Zur's that good.

Also, the guys at mtgsalvation forums and chat point out that it was actually not only lsv's doing. But also a 6-0 run for an enchantments deck on MTGO modern premier. That result might have sparked the price explosion and lsv gave it the extra push with his article.

The market responded on the spot and a huge spike was visible, but it's now losing value after the first vertical price increase.

As of now, we have only two decks on file that actually runs Zur the Enchanter, and it's exactly the deck that lsv is talking about. We don't see other decks on MTGO or paper running it yet.

So it seems that Zur the Enchanter has spiked because of Louis Scott Vargas' logical reasoning and higlighting of the deck. Not because he's seeing a lot of play. Yet.

 

#2 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx (+90.8% | $13,49)

Nykthos is hot and it's coming your way. Unlike some spiking cards, Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx is showing a gradual increase up until the start of the week. Right now it's stabalizing around $13,50.

Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx's increase in price and popularity is quite logical. It's a land that fits in any color deck that can use some ramping. It makes decks faster and gives decks in Standard the opportunity to get access to higher costed cards and abilities quicker.

Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx also works with hybrid-color cards like Burning-Tree Emissary in Gruul Aggro. Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx can give you access to two or three mana of the same color you don't have access to using your other lands. So it can help you to un-manascrew.

Four decks in the Pro Tour Dublin top 8 featured Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx causing an increase in price and popularity of the card.

A wide range of standard decks run Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx: Mono Blue, Mono Green and Gruul Aggro are the main archetypes running it. But also Mono Black, WUR control and even a few Rakdos Midrange and Orzhov Control decks have been running it.

 

#3 Cyclonic Rift (+66,5% | $3,93)

Cyclonic Rift was increasing in price and popularity before PT Dublin, but when the top 3 decks were revealed, it showed they all run Cyclonic Rift. In finance it's easy to predict that Cyclonic Rift would be going up fairly soon.

Most mono-blue standard decks run two copies of the card, which explains the fairly modest price it's now at ($3,93). Azorius control also runs it either once or twice. With a split between a mainboard and sideboard listing.

Expect this card to reach a plateau in the coming few days. There are no real indications as of yet to expect this card to continue going up on the same rate as the past week.

Comments?
Please shoot me tips and comments. when you have the time. @MTGPeter

Thanks Mandalor, Gufy and Tanarin @mtg salvation chat for your input!