So, what cards should the budget player be looking to pick up from DTK? Uncommons that will be rare priced? (Isochron Scepter, Stoke the Flames) Rares/Mythics that might spiral up once people realize what you see in it? (Tarmogoyf, See the Unwritten) Commons or Uncommons that will go in every deck you make with that color? (Lightning Bolt or Rancor) Maybe just some budget cards you're excited to build around?
I don't mind it as far as modern and whatnot goes as well as standard adds but value-wise I can't say I'm impressed and I don't sense any huge sleepers except for collected company.
Den protector seems a bit slow to me. In eternal formats, it'll just be outdone by eternal witness. In standard, I don't see it being so amazing. Corpseweft is semi interesting but requires a large amount of work. Risen executioner is fine as an individual card. Not likely to be a sleeper, though, imo. Thinking in terms of enduring value and rising value over long periods of time.
Possibly so but I wouldn't bet on it myself. To look at the two you mention, I think we can agree that in modern, legacy, edh, etc, both of those cards are going nowhere. So all we're looking at barring some very special things being printed that happen to make morph a viable an powerful thing.
Den protector. This is a card that reminds me of eternal witness for obvious reasons. But let's look at where we might find this. Aggro? No way. Control? Nope. If it were anywhere, it'd be a midrange with whisperwood elemental. I hate paying the 3 for morphing it as that is terribly slow. But I can definitely see getting a free manifest with it to then recur other things. Whisperwood is a good card already which supports den protector and den protector isn't completely horrible being a grave fetch type card in a midrange deck. So if it were anywhere, it'd be here. I think, however, that if you did do it, it wouldn't be a 4 of and there would be plenty to go around. Possible low but relevant usage on a probably not tier 1 (this matters because popularity creates demand) deck and only that and maybe one other variation of it makes this card unlikely to soar in price. Since someone may mention Gx devotion, I say morph for 3. That hurts. Also, its only on flip up. No fetch off genesis hydra and whatnot to get the intended use. Combo seems unlikely too.
Stratus dancer. Oh how I wish that I once again didn't have to pay the cmc 3 morph cost. Unless aggro gets so bad that its willing to play a 2/1 flying for 2 vanilla, it isn't going to be in aggro. Midrange? Well, blue doesn't have that whisperwood benefit. So if it wanted that, it'd have to be UGx. And that doesn't seem like a place that really want to pay 5 for a counter when it could do that by other means. Just seems far fetched. Control, obviously not. Being a value spell, I'll talk about tempo... and then proceed to rule that 5 mana for a card that can't drop till turn 3 and could easily die if it did without garnering intended value is useless in tempo. I really want to see these kinds of cards work but I just don't see it.
i think you're potentially undervaluing den protector. and its probably safe to just have it as a 1 of in g/x decks. Most likely it won't replace e-wit this is true but for 5 mana you get evasion that e-wit doesn't and a +1/+1 counter(aka it matches fairly well verse elspeth/ugin, is likely to be a 2 for 1 in most games you see it) referring to standard it could make the jump to modern but would have to be for a very specific deck and im not seeing it over e-wit. I can't see a deck mind playing this as a 1 of main(for standard) just like reclamation sage has been seeing play. Also the same is true for basically the whole cycle minus the black one(i wish it had deathtouch and then it would have a lot more potential maybe it has its day after rotation or if a collected company deck is a t1 deck) as actually being standard playable in a 1-2 of flex slot. Also den protector naturally provides nice synergy with deathmist raptor/whisperwood(if used to sac to save from wipe den protector flips to get it back).
Surrak Dragonclaw/savage knuckleblade last i checked both were ~1$ and old surrak has seen modern play where knuckleblade can also(more so for a person playing those colors that naturally wants a tarmogoyf but has a budget). Also think new sarkhan will be better for standard in average game than new narset(think narset has more applications in more formats however) and picking these up while you can relatively cheaply is a big jump if you want to play a tempo deck/potentially have a good spec card for trading.
new surrak has a home if mono green aggro ever becomes a thing again in t2...and dragonlords prerogative i think will see play as a 1 of and potentially more in its lifetime in t2.
And very few cards i can think of being great outside of that.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not knocking their playability but I'm not talking about that in the first place. I'm talking about catching sleepers or chase uncommons and I'm saying that those are neither. There are some cards you pick up now because you know you want to visit an idea but surmise that they will be cheapest now. Then there are decks you wish to make right now. I'm talking about the former case for two reasons. One, the op is referencing sleepers and second, it is sort of dumb to ask yourself whether you wish to acquire a card for a planned immediate deck or not. You do or you don't. I am not and was not arguing nor discussing their playability but rather the demand for them now and within the forseeable future. A card that is played competitively is not necessarily worth a lot nor a sleeper. Reclamation sage is good... and still not so pricy despite play in eternal formats and being a common edh pick. Now, stoke the flames is pretty darn expensive for an uncommon. It boils down to supply and demand. Reclamation sage is not a 4 of. It is played in competitive decks too but it can't get anywhere near the total counts of stokes. Pearl lake ancient sees competitive play and is a mythic... a dollar mythic. That's because any pla deck only needs one and anyone not hard control doesn't need one. Hence, result. 1 of in certain or even most standard Gx decks is not enough to make a card's price jump. If you plan to use it now and don't anticipate a drop, get it now. If you are trying to pick up early, I'm saying that you don't have to because chances are that their prices will hold even or drop.
Knuckleblade won't see modern play nor budget modern popularity. Playing on the cheap? Why the heck are you playing 3 colors? Wouldn't you be playing mono green devotion? Or if you had the mana base, why would you try to take on goyfs with an often weaker 3 drop? It makes much more sense to try to combat goyf with scooze or something. And don't say price. Knuckleblade with khans cipt lifegain land fixing in modern is not happening on any wide scale. If anyone tries real 3 color in modern without at least most of a proper mana base, they have a few screws loose. In short, it isn't the best budget choice nor is it even in the top x budget choices due to color needs. Hardly good speculation imo. Knuckleblade is in standard and likely will not leave standard. Heck, the 5 buck stokes won't really leave standard.
Silumgar Sorcerer
If UB Exploit becomes a tier 1 or tier 2 deck, this is the card that will make it competitive. Not the new Sidisi.
Deadly Wanderings
A lot of control decks can have only one creature in play that's super hard to kill (Pearl Lake Ancient, Torrent Elemental, Marang River Prowler, anything with hexproof). Giving your win condition +2/+0, lifelink and deathtouch might be a win-more thing, but I still think it's a valuable card that can break the mirror and give a deck more resilience due to the lifegain.
Foul Renewal
Removal + Raise dead at instant speed. I think that's very powerful and not that expensive (at 3cc it would obviously be too good). Anyone playing beefy ETB creatures like Siege Rhino is going to love this card. I'm a fan.
Profound Journey
This card being 50 cents right now is hard to believe. We're talking about reanimating Planeswalkers, artifacts and enchantments! 5WW seems like a really high cost but it's not that much for a control deck or a manaramp deck. Plus it has rebound? LOL I'm picking a bunch of these up for sure. btw it can also reanimate lands. I don't know about you guys but I think paying 7 mana to reanimate both Ugin, the Spirit Dragon and Haven of the spirit Dragon is worth it.
Sarkhan's Triumph
Every time I see any kind of tutor spell, I keep an eye on it. Being able to search your library for a specific card you need is extremely powerful. Especially if Dragon tribal/combo becomes a thing. And even if Dragons don't become competitive, Sarkhan's Triumph will still be highly played in EDH.
Rite of Undoing
It's just a matter of time before people start playtesting it in standard, modern and legacy. Especially now that treasure cruise/dig is banned, people could really use a good delve spell to shrink tarmogoyf and create tempo. I feel like the card has lots of potential.
Temporal Trespass
It wasn't worth buying at 5-6$ but now that it's at 2$ I think it's a good investment. The card is definitely playable and if it finds a home it can skyrocket to 10-20$ just like Dig Through Time did.
Palace Siege
It's one of the best sieges and for some reason still one of the cheapest. Anyone who's tried it or played against it knows it's power. It's just a matter of time until people realize it's legit.
I really do like silumgar sorcerer and intend to try giving one a spin in my Azami EDH when I get around to it. Super flexible. I doubt it is a sleeper but it is a card that I can definitely get behind. Especially because of the wording of extort.
Deadly wanderings is not something that goes with control. Would they like to just have in on board? Yes. But the problem with that is that it is a dead card in terms of getting there. Completely dead. Control decks are meant to win with their threat. It isn't like they want to try to midrange with it. Some people may use it for fun in EDH but not standard control.
Foul renewal is sort of expensive cmc-wise but I can see midranges liking it. Vs aggro, I can see returning a killed courser with this to throw up the road block again and so forth. I can also see it more importantly being used for value returning rhinos to kill rhinos. I don't think it'll have a high price overall but it is a solid card that cn easily see some play.
Profound journey I can't really agree with. The issue is the fact that you have to plan to get to 7 mana. Your things you wanted to recur have to be in the grave. And profound journey must resolve. If it gets countered, you don't get anything (rebound occurs on resolution so you don't get that either). That means it feels slow for midrange as the only place where they might want it is against a slow midrange deck. Thus they probably won't play it. Control doesn't want it either probably since they likely are planning to resolve their bombs, not drop them into the grave. And if they were banking on Ugin, they wouldn't need to put something counterable. They could just staple it onto a land in Ugin's haven to begin with.
Tutor for dragons, someone will play it. Not enough for a price spike I think but some people definitely will.
You might be misunderstanding tarmogoyf a bit with rite. Sure you could sometimes sort of shrink goyf with delve but this is not the one. First off, goyf use their grave too and they build to make it work so you will end up with goyf not getting shrunk half as much as you want. Second, you have to have something you want to bounce. Third, Tasigur does it better for just delve. Scooze does it better for facing goyf.
Temporal isn't terrible. Its cheap for an extra turns card. I can get behind picking one up for each relevant edh deck that might want a budget filler extra turn card and doesn't want to shell out 8-12 bucks.
Palace siege is cheap due to speed. Control doesn't want to win off the 2 ping because that's slow even for it. That doesn't help keep board control. Midrange is the only one that would want the recursion but for recursion to matter, stuff has to keep dying which isn't happening that much. It is definitely a powerful value engine. It is just a value engine with no home in standard atm. Its real home is EDH.
There's a decent amount of cheap rares I'm thinking of getting 2-4 of for possible budget decks on the off chance they go up in price later, even if it wouldn't happen until rotation.
Collected company and Ojutai's command are the extent of my interest.
MTGgoldfish price cheatsheet. One thing I like about it is that they show the trend up or down. Corpseweft up, btw.
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Den protector. This is a card that reminds me of eternal witness for obvious reasons. But let's look at where we might find this. Aggro? No way. Control? Nope. If it were anywhere, it'd be a midrange with whisperwood elemental. I hate paying the 3 for morphing it as that is terribly slow. But I can definitely see getting a free manifest with it to then recur other things. Whisperwood is a good card already which supports den protector and den protector isn't completely horrible being a grave fetch type card in a midrange deck. So if it were anywhere, it'd be here. I think, however, that if you did do it, it wouldn't be a 4 of and there would be plenty to go around. Possible low but relevant usage on a probably not tier 1 (this matters because popularity creates demand) deck and only that and maybe one other variation of it makes this card unlikely to soar in price. Since someone may mention Gx devotion, I say morph for 3. That hurts. Also, its only on flip up. No fetch off genesis hydra and whatnot to get the intended use. Combo seems unlikely too.
Stratus dancer. Oh how I wish that I once again didn't have to pay the cmc 3 morph cost. Unless aggro gets so bad that its willing to play a 2/1 flying for 2 vanilla, it isn't going to be in aggro. Midrange? Well, blue doesn't have that whisperwood benefit. So if it wanted that, it'd have to be UGx. And that doesn't seem like a place that really want to pay 5 for a counter when it could do that by other means. Just seems far fetched. Control, obviously not. Being a value spell, I'll talk about tempo... and then proceed to rule that 5 mana for a card that can't drop till turn 3 and could easily die if it did without garnering intended value is useless in tempo. I really want to see these kinds of cards work but I just don't see it.
Surrak Dragonclaw/savage knuckleblade last i checked both were ~1$ and old surrak has seen modern play where knuckleblade can also(more so for a person playing those colors that naturally wants a tarmogoyf but has a budget). Also think new sarkhan will be better for standard in average game than new narset(think narset has more applications in more formats however) and picking these up while you can relatively cheaply is a big jump if you want to play a tempo deck/potentially have a good spec card for trading.
new surrak has a home if mono green aggro ever becomes a thing again in t2...and dragonlords prerogative i think will see play as a 1 of and potentially more in its lifetime in t2.
And very few cards i can think of being great outside of that.
Knuckleblade won't see modern play nor budget modern popularity. Playing on the cheap? Why the heck are you playing 3 colors? Wouldn't you be playing mono green devotion? Or if you had the mana base, why would you try to take on goyfs with an often weaker 3 drop? It makes much more sense to try to combat goyf with scooze or something. And don't say price. Knuckleblade with khans cipt lifegain land fixing in modern is not happening on any wide scale. If anyone tries real 3 color in modern without at least most of a proper mana base, they have a few screws loose. In short, it isn't the best budget choice nor is it even in the top x budget choices due to color needs. Hardly good speculation imo. Knuckleblade is in standard and likely will not leave standard. Heck, the 5 buck stokes won't really leave standard.
Silumgar Sorcerer
If UB Exploit becomes a tier 1 or tier 2 deck, this is the card that will make it competitive. Not the new Sidisi.
Deadly Wanderings
A lot of control decks can have only one creature in play that's super hard to kill (Pearl Lake Ancient, Torrent Elemental, Marang River Prowler, anything with hexproof). Giving your win condition +2/+0, lifelink and deathtouch might be a win-more thing, but I still think it's a valuable card that can break the mirror and give a deck more resilience due to the lifegain.
Foul Renewal
Removal + Raise dead at instant speed. I think that's very powerful and not that expensive (at 3cc it would obviously be too good). Anyone playing beefy ETB creatures like Siege Rhino is going to love this card. I'm a fan.
Profound Journey
This card being 50 cents right now is hard to believe. We're talking about reanimating Planeswalkers, artifacts and enchantments! 5WW seems like a really high cost but it's not that much for a control deck or a manaramp deck. Plus it has rebound? LOL I'm picking a bunch of these up for sure. btw it can also reanimate lands. I don't know about you guys but I think paying 7 mana to reanimate both Ugin, the Spirit Dragon and Haven of the spirit Dragon is worth it.
Sarkhan's Triumph
Every time I see any kind of tutor spell, I keep an eye on it. Being able to search your library for a specific card you need is extremely powerful. Especially if Dragon tribal/combo becomes a thing. And even if Dragons don't become competitive, Sarkhan's Triumph will still be highly played in EDH.
I also really like Deathmist Raptor and Collected Company but I don't consider those "budget buys". And after some consideration I think Silumgar's Command is my favorite command.
Fate Reforged:
Rite of Undoing
It's just a matter of time before people start playtesting it in standard, modern and legacy. Especially now that treasure cruise/dig is banned, people could really use a good delve spell to shrink tarmogoyf and create tempo. I feel like the card has lots of potential.
Temporal Trespass
It wasn't worth buying at 5-6$ but now that it's at 2$ I think it's a good investment. The card is definitely playable and if it finds a home it can skyrocket to 10-20$ just like Dig Through Time did.
Palace Siege
It's one of the best sieges and for some reason still one of the cheapest. Anyone who's tried it or played against it knows it's power. It's just a matter of time until people realize it's legit.
Deadly wanderings is not something that goes with control. Would they like to just have in on board? Yes. But the problem with that is that it is a dead card in terms of getting there. Completely dead. Control decks are meant to win with their threat. It isn't like they want to try to midrange with it. Some people may use it for fun in EDH but not standard control.
Foul renewal is sort of expensive cmc-wise but I can see midranges liking it. Vs aggro, I can see returning a killed courser with this to throw up the road block again and so forth. I can also see it more importantly being used for value returning rhinos to kill rhinos. I don't think it'll have a high price overall but it is a solid card that cn easily see some play.
Profound journey I can't really agree with. The issue is the fact that you have to plan to get to 7 mana. Your things you wanted to recur have to be in the grave. And profound journey must resolve. If it gets countered, you don't get anything (rebound occurs on resolution so you don't get that either). That means it feels slow for midrange as the only place where they might want it is against a slow midrange deck. Thus they probably won't play it. Control doesn't want it either probably since they likely are planning to resolve their bombs, not drop them into the grave. And if they were banking on Ugin, they wouldn't need to put something counterable. They could just staple it onto a land in Ugin's haven to begin with.
Tutor for dragons, someone will play it. Not enough for a price spike I think but some people definitely will.
You might be misunderstanding tarmogoyf a bit with rite. Sure you could sometimes sort of shrink goyf with delve but this is not the one. First off, goyf use their grave too and they build to make it work so you will end up with goyf not getting shrunk half as much as you want. Second, you have to have something you want to bounce. Third, Tasigur does it better for just delve. Scooze does it better for facing goyf.
Temporal isn't terrible. Its cheap for an extra turns card. I can get behind picking one up for each relevant edh deck that might want a budget filler extra turn card and doesn't want to shell out 8-12 bucks.
Palace siege is cheap due to speed. Control doesn't want to win off the 2 ping because that's slow even for it. That doesn't help keep board control. Midrange is the only one that would want the recursion but for recursion to matter, stuff has to keep dying which isn't happening that much. It is definitely a powerful value engine. It is just a value engine with no home in standard atm. Its real home is EDH.
Icefall Regent
Boltwing Marauder
Berserkers' Onslaught
Blood-Chin Fanatic
Corpseweft
Pitiless Horde
Crater Elemental
Foul Renewal
Ire Shaman
Hidden Dragonslayer
Den Protector