MTG Salvation

Quote from Darkninja107 »

I do like Moldgraf Scavenger, but I think it might be best utilized in a Zoo build. I was originally thinking of using it in a u/g mill, but as Galspanic said, it doesn't work too well with Delve.

While Dual Shot is pretty neat, I feel Twin Bolt is the better option for Pauper since it has more versatility. Dual Shot can only hit creatures and can only ever kill x/1's. For the one extra mana Twin Bolt hits players, two x/1's or one x/2.

1 mana vs. 2 mana is huge for burn spells and I can't imagine either seeing play when Forked Bolt is legal. Except, that instant speed "kill 2" for 1 seems solid enough against a ton of decks, and the "kill a Delver" is great against a lot of other decks.

That pretty much covers my thoughts on it too. Scavenger has potential to be yet another undercosted beater, but this format has quite a few 4/4s for 2. In Golgari I could see it running along side Angler but it doesn't feel super powerful when you do that since Delve eats Delirium. The R instants are the ones I think I have the best chance of seeing play. Pyre Hound is solid, but 4 mana is a lot... trample and evading burn does help a lot though.

Not too excited about this as a Pauper set, but I also see the potential for some of the cards working their way into more thematic decks, so that's cool.

Nothing so far will make it into any of my Pauper decks. Still holding out hope for that sweet 2 cmc card though.

Quote from Life1ess »

Ulvenwald Hydra begs the question - will I pay 6 for a big blocker that puts Cradle into play tapped? The answer is yes.

Not me. When there are much much cheaper options that can get that Cradle firing 3 turns earlier.... this thing is going to suffer from Time Reversal syndrome - it looks like something that's super powerful so we think it's something powerful. But it's in the nuance that this thing will become "okay" instead of "great."

Quote from nightwyrm »

At worst, Sin Prodder is "At the beginning of your upkeep, mill the top card of your deck, deal damage equal to the casting cost to the opponent." It's either free damage or free card attached to a 3/2 evasive body.

1/3 of the deck will deal 0 damage.

Oh hell no... The reserve list is not the topic of this thread. I'm just looking to predict EDH cards that I might not be able to afford if I don't jump fast and lately the reserve list is very connected to that.

Quote from MaximumC »

Gate to Phyrexia destroys artifacts, not enchantments, but yeah, it's one of only two cards that does that. I think the other one is Phyrexian Tribute. It's a very strange part of the color pie that has been absolutely firm as other issues bleed around.

Cyclopean Tomb is poop. It's old poop, sure, but that crust doesn't make it more expensive. I mean, until someone does a buyout and pushes the price up a little bit for the five people out there who really want to collect the poop.

Forcefield is a bit of a mystery, I admit. I think the problem is that, as cool as it is, it's not actually the best card for what it does. At 3 mana, Ensnaring Bridge probably is just flat-out better than this, and that's not even talking about cheaper cards. I use mine for EDH exclusively. However, people do like it there. I think the problem is that no one knows it exists, and a $100 card is a bad, bad target for a buyout because you need to bet actual money to make it rise.

I agree on all accounts. But these cards do something that sounds appealing despite not paying off - like a ton of cards that have already popped.

Quote from Tolarian PC Principal »

Well, it wouldn't be the first time WotC misevaluated a card. I don't see them printing this if they don't want it to get played.

90% of cards printed see no play outside limited. This card was never meant for anything but 10th pick limited.

Quote from Tolarian PC Principal »

The way I see it, WotC plan for this card is to go:

T1: Duress (or some other new 1-drop)
T2: Tombstone
T3: Languish
T4: Jace or Ob

And then go on to control the ***** out of the rest of the game.

That assumes they plan on seeing this card getting play beyond limited, and that's a huge stretch.

Quote from Richard Arschmann »

This rock isn't great, but it's better than Star Compass in EDH. If you get color-locked, the Compass won't help: this card will.

That's like saying "This rabbit ***** is a lot better than this rhino ***** on my ham sandwich." Both are bad and the world has provided so many more better options.

Quote from Rondiggity »

I can't believe intuition has gone this long without blowing up. They see MUCH more play than the other cards that have spiked like this.

There are some cards I can't figure out like that. Forcefield is the perfect card to be worth a lot - and $100 is. But in the 6-7 years I've owned the card it's gone from ~$100 to ~$120. I would have tracked it alongside other sought after old cards for Cube and EDH.
Gate to Pyrexia is another one. It's actually gone down since I picked up my copy 6-7 years ago. For ****'s sake, it's about the only way black can remove enchantments completely violating contemporary color pie. It's not amazing, but for B and UB EDH decks I would expect ~some~ demand.
In the land of Blood Moon Modern and the realization that color screwing your opponents is powerful, you'd think Cyclopean Tomb would be worth more than $20. Moreover you might be surprised to know that it's lost 33% of its value in the last few years. What?
A card I know first hand is utter trash, despite feeling like it should be amazing is Willow Satyr. It was $15 then $25, and then it's back down to $12ish. Based on playability, that makes a lot of sense. People bought into it, realized it's junk, and jumped ship. But it's still a card with enough demand in EDH that I would expect it to command Land Equilibrium/In the Eye of Chaos prices. If the madness we see with old barely playable Legends rares holds true, it should go up.

Finally, I'd like to point out that Quarum Trench Gnomes is more valuable than a lot of played cards on the reserve list because [shake shake shake] reasons.

Quote from PopeJP »

It also hoses Eldrazi by cutting them off from colorless.

It might work for that, but most of the Eldrazi decks I've seen rely as much on colorless rocks to ramp as they do lands. So, while that may have some bearing on it, it's not going to have significant in-game impact probably. But, isn't that how most of these cards go? People focus on the scenarios where the card will dominate a game. Caverns of Despair is one I talk about more than I should, but it's a great example of a card that sounds like it'll do something (keep opponents from hitting you hard with swarms) but doesn't (it insures you get hit hard by 2 creatures and die). All the cards that are stand alone good have surged though, so it probably makes sense to look like you are - cards that hose prevalent emerging strategies or cards that have combo potential (I suck at that).

I just looked and it looks like City of Solitude is already going up.

I have a bad feeling Eternal Masters is going to cause chaos with the MTG market.

Quote from Crimson Wookie »

With that said, any other Reserved List cards likely to spike like that?

I would say that there are still some cards that feel underpriced for how much casual play they see. But if you take investment advice from me you are a fool.
Opalescence
Donate
Second Chance (This is the one I could see heading up once people get stars in their eyes about cheap free turns that can be chained with Sun Titan)
Lifeline
Recurring Nightmare (If unbanned in CMD this thing will sky rocket and there's talk that it could be)
Corpse Dance ($2.50? What??)
Infernal Tribute (One of the only "sac a permanent" cards in the game)
City of Solitude (Similar to Hall of Gemstone)
Bubble Matrix
Tombstone Stairwell (With so much self-mill I am shocked this isn't played more. I think people maybe don't see that it's each turn and not your turn )
Etc (I ran out of time)

Quote from Stoogeslap »

Why did Hall of Gemstone just pop? I know it had small jumps as of late, but now it's at $28.00 (as of 12:45am Pacific). Is it being used as a color hoser for 2+ color decks?

Every card on the Reserve list is getting hit lately. The fact that this card was A) playable, and B) under $1.00 made it a perfect target. But as always, the reactionary pricing system of TCGPlayer makes a small supply shock look like a lightning bolt to the face.

The playability part is, yes, because in theory it hoses 2+ color decks. In practice it's a minor annoyance and rarely does what you want it to (a.k.a why it was $1.00).

And THERE is the big dumb black sorcery I was waiting for.
(at least it's not as bad as most of them)