If any of you guys follow me on Twitter, you know I am far from boring. I am always speaking my mind, or giving a betting line on Jon Johnson getting knocked from a tournament, or something as simple as giving out my thoughts on Zendikar Full Art Lands (spoiler: not excited). However, sometimes, boring is a good place to be. It lets you refresh and recharge your mind and get a fresh prospective (although this week for me has been anything but boring due to family stuff going on). There are prereleases this weekend all over the world and we are a week away from Theros dropping, so I think now is a good time to be boring and just go over where I think Standard, Modern, and Legacy are going to go following the most recent results and Theros being added to the mix.

Standard

It's looking more and more like we are going to see a lot more mono and dual colored decks for the foreseeable future. The only big thing to take away from the SCG Atlanta this week in my opinion is that UWx control is going to be a front runner in the early format and everything else will work to beat it. The G/R decks are losing a lot of efficient creatures like the mana elves, Boar, Hellrider, and Thundermaw Hellkite among others. This being the case, it appears that some form of White Weenie, Rx and Bx Beats, and Fish are the early decks people are going to try to make work. There are so many two-power creatures for 1 in this new set that I think cheap efficient removal will be extremely important, so I expect to see a lot of play for Mizzium Mortars, Electrickery, and Anger of the Gods. As much as I hate to say it, I think Omenspeaker gets played to help slow the rush for the UWx control decks.

So, financially speaking, what does this mean? Well, first of all, I don't care if these decks are good or not, I am looking to make quick cash to boost my bank roll before I settle into the long haul before Standard PTQ season this winter. I think people are going to be so anxious to try something new other than Thragtusk mirrors that a lot of these cards are going to be in higher demand than usual this fall.

Mutavault is going to see a huge boost due to these one and two colored decks and it wouldn't surprise me to see it pass $20+ in the first month or so of the new set being legal. Voice of Resurgence and Boros Reckoner will both see huge spikes because they are among the best ways to deal with the rush of these early creatures, even though Glare of Heresy out of the sideboards for the White decks will be a bit of a pain to deal with.

Jace, Architect of Thought also is seeing its stock rise due to the +1 ability helping to keep you from dying while buying time to gain control of the game. I am also thinking we are going to see a large number of $1+ uncommons soon. They have really pushed the power level of uncommons in the Ravnica block that I can see the demand spike.

I don't want to go over which cards are good investments and which are not in Theros at this time because odds are that the majority of the cards are overpriced and 95% of them will drop significantly in value with in the month. I also have to question the intelligence of anyone giving predictions on the long term pricing of these cards because there will be 9 other sets coming out that will have an effect on the prices of the cards during their Standard lives.

I will say that all of the God cards except the Green one seem highly powerful and will command big numbers. Thoughtseize is going to be the stone nuts of course. I think that Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver and Ashen Rider are 2 mythics that people are not paying enough attention to. The other 2 planeswalkers seem to be a bit overhyped and in no way keep their insane prices.

Modern

I want to take about 50% of the credit for Ari Lax's article title this week due to Steve Boggemes and myself repeating "I'd buy that for a dollar" and "Dead or alive, you're coming with me" all weekend. Imagine the headlines if Alex Majlaton had won with Affinity in the city with one of the most famous robots of them all (yes, it is Affinity, and it will always be Affinity, not Robots). Unfortunately, that was not the case and this was GP Deathrite Shaman. There were 27 of a possible 32 Deathrite Shamans in the top 8, but I feel like if we try harder we can get those last 5 in Affinity and Melira Pod.

What can we take away from the top 8? Well, first is that Melira Pod won its third GP in a row. I am 50-50 that Birthing Pod will get banned anytime soon. I think you are just seeing really good players play the deck well. Same can be said about the BGx decks that dominated the other 6 spots in the top 8, all of the players except one are well accomplished players that choose a deck with very few terrible matchups and relied on their play ability to carry them. I also think people are starting to move towards more Thoughtseizes in the BGx decks because they can hit Birthing Pod where Inquisition of Kozilek cannot. If Pod gets the axe, I would expect Inquisition to start appearing more. Chandra, Pyromaster is going to start to see a lot more play too. This card is finally living up to the hype of being the best Chandra yet and should continue to see an impact in all 3 of the major formats.

What's the result of all of this? Something needs to change and I would bet 100% that in the next B&R announcement there will be a big change before the PTQ season for Modern. I could see a major shake up along the lines of banning Pod and/or Chord of Calling and an unbanning along the lines of Ancestral Vision, Wild Nacatl and Green Sun's Zenith. There are so many cards on the banned list for Modern and I think that is also a major issue for the format. The appeal of Legacy is getting to play with all of the awesome old cards and you really can't do that in Modern.

Legacy

Well, this is awkward. As I am writing this, Star City's website just crashed, so I guess I am covering SCG Philly and not Atlanta. I also don't think there is a lot that is going to change between now and when Theros really kicks into gear. Reanimator seems like the mostly likely deck to get a kick start. Entomb stands to be the big winner based on results, with Griselbrand and Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite all seeing a bump.

Oh, SCG is back up! Um...I don't want to delete what I wrote so I am just going to write more and talk about SCG Atlanta anyway. There was a lot of Delver in the top 8 and that got me thinking. There are two ways the market can go for Legacy. The first is that role-playing cards start to see rises in price. I think it is only a matter of time before cards like Cunning Wish, Sulfuric Vortex, Meddling Mage and the like get a bump in price. The other side is that the higher end cards start to dip such as Dual Lands, Lion's Eye Diamonds, and Force of Will. If they do dip, I expect buying would be the right play. They have all dipped before and then climbed steadily, and this isn't a onetime occurrence, This has been happening yearly since at least 2010.

That is it from me this week. Go to your prerelease. Have Fun. Support your local game store. Maybe leave all of the trade materials at home and just go play Magic for the day. That is my plan at least when I go to the Vault in Greensburg, PA for the weekend. They are giving away a FTV:20 for the Saturday and Sunday prereleases so that is where my attention will be all day.

See you next week!

-Stu
www.twitter.com/ssomers55