Hello, everyone, and welcome back! I took last week off from writing the weekly Standard stock ticker because not much had changed in the metagame. I hope you all enjoyed the article I posted on the economic role of grinders/sharks in the MtG trading ecosystem. Now, let's get back to the grindstone, and see if anything in the Standard market has changed during the break. Since it's been two weeks, I used a +/− $0.50 change as the threshold for "big movers" this week, rather than the usual +/− $0.30.

Winners:

So, what can the above results tell us? Well, it seems fairly clear that the metagame is basically settled, with various Caw-Blade decks remaining dominant for the near future. Stoneforge Mystic prices have settled, while Gideon and Sword of Feast and Famine continue to rise at a decent clip. It tends to take mythic rares a bit longer to settle, especially once they become predominant cards in an archetype for the first time (or are from a new set), which explains why the Mystic has plateaued while the other major pieces of the deck have not.

Inferno Titan is now a virtual automatic four-of in all R/U/G decks, because it simply ends games against Hawk-infested boards as well as being a complete house versus aggro. The only outlier here is Dragonmaster Outcast, and the only explanation I can see for that card "jumping" in price is that eBay auctions on lower-value casual cards tend to fluctuate more than those on Standard staples. I wouldn't throw away all your money on the Outcast just yet!

Losers:

Um, excuse me, waiter . . . there must be a mistake! Jace, the Mind Sculptor is incapable of losing value! Please tell me you got the price wrong! In a word: no. Jace, TMS did, in fact, lose a little value over the past two weeks, though not enough that you would actually notice a trend in prices. This is most likely a brief eBay market fluctuation; I wouldn't make any rash decisions to sell my Jaces, at least not until late June/early July, when the card peaks in the middle of Standard PTQ season. A less-than-1-percent fluctuation is hardly an indication of a long-term trend.

The most relevant change on this table relates to another Planeswalker. For the past few weeks, I predicted that Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas would begin a downswing, and it looks like that downswing has begun. Tezzeret still has yet to make a real impact on Standard—although eight copies did show up in the SCG: LA Top 8 this weekend—and until he posts consistent results, his price will continue to fall. The fact of the matter is that Planeswalkers are subject to a painful degree of ill-informed speculation and hoarding: The instant one makes a splash in an innovative deck, regardless of the deck's long-term potential, people buy them up like crazy.

Most of the other changes on the above list are continuations of previous market movements, related to the death of traditional U/B control in Standard, as well as obvious price drops from overhyped cards during prerelease time (Hello, Mr. Thrun, sir. How are you today?). However, I do have one piece of advice on a few cards whose value has been undergoing a slow decline. Specifically, I think now might be a good time to pick up Inkmoth Nexus and Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon. Both the Nexus and Skittles appear in Brian Kibler's new U/B Infect deck, which he piloted into the Top 4 of SCG: LA this weekend. The deck is a Blue deck that runs neither Jace, the Mind Sculptor nor Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas, and looks to be a decently performing budget option in the current metagame. Plus, with New Phyrexia yet to be released, the archetype only stands to become even stronger. With this in mind, Phyrexian Crusader will likely continue to move like hotcakes.

Conclusion and Sidebar

Well, as far as Standard is concerned, that's all she wrote, folks. The metagame appears to be relatively stable, and the market is finally catching up to that knowledge, as Tezzeret's price comes back down to earth.

The real action over the past two weeks has been in the Legacy market, as Star City Games did two major updates to their buy and sell prices on Legacy and Vintage staples. Stay tuned for next week, where I will provide an explanation of how one store, a store that doesn't hold anywhere near monopoly power over the MtG market, can nevertheless exert such pressure on pricing trends.