At this point you’re knee-deep in Worlds coverage. You have seen Spike articles about it, Finance articles about it, and even Timmy columns talking about the importance of Worlds. As such, I’m taking a slightly different approach to topic.

For starters, I’m aiming to be more immediate with my coverage, something normal deadlines make difficult. It’s 4 a.m. Tuesday morning as I write this (I do my best writing at night), so the numbers I have are as up-to-date as possible to help you out.

Results of the tournament are here, and any major site will give you the breakdown of which decks performed and which failed to live up to expectations. Rather than do the same, I’m going to look back at the cards I pointed out last week, and examine the effect of Worlds on those particular cards.

Another reason I want to do this is that a lot of prognosticators make arbitrary comments about card prices and never follow up.

(begin aside)

This is dangerous.

For starters, it’s just lame sauce. Be a man and stand behind your work. If you were wrong about Frost Titan, admit it. We all make mistakes. The important thing is that you own up to it.

Back when Scars was being spoiled, Jon Medina (@mtgmetagame), myself (@Chosler88), Stephen Moss (@mtgstephenmoss) and a few other people were speculating on the price of Venser, the Sojourner. My official prediction was a $20 max card in ~3 months of its release. While I’m looking pretty good at the moment (Can be had on SCG and CFB for under $20, and the average Ebay price currently is $15.49), I’ll be the first to point it out if I’m wrong. Other people think the card can still climb to the $30-35 range. If it does, I promise I’ll be telling you in this column that I was mistaken.

Secondly, and most importantly, it erodes trust in the “system.” As the online coverage of the financial side of Magic grows, there are a lot of people being introduced to it for the first time. If they believe the first column they read and buy up $100 worth of Near Death Experience, they might feel pretty cheated a few months later, especially if the author continues proclaiming his called shots while ignoring his misses.

It is vital to the growing world of MTG finance that its authors be accountable for their actions, even if that just means admitting their mistakes.

(end aside)

All right, now that we have that out of the way, let’s get back to your regularly scheduled Revenue Review.

Elementals

This deck, which Gavin Verhey posted a fairly-tuned list of last week, had just one appearance in Japan, which I don’t think exactly is a knock on the deck since I'm not sure how many people were able to test it in time. It has some powerful synergies, and has game against most of the field (with the exception being combo).

As the season progresses and the metagame figures out how to handle the combo decks, this deck is positioned to see more play. It can punish any opponent who is trying to play fair, whether that is through a Turn 3 Horde of Notions or recurring Vengevines.

The cards I pointed out last week are Horde of Notions and Primal Beyond, which were at $.50 and $1, respectively. The Horde is holding at $.50. The Beyonds are doing the same. As I said last week, the best thing about these cards is that even if they never spike, you’ve spent about the same as a meal at McDonalds to pick up a playset.

Cryptic Command & Reflecting Pool

As expected, these two powerhouses showed up all over the top Extended decks. And they aren’t getting any worse.

Noble Hierarch

The hierarch made a showing, but didn’t blow anyone away at Worlds. Still, this card isn’t going to drop, so it’s a safe hold with a potential upside.

Doran, the Siege Tower & Spectral Procession

Here we have a couple of big underachievers. Procession did literally nothing at the top tables, and White Weenie seems like it’s not going to cut it. It’s still a powerful uncommon that you can trade well, but it doesn’t look like it has much upside. Sell or trade them now.

Last week I said White Weenie was still a powerful deck, and I think it is. The biggest problem, as detailed by LSV, is that with the Punishing Fire combo gone, players are playing real removal, which punishes White Weenie a lot more than GroveFire did.

Just one Doran deck posted at least 13 points out of a possible 18, which is not a good sign for the deck. It still has the best mana base in the format, but it doesn’t seem like it’s holding up well in the new format. The card is dropping on Ebay, which means it’s probably time to flip these if you can.

I still think the flexibility afforded by the deck’s mana base gives it room to grow, but it’s probably a good time to trade away the Dorans before it falls off any further. You can still offload these at a nice premium to players who need them, but sooner is better than later.

Ranger of Eos & Scapeshift

These are the big winners of the tournament. Scapeshift decks performed very well, some versions including a truly surprising card. Wargate.

The Ranger has a lot of room to grow, and performed very well at Worlds. The biggest reason for excitement here is its inclusion in the true breakout deck of the format, (neo)-Affinity (which we’ll get to later).

Joraga Treespeaker, Path to Exile & Murmuring Bosk

Nothing unexpected from this group of cards, just solid performances all around. These are still good pickups and will be crucial to the format. The important thing is that the Bosk showed up in decks even without its buddy Doran, the Siege Tower. This land just offers too much flexibility to drop very far, so it’s still very safe.

Merfolk cards

This deck actually didn’t perform very well at Worlds, but I suspect that is due in part to the metagame there, which is different than a lot of PTQs. This tribe is fairly inexpensive and plays a very solid game, so I don’t expect demand to drop off much for these cards.

Faerie cards

This deck performed very well over the weekend, and showed it’s still a force to be reckoned with. It’s possible my stance on the deck last week may have been a bit harsh, but I still don’t expect the cards in this deck to represent great investment opportunities. The core cards of the deck will continue to climb as the season progresses, but that’s true of any Tier 1 deck. But I do expect this to be a very popular PTQ deck, so you shouldn’t have any trouble at all trading these off.

Maelstrom Pulse

Speaking of popular PTQ decks, I hear the Jund deck still exists. It had solid finishes at Worlds with a few different builds, all of which included Maelstrom Pulse. Aggressively pick these up in trades from players who don’t want them since their rotation from Standard, and flip them at >$10 apiece to Extended players.

Breakout cards

New formats are hotbeds of innovation, and there are a few cards to be on the lookout for after strong performances across the pond.

Steel Overseer & Tempered Steel

This deck is very solid, and has the opportunity to improve even more when Mirrodin Besieged releases. Besides the Steel decks’ two namesake cards, you can do very well for yourself picking up Master of Etherium and Tidehollow Sculler, two cards that will see a bump in value if the deck catches on.

Wargate & Prismatic Omen

These appear in the no-Mountain Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle deck (yes, 0 Mountains).  For Standard Valakut players looking to kill opponents with lands in Extended, these are cheap pickups that could easily double in value in a short period.

Necrotic Ooze

Yes, this deck is crazy awesome. No, I do not think you should pick up the Ooze for purposes of flipping them. It's not Mythic and it's still being opened. The card's price has actually dropped on Ebay over the last two weeks. The deck just isn't enough to overcome the factors that Ooze has going against it. That aside, this is a great card to trade for. Johnnies all over will give you great value on it, as well as anyone who actually wants to play the deck in Extended.

That’s all the space I have for this week. Don’t hesitate to point out any other potential opportunities in the comments!

Thanks,

Corbin Hosler

@Chosler88 on Twitter