Recently we talked about a few standard cards that stand a good chance to see a rise in price. With the PTQ season for Nagoya being Extended, I feel that now is the best time for us to take a look at some of the cards that could also see a price rise. Given that extended was cut down so dramatically earlier this year we currently have very little data to work with. In an attempt to give us some kind of starting point I’ve contacted a few people I know from Magic-league.com, namely CMA-Flippi who creates a monthly report on the status of the extended metagame. Through the use of his tables, a little investigative reporting, and smart use of speculation I’m sure we can secure some profits for ourselves.

A quick aside for a moment here, Magic league is an amazing place to work on sharpening your play skills. While I’m no professional player I do maintain a respectable DCI rating, currently at a total of 1853 which is good enough for a bye at a GP. I can honestly say that Magic League helped me get there, and was some of the most productive testing and brewing I’ve ever done. As with every community there are good members and bad ones, but don’t let the few bad ones stop you from going and finding out for yourself. It’s a great investment of time if you’re looking to become a better player. My IRC name there is Omegaorb.

Let’s look at the data we have

Examining that data we see that Merfolk currently has the highest win percentage by a decent margin over GW Ramp. We also see that Faeries is the most commonly played established archetype, but has an abysmal win percentage. The other most popular archetype is “All other”, also known as the Home Brew. The three powerhouse decks from recent years; Jund, Faeries, and 5c Control, also take up 3 of the bottom 5 slots in performance. But what does that mean for us as traders? Well at the start of the season we know Faeries will be popular as seen by the numbers represented here. Many of its staple cards such as Bitterblossom and Thoughtseize are already in high demand, but from the results we have here it stands to drop off soon after the season starts unless changes something and the deck performs well. Another thing to note is that the best numbers currently belong to Merfolk, a deck full of cards that are currently very cheap to acquire, but if the deck shows up with good PTQ top 8 numbers, every card on the list has a strong chance to go up in price. A few other decks to watch would be Reveillark, Shamans, and WW which also currently have quite a few cards in them that are currently inexpensive. Here’s a quick list of a few cards to note:

I’ve interviewed a well known member of Magic-league, Duodax, to see where he sees the metagame going, so hopefully his views on the format and how it will evolve will help you to zero in on cards that will go from cardboard to green.

Duodax: “I basically played two decks, first trap ramp and then Merfolk. Trap ramp can’t beat Sower of Temptation, so I dropped it since both Fae and Merfolk run Sower now.

Omegaorb: “Alright, Thoughts on RDW/Big Red/other incarnation of red?”

Duodax: “Reds weakness to Kor Firewalker and Forge tender are too much.”

Omegaorb: “Do you see Murmuring Bosk seeing more play? Will it being the only fetchable “dual” land help it?”

Duodax: “Yep, Doran needs four, and trap ramp usually uses at least one. The fetch argument also really helps it.”

Omegaorb: “On the subject of Doran, do you see it as more of a contender as the season continues?”

Duodax: “Yep, Doran playing more removal and duress effects can easily beat Merfolk. I think the format will need to evolve a bit more before Doran is at its strongest, but it will be a deck mid to late season.”

Omegaorb: “Awesome. Thanks a ton, this has been really informative. I wanted the inside look from the perspective of someone that’s done some testing for this format”

Duodax: “No problem”

Probably the most notable thing here is the mention of Doran style decks. Currently Murmuring Bosk is the only non-basic you can get with a fetchland, and they have already doubled in value since PT Amsterdam. I only see this card going up, so if you can find them for a reasonable price, about $3.50-$4.50 each, I would get them. We will continue to see the format evolve, and prices will fluctuate week to week. If you have plans on playing in the extended season, or are just looking for some cards that will be in demand in just a couple short months the list above is a great start.

I would also like to point out that in my November 9th article, found here, I stated that as the standard metagame continued to evolve RUG decks that were using Frost Titan at the time would switch to Inferno Titan as the titan of choice. This claim has been at least partially validated in Patrick Chapins Innovations article from November 29th, claiming that he would be playing RUG with Inferno Titan for the Star City Invitational, and that the decks designer Michael Jacob has been saying to update the deck in the same way. If Inferno Titan does show up in the Top 8 lists for the invitational, I hope you picked yours up when they were the "bad titan" so you can unload them for tons of profits when they become the current "good titan".

Thanks for reading, and if you loved or hated this article, or you just have something you want covered, let me know in the comments below.

Until next week,

Stephen Moss

MTGstephenmoss on twitter

stephen.moss@ymail.com