Greetings, Domesticators!

Just when you had decided never to give a crap about EDH as a format, the casuals have come up with another format for you not to give a crap about, either! It's EDH with a twist and it's taking the community by storm.

Some call it mini-EDH, some call it Legacy Lite, some call it "a stupid, nerdy waste of time" (mostly parents and significant others). But those are all just different names for the same thing--a format called "Tiny Leaders".

A Small Aside

Tiny Leaders was created by one Bramwell Tackaberry, a native of Winnipeg, Manitoba. While you would expect this to mean Tiny Leaders is a more polite and social form of EDH based on words like "Winnipeg" (a city whose only major sports team is a more polite, less effective Chicago Blackhawks) it is actually a sleek, focused form of Magic with modified EDH rules. It plays a lot faster due to the decks being 50-card singleton decks rather than 100 cards and the life totals being 25 rather than 40. Tiny Leaders is 1v1 and can finish in between rounds, unlike traditional EDH.

The kind of spikey players to whom EDH in all of its politics, drawn-out matches and "casual" feel does not appeal are flocking to Tiny Leaders. It follows EDH rules (and has an expanded banned list) but the 50-card format makes for much more consistency and explosiveness, the low life totals make for quicker games and the 1v1 nature makes for not having to make friends, something spikey players will be relieved to learn.

Since Bramwell Tackaberry (I looked into this, I'm almost positive this isn't a psuedonym; a Canadian psuedonym would be something like "Moosesyrup Poutinehockey" anyway) has apparently abdicated responsibility for the format he's created, questions are fielded now by Steven Hamonic. Responsibility for the official Tiny Leaders subreddit is also shouldered by Hamonic, a man whose name is no doubt the subject of ridicule by Slivers players.

Those are the basic facts. 50 cards, 25 life, some dude named Tackaberry and a whole lot of interested spikes. So how does understanding this format help us make money?

A Little Tough Love

You're not going to make a ton of money here if you don't understand this format, and you're going to have to play it to do that. For whatever reason, a huge percentage of the finance community wrinkles their noses at the notion that they should play EDH to understand it.

That's fine; EDH isn't for everyone. However, if you don't learn what is actually playable in EDH, how prevalent those playable cards really are in terms of the overall community and which cards historically do well in EDH when new sets come out, you're not allowed to wax philosophical about what an "EDH Card" is, and the same goes for Tiny Leaders.

I wrote an article in this same vein a year ago but have spent the last year watching people continue to over- or under-estimate certain aspects of EDH as a format. Again, that's fine, but you're leaving a portion of money on the table for someone better educated to come scoop and all you'd have to do to get better at EDH analysis is build a deck and play a few games.

You'll find what I did - the people who play EDH are way, way better trade partners than the people you meet at Grands Prix or PTQS. You'll also find that you can better anticipate what's going to happen financially to old cards based on new ones getting printed. It didn't take a genius to predict the price was going to increase on Utvara Hellkite, Hellkite Tyrant and Scion of the Ur-Dragon based on all of the new dragons in Fate Reforged, but the EDH community was all over it weeks before the finance community was. If EDH players bought cards four-at-a-time the way Standard players do, the finance community would have found the internet sold out before they even knew what those cards did.

If you have even one EDH deck and have played more than two or three games, ever, you probably have a pretty good grasp. Slow, durdly cards are king in that format and while Standard players aren't excited by cards like Mob Rule or Fascination, the EDH community is all about them.

However, even those of us who have an excellent grasp on EDH (and, by extension, EDH finance) are having to recalibrate when it comes to Tiny Leaders finance, which isn't a thing but very well could be. In fact, merely speculating about the format has already caused an event.

A Small Prediction

I could be wrong about this being a staple in Tiny Leaders as some people in finance subreddits have asserted (rudely). However, all I have seen are people brewing with Sunforger in Tiny Leaders discussions and even if the card doesn't take off long-term, I've seen enough people talk about it in the short term that it seemed safe to mention.

I followed up this January 16th tweet by picking Sunforger as my Pick of the Week on the January 22nd episode of Brainstorm Brewery which was recorded on the 20th.

The trend is promising albeit slow. Tiny Leaders was introduced right around the time the price started to inch up, but I doubt the two are related. We're forced to re-evaluate whether Sunforger's price is a good gauge of the impact of the format. However, I think at least a few people are convinced that the card could get there.

I will also show the foil price at the same scale as the non-foil so you can see how precipitous the spike was.

The price of the foil is doing some crazy things. I wish I could take credit for the buying. While I tend to avoid buying cards I "hype" because that looks shady as balls given my position in the community, I regret not buying at least one personal copy at $10. I was just as surprised at the precipitous spike as anyone else.

Do I just not know what I am talking about and others who are just as clueless as I am are following bad advice or is there something to this? It's hard to know, but I am seeing Sunforger all over, including in two very significant places, decks that run Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest and Alesha, Who Smiles at Death.

Shu Yun seems significant because the deck hinges on running enough instants to trigger his double strike ability often enough to kill your opponent and therefore your deck will likely contain enough instants to make Sunforger worth it. +4/+0 on a double striker in a 25-life format is formidable, and being able to tutor a wide array of answers from countermagic like Double Negative or Counterflux to answers like Swords to Plowshares wins games. Shu Yun was made for a "wish board" in the maindeck like this and Shu Yun brewers are all mad about hammer time.

Alesha, meanwhile, is the first eligible Mardu-colored Tiny Leader commander ever (there was a placeholder called "Dega" before) and early Tiny Leaders adherents and newcomers alike are excitedly brewing. Sunforger showed up in a ton of those lists as well.

Clearly the non-foil price is taking its time and the foil was bought quickly rather than one copy at a time as would indicate sustained demand. Still, the card is being touted and with a rash of newcomers just starting to talk about this format, it's possible we'll see stock levels of the card decrease.

EDH, where the card is good but not ubiquitous, made the card go from $1 to $1.15 in a year's time. The new white Commander 2014 decks that are all about equipment and beg people to build decks around generals like Jor Kadeen, the Prevailer hasn't moved the needle much, either. Could we see Tiny Leaders bump the non-foil and keep the foil price where it is?

If my eagerness to tie the fate of Sunforger to the fate of Tiny Leaders in general was erroneous, it was the result of doing a lot of research. If so many people are talking about a card, can they all be wrong?

Yes, actually. Tiny Leaders could have a very minimal financial impact if it only appeals to spikey players who just want to play spikey combo decks with cards they already have. Tiny Leaders could have very low adoption and not be significant enough to move the needle on prices (this seems unlikely based on what we've seen in the past month). Sunforger could just be awful in Tiny Leaders (my research could have led me astray and we could ascribe the 'Eat shit, 6 trillion flies can't all be wrong' maxim to the situation).

What is clear is that the format is not well understood, by basically anyone who's writing articles. The only way I can see whether this is EDH lite or Legacy Lite (think Sygg, River Cutthroat and Zur the Enchanter combo decks that win on turn three with a 30-point Brain Freeze) is by playing a bunch. Luckily, people around me are building and a I found a Japanese foil Daxos of Meletis on eBay for $5. Let's see what we find.