Yeah it's only the 5th time in recent history that players have underestimated an spell. As far as I can remember, Bonfire of the Damned, Sphinx's Revelation, Hangarback Walker, and Walking Ballista are all cards that many people dismissed during spoiler season that exploded shortly thereafter. It's hard to wrap your head around the whole package. Many of these spells are not great when X is 1 or X is 5 but the fact that you have the flexibility in the situation is often discounted. Hydroid Krasis is format defining and will be a major influence for its entire lifetime in Standard. At this point you can boil the format down to your choice of Hydroid Krasis decks, mono-colored aggro decks, or decks that should probably be playing Hydroid Krasis but aren't.

Now, don't misunderstand me. I don't think Hydroid Krasis is too good. I don't think we're very far away from people complaining about it like that. I think it's a powerful card that helps give decks a way to shore up bad matchups. Its flexibility and power against counter spells and burn makes it perfect for both sides of the spectrum. Many decks are usually bad against either control or aggro and this card helps deal with those shortcomings. Ultimately the demand for this card will have a very pronounced effect on the rest of the cards in the set. It's still new but you can see Breeding Pool is already almost $2 more than the next most expensive shockland. I don't think this is short term demand and I would not be surprised if this card is still $30 going into spoiler season for War of the Spark. If you want it for Commander or some other brew then I suggest you wait until it rotates out of Standard before you buy in. If you need them for Standard, I don't think they get cheaper so there's not much reason to wait anymore.

If you're getting into Standard and don't really want to play a mono-colored beat down deck, then let me make a suggestion for you; I know you don't come to my articles to read about deck suggestions but this deck is cheap on MTG Arena and in Paper. This Gates deck is highly competitive and is made up of mostly commons and uncommons. It plays 4 Hydroid Krasis as the only mandatory mythic so it saves you a ton of mythic wild cards in Arena and it gives you the option to play a slightly watered down version while you try to acquire them in paper. The 4 Hydroid Krasis make up more than half of the cost of the entire deck. If you're the seeing is believing kind of person you can check out fellow Coolstuff writer, Jeff Hoogland, play the deck on stream here.

So we talked about Hydroid Krasis but there has to be more to this set, right? There definitely are some cards I think we should be watching. My short list is Hero of Precinct One, Skewer the Critics, and Light Up the Stage. Hero looks like it's showing up in enough decks that there should be some home for it and Skewer and Light Up the Stage are already making waves in Modern.

The Red spectacle cards are a menace in Standard but that alone doesn't drive their price. Skewer the Critics and Light Up the Stage are incredibly efficient for their cost with the drawback being you have to be doing what Red is good at doing. There are many shells that these cards can fit into and the most obvious is burn. Brandon Demisey played this list to a Top 8 last weekend at the Modern SCG Classic in Baltimore and featured both cards. I think it will take some time for most burn players to switch over to the correct number of Skewers and Light Up the Stage but I think they will be clear format staples in the long term. What happens when you take these new cards and add them to some format staples? You get this extremely good and extremely budget friendly Modern deck. Outside of Manamorphose, Arclight Phoenix, and some sideboard cards this deck is a pile of cheap commons and uncommons. What you may also not know is that this deck came in 2nd at the team open last weekend. I don't know what the future for these cards is but they will be expensive eventually. If you plan to play Modern make sure you own a set of each because I don't expect spectacle to be a particularly popular mechanic to return in a future Masters set. I would not be surprised to see that Skewer the Critics is a $4 card in a few years due to Modern and Pauper demand.

How has your experience been so far? Are there other cards you think people are sleeping on? Be sure to leave a comment below!