The world is going to end! The sky is falling! They're killing Magic! The end time is upon us!

Ahh the screams of so many standard players and people who didn't sell their Jace's when we said to months ago. To those of you who still have them: You were warned, by pretty much every one of us, to sell them long ago.

But what if you didn't sell, what if you wanted to hold out just a bit longer? How do you handle whats happened now? That's what the first part of today's article is going to cover.

How to rebuild your bridges:

So you've got one (or more) play sets of a now banned standard card. The best advice I can give you at this point is hold them, and turn them into long term investments. You won't be able to sell them on e-bay for a decent price, you can't trade them away for full value, and the market took a serious nose dive in value for both Jace and Stoneforge Mystic. Don't worry though! The prices will recover. We saw the same situation with Tarmogoyf, and we will see the same situation as standard rotates out. Think of this as an early indicator of what prices will do for almost all of the Zendikar block items when they rotate, this is very similar to how prices will react then.

In the long run, Jace will return to value. Expect him to steadily climb back up over the next year as he sees play in Vintage and Legacy, he'll climb a bit more come extended season as well, though I very seriously doubt ever back to the levels he was at.

New format, new demand

Luckily, the banning of SFM and J,tMS opens up what can be viewed as a new format for the next couple of months. Here are a few cards that you should be looking at:

Primeval Titan This will be in demand for the remainder of the standard PTQ season, though I would be very hesitant to get any. Now is a good time to sell them if you haven't yet, since they saw a decent gain. If Valakut picks up in play after July 1st, both the namesake land and the titan will see a price bump.

Grave Titan Remember how popular UB control was at worlds? Its going to be viable again. So will all of the UB staple cards. Its like a second opportunity to sell things at decent prices if you missed it the first time!

Avenger of Zendikar We'll probably be seeing the return of RUG, and with it will come this card, Inferno Titan, and Frost Titan. Cash in while you're able to, Inferno Titan won't see huge gains, since hes been confirmed for M12, but there is still some profit to be made if RUG picks back up in play.

Splinter Twin The window on this card for best sales time just opened a bit more. I'm still suggesting that you off them as best you can, now I'm just saying you have a longer time to sell them. The price will level at its peak once July 1st rolls around.

Koth of the Hammer This along with the other red cards stand to make some of the best gains. With Caw and friends basically disabled, red will have a small time to surge in popularity as the "go to" easy deck of choice.

Jace Beleran There have already been discussions about replacing JtMS with Good 'ol V1.0. While feasible, I'm not sure how practical it will be.   Regardless, people going through Jace withdraws will turn to this one, and this will cause him to gain even more popularity.

Mindbreak Trap Splinter twin will be one of the more popular decks, and its also a deck that can get into counter wars with you, on your end step. This is the point where Mindbreak Trap can shine. Its a meta-call card, and one that won't see huge gains, but you should be on the look out for it.

The Eldrazi cards: Eldrazi Green will become popular once again as well, and most people still have the pieces laying around for it. Summoning trap and all of your favorite giant space aliens will see their prices tick up again, so take advantage of this since those cards will be rotating soon anyways and trade them for decent profits, or for Mirrodin block cards.

Infect: Another deck that will be given a second chance, though Inkmoth Nexus being in an event deck won't do it any favors. Still, many of the cards are cheap, and you can actually trade for all of the individual cards for a small sum, and trade an entire built infect deck for more. In short, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts in this case.

Be on the lookout for good deals on our two banned friends, since both will still hold strong places in Legacy, and as it continues to grow, so will the prices on both of those cards. You will have a nice window here to pick them up cheap, and another, though smaller, window when the standard rotation happens this fall.

The biggest thing is to make sure you don't fall into the demand trap. Many of the cards that are going to peak in demand are also cards that will be rotating this fall. Avoid trading for them at demand prices if possible, since your opportunity to sell them or trade them for profit decreases dramatically every day between now and rotation. If anything, this is just a second wind on the demand for many of these cards, and a second good chance to make some killer deals.

That's all for this week,

Stephen Moss

@MTGstephenmoss on twitter

MTGstephenmoss@gmail.com