Welcome back readers! It's time for another MTG stock watch report.

Penny Stocks

#1 Forked Bolt (+299%) - No big suprise on this one. With a huge uptick in blue-red strategies in both Modern and Legacy, this one-mana "kill two creatures" spell has found itself in a lot of maindecks (not to mention additional sideboard copies).

I attended GP NJ and this was the card the dealers jacked up the most--I saw one place selling them for $10 each and many others in the $6-$8 range.

Decks like U/R Delver (both Modern and Legacy variants) want a maximum number of one-mana spells to feed their Treasure Cruises, so in this instance Forked Bolt is much better than, say Fire // Ice, despite its reduced utility and sorcery speed.

#2 Hero of Ioras (+41.2%) - This guy has hit Standard pretty hard out of the UWr Heroic deck (with Jeskai Ascendancy to fuel large heroic creatures very quickly). This deck, piloted by none other than Tom Ross at SCG Columbus, took 3rd place and has been doing a lot of work on MODO.

The card came from Born of the Gods, which altogether was a pretty weak set, with no real chase cards outside of Courser of Kruphix. That means players don't want to crack packs of it, so the rares have a bit of a higher ceiling if they break out.

#3 Moggcatcher (+40.4%) - This card showed up on camera at the SCG Columbus Legacy Open in a "Workshop-like" Legacy deck that uses Trinisphere, Chalice of the Void and Blood Moon to stop opponents from being able to play Magic. He then tutors up (past any of those prison cards) threats like Siege-Gang Commander, Krenko, Mob Boss, and Tuktuk Scrapper (to deal with those pesky Batterskulls).

#4 Savage Beating (+24%) - I mentioned previously how Narset looked like she would be the next Nekrusar (i.e. the latest EDH general to cause a spike on older cards that fit a specific deck archetype for that commander) and I wasn't disappointed, though we aren't seeing nearly the size spikes we did with Nekrusar. Savage Beating allows you to untap your Narset or allow her to do double damage (if she's equipped with a sword or enchantment).

#5 Pendelhaven (Legends) (+18.3%) - This isn't too surprising as outside of a Time Spiral foil copy or FNM promo, the most "pimp" version is the original Legends one. Tom Ross has been tearing up Legacy opens and GPs with Legacy Infect. Pendelhaven is one of the cards that gives his deck some reach by not forcing him to overextend, but instead peck away at his opponents.

Next up we have our usual Blue Chip stocks.

Blue Chip Stocks

#1 Force of Will (+2.65%) - Good ol' Force of Will, the glue that holds Legacy together, finally has a bit of upward movement. While blue has always been the most powerful color in Legacy, Force of Will has been on the decline for a while. Most likely due to the price over-correction back in March/April, but also because many decks were choosing to cut a copy as the need to counter something on turn one had fallen out of favor for awhile.

Now with Treasure Cruise re-aligning the format to tempo decks, Force comes back in (ahem) force. After all, the biggest downside to FoW has always been the inherent card disadvantage in a format where every card counts--now players have a way to refill their hand and regain control.

#2 Tarmogoyf (-2.29%) - This one's a bit of a surprise as he's still the most dominant two-drop in MTG, but note that with the advent of Treasure Cruise decks his power/toughness is greatly reduced when the opponent not only has a way to shrink their graveyard, but also a good reason to do so anyway.

He is also a nonbo with one's own Treasure Cruises and when given the option between casting a turn three or four Tarmogoyf or Treasure Cruise, many players have decided they'd rather just have more cards than a single creature.

#3 Scrubland (-2.28%) - With the falling out of Esper Stoneblade in favor of UWR Stoneblade, this dual continues to drop. It's getting pretty close to it's pre-spike price which might indicate that it will likely flatten out as it's unlikely to be worth less than it used to be. When and if it hits this price I am a firm believer in picking them up, as black is one of the more powerful colors and white still casts Stoneforge Mystic and Swords to Plowshares.

#4 Tropical Island (-1.89%) - This is paired with Tarmogoyf's decline, as the Legacy deck that was creating/holding demand for Trops was RUG and since both RUG's threats (Tarmogoyf and Nimble Mongoose) rely on a fullish graveyard, that style of deck discourages playing Treasure Cruise. At the least it reduces your threats and makes them a lot less impressive--and as I said before, everyone seems to be on the Treasure Cruise.

#5 Dark Confidant (-1.85%) - Strangely enough, I think this card is also taking a bit of a hit thanks to Treasure Cruise (it really does get tiresome typing that out), but frankly he plays best in decks with low CMC cards and despite the fact that Cruise usually costs 1-2 mana to cast...when revealed off a Bob it domes you for 8. The rise of Forked Bolt (via U/R Delver's recent dominance) also doesn't fare well for one-toughness creatures in general.

Value Stocks

Our current value stocks are Khans fetchlands. Despite the fact that they continue to trend downward (ever so slowly) I feel like they are getting pretty close to their low points. They are highly liquid and Eternal demand will always make them desirable to most players. Their biggest downside is that they continue to enter the market as more and more Khans packs are cracked.

If you're a high roller than my suggestion would be to focus on the foil versions, which despite the fact that they too are continuing to enter the market, are doing so at a much lower rate compared to the demand. We are still months away from the format switch to drafting non-Khans packs so there's no huge rush to pick them up, but at their current prices you won't lose much between now and the ultimate low point.

(Please ignore the actual price numbers listed on the foil as apparently hiding the average regular price doesn't update that price to be just foil copies.)

It's interesting to note that had you pre-ordered your foil Windswept Heaths, you'd be down only about 3% of your initial investment (which you can't say about almost any other non-foil Khans cards).

Growth Stocks

Last, but certainly not least, we have our growth stocks (sealed product). Our biggest loser this week was Scars of Mirrodin, taking a pretty massive hit of -14.52%. This may be due to the fact that Mox Opal (and Affinity in general) is starting to see less play in Modern, replaced as the top tier budget deck by U/R Delver (with the exception of the mana base, the entire deck is commons/uncommons).

We also see New Phyrexia take a bit of a dip (-5.83%) as well as Dark Ascension (-4.13%), though the latter isn't that surprising as its most valuable card is Mikaeus, the Unhallowed).

Week of 11/16/14

GP NJ:

For those who don't know, I did attend GP NJ, though I sadly only met a few fellow QSers (apparently playing one of the slowest decks in Legacy just means you have no time between rounds to do things). I did enjoy meeting those I got to talk to and I do wish I'd been able to do Mr. Chilcott's dinner/draft on Saturday evening (please let me know how it went in the comments for those that did attend).

However, given my final record was 3-2-2 (though it really was 3-1-3) there's no need to delve into my games at all. One funny event that did occur was that in one game against my round 1 opponent I had a Sensei's Divining Top in play...and the remaining three on top of my library--which is not where you want to be with U/W Miracles.

I will also say that I sold a bunch of random cards I'd accrued picking up collections/bulk this year, which covered all of my trip costs and still netted me $150 dollars (and I flew up there and rented a car). So the best advice I can give everyone is that it's definitely worth it to pick through your "bulk" commons and uncommons. And for those interested, my biggest surprise findings were;

1. Pathrazer of Ulamog buylists for $0.75

2. Necropede buylists for $0.1

3. Ichorclaw Myr buylists for $0.25

If you played at all during those sets you probably have quite a few of those guys lying around not making you money...