In this week’s article I’m going to take a look at the price trends leading into the 2nd week of Aether Revolt’s release and coming up the Pro Tour. We’ll also talk decks and the future pricing of the key cogs. Of course, popularity week 1 doesn’t necessarily translate into Pro Tour success but it will influence your local store metagame.

Masterpieces

Man it has been a rough time for Zendikar Expeditions and newer Kaladesh Inventions. Pre-ordering any of these cards almost always seems like a net loss.

This picture really doesn’t tell the whole story as it hasn’t been updated today but you can buy Arcbound Ravager masterpieces for as little as $70 now. But this could be an outlier, right? Not really.

This kind of price chart can scare a ton of people. I bought this Mana Vault for far too much because I expected it would be very expensive. It’s a first time foil of an extremely popular cube and EDH card. It had to be expensive. And it is expensive but nowhere near what it was a release. I think it’s pretty easy to continue to expect this from the future of the Masterpiece edition cards. Let’s look at the most expensive Masterpiece.

Scalding Tarn had a pretty big dip because people really didn’t know what the frequency of this kind of card would be. It started far too high and fell quickly as we realized there were a lot more. What happened since the rally before Oath of the Gatewatch? Nothing but small loses month over month. We haven’t hit the bottom on the oldest Masterpiece in Standard. The morale of this story is really if you’re not intending to play with a masterpiece then you should sell it immediately. There is no telling how long it will take Scalding Tarn to ever get back to its pre-release pricing.

Weekend Winners

Easily the biggest winners this week were the all-stars from the B/G Delirium/Aggro decks. It’s clear that Winding Constrictor along with Walking Ballista and Rishkar, Peema Renegade have made Verdurous Gearhulk a much more appealing top end card. It was obvious when spoiled that a 5 mana 8/8 trample was a powerful card but it was difficult to have it run into 7 mana 13/13s with much success. While there are definitely other cards that saw a lot of success this weekend, they were identified much earlier and saw more modest increases as the weekend went on. Heart of Kiran, Nissa, Voice of Zendikar, Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, and Grim Flayer had a good weekend.

A staple from the previous format that had an abysmal week was Ishkanah, Grafwidow. Without the Emrakul, the Promised End end game, it’s pretty easy for Torrential Gearhulk and Verdurous Gearhulks to overpower the spider queen. Metalwork Colossus had a pretty rough weekend after the first few feature matches. It seems like it could get to a point where it will be a good metagame choice as people tune their decks to beat Walking Ballista and Heart of Kiran decks and find they are unable to beat a party of 10/10s. Despite being the third most popular creature played in the top 64 of the Open, Spell Queller’s price has barely budged. It might be due for an uptick in the near future but for now its success seems to be overlooked. Lastly, Liliana, the Last Hope which has been pretty ubiquitous in the G/B delirium decks seems to have vanished. Rebuying Emrakul and Ishkanah isn’t happening anymore and Saheeli Rai is a pretty quick and easy check to activating Liliana to work toward an ultimate. I am expecting if people don’t find a home for her after the Pro Tour that she will quickly fall.

Is Saheeli for Reali?

Budget Competitive

One deck in particular stood out to me due to its simplicity and just low average rarity of card. Ray Perez’s U/R Control deck is a paltry $260 to build. It placed 13th and was less expensive than 13 of the other 15 decks in the top 16. The only decks cheaper were Jim Davis’s U/B Control deck and Eli Kassis’s 4 Color Saheeli deck. It’s rare for such controlling decks to be this cheap in the history of Magic. Maybe they’re underpriced for now and this won’t last for long but it is refreshing knowing that the cheapest option for Standard is not an aggro deck as it typically is.

U/R Control ? Aether Revolt Standard | Ray Perez, 11th SCG Open Columbus

• Creatures (4)
• 4 Torrential Gearhulk

• Planeswalkers (1)
• 1 Jace, Unraveler of Secrets

• Instants (27)
• 1 Brutal Expulsion
• 3 Negate
• 3 Revolutionary Rebuff
• 4 Anticipate
• 4 Disallow
• 4 Glimmer of Genius
• 4 Harnessed Lightning
• 4 Shock

• Artifacts (2)
• 2 Dynavolt Tower

• Lands (26)
• 4 Mountain
• 9 Island
• 1 Highland Lake
• 4 Aether Hub
• 4 Spirebluff Canal
• 4 Wandering Fumarole

• Sideboard (15)
• 3 Dragonmaster Outcast
• 1 Brutal Expulsion
• 2 Ceremonious Rejection
• 2 Dispel
• 3 Kozilek's Return
• 1 Negate
• 2 Summary Dismissal
• 1 Jace, Unraveler of Secrets

Buy This Deck

Final Thoughts

Standard may very well be wide open. It’s possible that Saheeli Rai combo decks will make up too much of the metagame in the long run but it’s also very surprising to see so many Blue control decks so early into a format’s life time. Maybe this set has the right tools to make control good and maybe there is still a lot more development to happen to the format but we won’t know for a few more weeks. I will be back with my next article in two weeks after we crown the winner of Pro Tour Aether Revolt. Hopefully it’s full of invention and creativity!