It’s that time again. Time for the set review! If you’re not familiar, this is both a financial review of the set but also my trading plans for the prerelease itself, which doesn’t always align where I expect cards to settle three months down the road.

For those of you not familiar with how I do set reviews, I start by giving you all a little credit. I don’t go card-by-card through the entire set and waste thousands of words telling you that obviously bulk rares are, in fact, bulk rares. Instead, I try to hit on the cards drawing the most hype as well as those I feel like you need to have on your radar for one reason or another, whether they be sleepers, overpriced, or so forth.

If you want to hear some financial thoughts besides mine on the new set, make sure to check out the latest episode of Brainstorm Brewery when it comes out next Friday at GatheringMagic.com. This week we were lucky enough to have the one and only Conley Woods as our guest on the cast, and it turned out well.

Caveats

With that said, I want to take a moment for a brief aside. We’ve got a ton of new readers here on QS lately, and that’s great. It means more opinions in the forums and more collaboration in general. It also means that, as writers, we have to keep our game up because some people reading this have maybe never read a single thing I’ve written before.

I feel like I should make a point that I’ve made elsewhere but not necessarily in a while. Here goes.

Do not blindly trust me.

I’ve been doing this for a while. I’ve been a weekly columnist for more than three years and I’m highly active in the community. I’ve been responsible for some of the best call shots on prerelease primers, from Stoneforge Mystic to Huntmaster of the Fells to Boros Reckoner. I like to think I’m pretty decent at this speculating game.

That said, guess what? I’m wrong, too. Everyone is. No one can bat 1.000, and in baseball you’re a pro if you’re successful one out of three times.

So don’t take my advice just because it’s my advice. Consider my reasoning on cards, take it into account along with what other people are saying, and at the end of the day make your own decision.

The Cards

DARGONS!

I want to talk about the rare cycle of dragons first. I like them a lot as your typical super long-term dragon gainer. That said, I don’t like any of them for Standard outside of maybe Kolaghan, the Storm's Fury and Silumgar, the Drifting Death. Kolaghan could easily top out some aggressive decks, and Silumgar is actually super relevant given all the tokens in Standard these days.

That said, I don’t see much medium-term upside for either from the $2-3 they’re at now. Maybe we see one do well early and move to $5 or so, but outside of trading for them this weekend there’s not much more to suggest.

Crux of Fate

This is not the cure-all that people have envisioned for U/B Control. It’s not just Wraths that the deck needs, it’s board control in general. And as it stands now Perilous Vault actually does a better, albeit more expensive, job of cleaning up planeswalkers.

So is the $2.50 price correct? I mean, in the past we’ve seen Wrath variants float at $4-5. That said, this isn’t likely a four-of, so $2-3 seems correct.

Soulflayer

I actually like this quite a bit at $3 this weekend. People are having fun brewing with it sure, but the more important thing to remember is that it’s simply a 4/4 for two mana a lot of the time. Sylvan Caryatid has hexproof and can die easily enough, giving this guy both hexproof and whatever else you have to fill up your graveyard.

Given your typical “dredge” deck, this guy seems like good value. A fine pickup at $3. I expect it to be extremely popular early at least, so even if it doesn’t go wild in price I suspect it will move easily.

Flamewake Phoenix

I actually like this as a card, a little more than most people seem to. It fits in a lot of builds, from the super aggressive red decks to, as Conley suggested on the podcast, Red Devotion.

That said, at $5 I can’t recommend a buy. Even if it shows up as a four-of in some cool list in the next week, it probably only goes to like $8, again making the buy-in okay but not super attractive.

That said, I don’t mind trading for some of these this weekend. There’s nothing wrong with moving a big mythic from Fate Reforged for a bunch of these smaller cards that actually have some upside.

Temporal Trespass

I find Temporal Mastery to be the closest analogue, and that card hung around $7-10 in Standard. That said, it was from a third set (even though a 3x one), while this isn’t. It seems okay in older formats but nothing truly game-breaking, since I don’t see you casting this before turn 4-5, about when you’re casting all your other Time Warps anyway.

$4-5, where it stands now, seems like the medium-term price, and once it bottoms out it becomes a solid pickup for long-term Commander purposes.

Whisperwood Elemental

Now this I’m truly excited about. The reason I think it’s so good? It’s great on both an empty board and a full one.

On an empty board you can play it and immediately start generating an army. And on a full board you can play and have some built-in sweeper protection. Not to mention that those 2/2s you’re generating actually provide way more value than that.

Of course, the one problem this has is that it doesn’t currently have a deck where it easily slots into. I get that, and that may hold it back for the next six months. That said, I’m confident the power level is high enough that, in addition to trading for these at $5-6 this weekend, I’ll for sure be buying in if this gains no traction and bottoms out in the coming months.

Torrent Elemental

When we did the cast, people were quick to label this as a bulk mythic, and I don’t agree. I think the current $6 price is probably too much, but this is a pretty sweet Falter effect for blue. I’m not sure if there’s a deck that wants it right now, but I’d keep an eye on this one post-rotation. The effect is just that powerful if any sort of creature-heavy blue deck comes around.

It’s also possible Jeskai tokens could adopt one or two of these. If that’s the case early in the season, we could see a spike. Keep an eye out.

Warden of the First Tree

Figure of Destiny this is not. Not only are the activations not super impressive, but it takes the full six mana to get past a Courser of Kruphix. Still, there are some builds of Abzan Aggro that could make use of this, so I think it’ll settle around $5-7.

Brutal Hordechief

Love it, though I’ll start this rant here. The mythics in this set do not “feel mythic” at all. Instead, they feel like the most powerful creatures for Constructed. Seriously, these aren’t even named creatures or legendary. I’d rather see the rare cycle of dragons at mythic than just the most powerful cards in the set.

That said, this card at $10 is super powerful. This likely fits into the Mardu decks, and a spike past $10 wouldn’t surprise me in the first week or two.

However, it probably settles around where it is now, at $10-12. So if you get in on these this weekend, look for the quick flip if it gains any traction.

Shaman of the Great Hunt

Same “mythicness” of Hordechief, and possibly even more powerful. Honestly I think this finds a home in a lot of decks. Anything with Savage Knuckleblade wants it, and untapping with it is a nightmare for your opponent. It also puts an awkward pressure on your green opponents. Sure, their Courser of Kruphix can trade with it, but do they attack on turn 4 with theirs if they don’t have a Rhino? Doing so risks giving you the chance to make this a 5/3.

Another card I want in my binder of the next two weeks, and one I wouldn’t be surprised to see go to $20 for a week or two, even though I think it will come back down later.

Monastery Mentor & Soulfire Grand Master

Grouping these together because both are sweet cards, and Grand Master at least passes the mythic test. That said, at $30 and $20 respectively, there is no upside, and both will end up closer to $12-15 in six months.

Ugin, the Spirit Dragon

Obviously high at $30, but I’m super interested in this card once the price settles. Karn hit $10 in Standard, and though I suspected it was a great long-term play, I didn’t expect it to be $50 good.

Ugin will follow a similar trajectory to Karn, even though I doubt he’ll reach the same numbers. The play on this is, for now, to wait. This will eventually bottom out, it will be clearly identifiable by graph, and we’ll have our window to move.

For what it’s worth, I could see this guy playing nicely with Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx, which could see an uptick given that we are again filling out the format with creatures that help devotion. Those strategies are at their best with the most cards in the format, after all, and Ugin is a pretty sweet thing to ramp to.

I also thing it could find a home in some Tron lists. It’s not the turn 3 godplay Karn is, but this wraths the board quite effectively once you have eight mana, and unlike Oblivion Stone it sticks around afterward.

That’ll wrap up Fate Reforged. I’m not sure how awesome this set will be immediately in Standard, but it’s got some nice long-term application to make up for it.

Thanks for reading,

Corbin Hosler

@Chosler88 on Twitter