There's only one thing worth talking about in Magic right now; Magic 2011! With the set slated to release in under two weeks, the 2011 Core Set is already a doozie, and the spoiler's not even done yet. The change in set rotation schedule, along with the changes to the core set itself, make for a lot of considerations.

One of the more interesting considerations relates to the fact that the 2010 Core Set contained new cards for the first time since Magic came to be. Such all-stars as Master of the Wild Hunt, the M10 Duals, and Open the Vaults have been introduced to us, and we'll never forget them, even if they rotate into obscurity. One question, coming from @GarethLewin on Twitter, relates to this very concept. Gareth wanted me to explore the cards rotating out, and the impact they'll have.

The first card that springs to mind is Master of the Wild Hunt. He was a $10+ Mythic for a good long time, taking up residence in many Jund lists, especially those using Eldrazi Monument. Master of the Wild Hunt was a great card in Standard, and it doesn't look like he's in the hunt for a Standard home in 2011. It doesn't appear that he'll get any Extended play at first glance, but it's entirely too early to tell. In the long-term, like once Lorwyn block leaves Extended, he may have some value, but if he leaves Standard, he won't see much play elsewhere. He's best sold off immediately, as you are probably entirely too late to get full value anyway.

Vampire Nocturnus is the other big player in the "let's lose all our money" game. I neglected to remove these from my store's buy list before I left town for a day, and came back to find out that I'd bought 6 of them in my absence. This was not where I wanted to be, but luckily I didn't overpay by too much. Nocturnus was $25 at its peak, but you're lucky to get $10 for either version these days. There's a chance that further support of the Vampire tribe could bring the deck back to relevance once Lorwyn leaves Standard, but as long as Faeries are in the format alongside Jund, Vamps have their work cut out for them. Another card that falls squarely into the "oh damnit I should have sold these a month ago but I didn't know they'd be rotating out" category. I'm just glad that's not a hashtag on Twitter.

Open the Vaults is the opposite of the first two cards. It was never expensive at all, but it always had "top prospect" pedigree. A deeper card pool only benefits the artifact-based combo decks, and Scars of Mirrodin lurks on the horizon. Wizards announced that this one would be rotating out, and when they're at bulk rare rates, I'll be snapping them up. While the deck may not ever be good, there's always a chance for a card like this to get broken in half. If it's just an obscure former bulk rare that was printed in precisely one core set, there's a chance it could be a sleeper card in formats to come. Don't go buy out every dealer on the Internet, but get them as throw-ins whenever possible.

Elvish Archdruid is also back, and I couldn't be more excited. Regardless of Imperious Perfect's status in 2011, it remains legal in Extended, giving the Elf deck a ridiculous suite of Lords. In addition to the aforementioned two, there's Joraga Warcaller. The Warcaller and the Archdruid work so well together with Imperious Perfect that just about everyone's going to want to build the deck. You also have access to all the Tribal tools from Lorwyn block, included the underrated Prowess of the Fair. Bloodbraid Elf is still ridiculous, and the new Fauna Shaman could be a nice role-player too. Jund-Style Elves (or Elf-Style Jund?) could be a real deck come Extended season, but Archdruid won't see a price spike until the deck is competing in PTQs. Thus, it could actually start off cheaper than normal and represent a quality pickup. Although I'm not a strategy type writer, I do brew from time to time, and I have this list for post-TPF Jund-Style Elves. I was chatting with Lauren Lee about it, since she'll be competing in Amsterdam, and she plans to add a Punishing Grove package to the deck while it's legal. The mana base is probably a mess, and the list has not been tested against a gauntlet. Consider it an example. You can goldfish a few hands with the deck http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/extended-elfjund/playtest/ here (you'll need Safari or Google Chrome to use the "fancy" version, but its worth it!)

"Extended ElfJund"

• (56)
• 4 Heritage Druid
• 4 Fauna Shaman
• 4 Wren's Run Vanquisher
• 4 Imperious Perfect
• 2 Joraga Warcaller
• 4 Elvish Archdruid
• 3 Maelstrom Pulse
• 4 Bloodbraid Elf
• 1 Masked Admirers
• 3 Eldrazi Monument
• 4 Gilt-Leaf Palace
• 2 Raging Ravine
• 3 Rootbound Crag
• 4 Mutavault
• 2 Verdant Catacombs
• 1 Swamp
• 7 Forest[/cardlist]

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Before I continue with the discussion of M11, I want to discuss this list. First, my limited testing has shown that Eldrazi Monument wants to be a 4-of. The card just puts away games, and its synergy with Imperious Perfect (sadly not in M11) is too sick for words. There are a lot of options with the Fauna Shaman package, but for this build I opted to not get too cute. You can do a lot of tricks with Shaman, Elvish Harbinger, Cascade, and the Tribal Elf spells. Elvish Promenade, Eyeblight's Ending and Prowess of the Fair all come to mind. I opted for a singleton Masked Admirers to be a good mid-to-late game Shaman target that can gain you a lot of value. Discard it to the Shaman, fetch a 1-drop, rebuy it for GG, and repeat each turn. It's hardly elegant, but for the cost of 1 slot, it earns its keep.

The deck curves out well, doing powerful things at every point on the curve. Joraga Treespeaker is completely insane. Knowing when to NOT level him (in anticipation of the Lightning Bolt, etc) is important, but if they run out an ETB tapped land on the draw, you get a boatload of value. His ultimate can make for some very scary amounts of mana combined with Elvish Archdruid. The deck wants more card-draw but it doesn't want to play Elvish Visionary. The shell is solid, and a ton of fun, but whether or not it stands up to the Tier 1 gauntlet is another question entirely. That being said, the deck should at least serve as a good case study for the value of the cards within. I cannot be the only person with this idea.

Returning to discussing M11's rotating cards, Time Warp leaving Standard will surely ruin it's value. It's far too expensive to cast to use in older formats. This means that Turbo-Land loses a considerable amount of viability, since most of the deck's best kills came from Avenger token swarms and extra turns. Avenger of Zendikar's too good a card to lose value now, especially now that it works so nicely alongside green's flagship fattie, Primeval Titan.

As for the cards being reprinted from older sets, reprinting generally ruins a card's value if it's already high, but it can help a card's value if it's cheap. Reflecting Pool is a good example of this. It wasn't very expensive before it got reprinted, since Legacy decks had no use for it. Unfortunately for Nantuko Shade and Leyline of the Void, they were both rather pricey before their M11 debut. Since neither are Mythic, thankfully, they'll probably drop down to the $5 range if they aren't Tier 1 staples. Given the power level of these two cards, it's entirely possible that they are Tier 1 staples. Nantuko Shade gives Mono Black a really good way to abuse Nirkana Revenant, and Leyline means that opposing Bloodghasts, Knights of the Reliquary and Vengevine will cease to be an issue.