Welcome back readers! As per my usual bi-weekly column, this week we'll delve into the movers and shakers of the MTG world.

We start with our "Penny stocks", which for the uninitiated (i.e. people who didn't catch the first one of these articles with the definitions) are the cards that started the previous week less than $5 and have moved up the highest percent since then. As usual my data is pulled from MTGstocks.com (which is an incredibly useful site all on it's own).

Penny Stocks

#1 Zuran Orb (FTV: Relics) (+40.2%) - As the only foil printing of a card that shows up in a Legacy deck (Lands) it's not surprising that this is gaining some value. It's still dirt cheap for an FTV card from a few years back.

It is important to look at the graph on this guy and there is some potential that there's actually a glitch with MTG stocks data gathering software, but overall it appears that all the copies I can find (outside of SCG which still has NM ones at $2) are in fact greater than the $2 it was previously.

#2 Masticore (FTV:Relics) (+25.6%) - This one is similar to Zuran Orb, though there are original set foils of this card available (about 18-20x more expensive than the regular version). During its tenure this guy was one of the most expensive cards in Standard. Costing you a card for a 4/4 with two decent abilities is still a pretty steep cost, but it does give mono-colored Commander players (more specifically mono-green) a repeatable way to kill creatures.

Again, I'm not 100% sure this isn't more of a jump due to some data gathering glitch with MTG stocks, but the "jump" isn't so tremendous that it sticks out as a "no way that's possible".

#3 Young Pyromancer (+17.1%) - Here's our first "well, duh" card to actually rise. With the introduction of Khans to Legacy and Modern we've seen a huge influx of blue-red counter/burn style decks and Young Pyromancer makes up one third of the creature count. Playing against these decks he's the #1 threat that must be removed quickly by the opponent before things spiral out of control. Barring a reprinting, I expect him to break $3 within six months.

#4 Mesmiric Orb (+15.6%) - Showcased in a deck on SCG Premium by Sam Black and as a win condition in a super durdly control deck in Modern (not to mention a hilarious solution to the Jeskai Ascendancy deck), this card's recent attention has caused a minor jump in its value, though judging by the graph it had a much higher percentage increase between this article and my last one.

#5 Nether Shadow (+13.7%) - One of the creatures in the manaless dredge deck, this guy sees fringe Legacy play (i.e. when too many people forget their graveyard hate at home and Dredge takes down a tournament). He's been in demand since Khans release, likely because having haste and being recursive makes him pair well with Bloodsoaked Champion.

Next we head into our Blue Chip stocks...

Blue Chip Stocks

#1 Savannah (-3.84%) - No surprise here, the resurgence of U/R Tempo decks means that once again Maverick (the primary driving force behind demand for Savannahs) is a poor metagame choice in Legacy.

The fact that all of this week's Blue Chips have a downward trend once again implies that the price spike back in March was a massive overshoot and everything is still moving back down towards the actual market price. This dual is very interesting for the fact that it's now back down to its pre-spike price...which suggests it's likely at its floor.

#2 Bayou (-3.32%) - Despite the fact that Elves is still doing relatively well and so is BUG Delver (sorry WoTC, BUG is still a better name than Sultai), demand for Bayou is decreasing. The fact that it's #2 on the list is a bit surprising given BUG Delver's recent success on the SCG Circuit.

#3 Tundra (-3.04%) - This one is a bit surprising as U/W Miracles actually has a decent matchup against the Treasure Cruise decks of Legacy, though BUG Delver can be a bit more problematic courtesy of having an out to Counter-Top Lock in Abrupt Decay. But we're still not seeing many UWr Stoneblade Decks like we used to (which was one of the major archetypes that pushed Tundras over $200 a few months ago).

#4 Scrubland (-2.68%) - With the rise of BUG and U/R Delver decks, Esper Stoneblade has taken a back seat in the Legacy metagame. As good as Thoughtseize is, it's still a one-for-one against decks playing three-for-ones. It's interesting to note that while not all the way back to its pre-spike price, Scrubland is getting close.

#5 Sneak Attack (-2.58%) - Another not so big surprise here. Sneak and Show decks have a hard time beating any decks with a decent amount of counter magic and a quick threat, which unfortunately for them, is a large portion of the current metagame.

Value Stocks

The good news is Khans has now officially been out for over two months and prices have finally begun to drop. The set will continue to be opened until Dragons of Tarkir is released (at least in drafts), but the block's odd draft structure won't have Khans being drafted with Dragons of Tarkir at all (perhaps in a move by WoTC to prevent the third set from having such a reduced supply).

Khans will likely still be cracked a decent amount even after Dragons of Tarkir releases (barring a high demand for Dragons cards) similar to how many people wanted RTR packs even when winning Dragon's Maze events simply due to the value in the set. However, the basic law of averages indicates that the value of a pack (barring the high starting levels due to short supply at the beginning of a set) will still continue to decrease until it reaches a point below the retail value of the pack. Thus, I still expect a lot of Khans cards to continue their downward trend.

I honestly expected fetchlands to be lower than they currently are as it seems that they haven't dropped a whole lot since release, though the trend is still negative even if a gentle slope. There is likely a strong possibility that because everyone knows fetches are desired for eternal formats, they will have similar trajectories to shocklands (which also gently sloped downward, but maintained a decently valuable price floor).

For a nice side-by-side comparison:

That being said, it may be difficult to acquire them when they are at their lowest, as a lot of speculators will follow these prices pretty closely. I don't think the fetches will fall too much farther (maybe another 15%), but we also won't see the kinds of jumps we saw in Standard land values upon previous sets' rotation like with Scars Fastlands and Innistrad Buddylands. We'll see the same thing we saw with shocks.

Growth Stocks

This week we see Zendikar bouncing back nicely from a previous drop. Part of this may be due to the fact that with Treasure Cruise running rampant in both Modern and Legacy the fetchland of choice is now Scalding Tarn, which conveniently only has the one printing.

We see New Phyrexia take a bit of a hit, but I honestly can't explain that one (none of the major Commander reprints that hit this past week were New Phyrexia gold). However, Scars taking a hit isn't surprising as its second most valuable card (outside of Mox Opal) was Wurmcoil Engine. The spoiling of that reprint has caused the price to drop pretty dramatically (though it hasn't totally been captured, recently it was a $21 card and now you can buy copies of them for $9-$12).

Rise of the Eldrazi had a bit of a dip as well. With one of the upcoming playmats for the next set being spoiled, what looks like an Eldrazi showed up on it, which has people thinking we'll see the Eldrazi return, which will cause a drop in the Eldrazi prices and thus the Rise sealed product demand.

Week of 11/02/14